#santa-cruz-mountains-ava

#santa-cruz-mountains-ava

The fire was reported in the 15900 block of Gilman Springs Road in Riverside County, just before 11 a.m. Gusty Santa Ana winds were forecast for much of Southern California on Friday.

"They didn't even try to fly away. They just feebly made noise," a woman told the Santa Barbara Independent on Saturday after spotting over two dozen dead or dying cormorants near Goleta Beach. "A few were on their stomachs, wings spread [and] gasping for breath.... Heartbreaking."

The Springs fire in Riverside county has grown to 3,500 acres, prompting local authorities to issue several evacuation orders. The fire is concentrated in an area mostly north and east of Lake Perris, burning portions of the surrounding state recreation area.

San Sebastián, the capital of La Gomera, served as Christopher Columbus's provisioning point in 1492, with historical sites like the Columbus House Museum and Torre del Conde nearby.

Abiqua Falls is a stunning 92-foot waterfall that tumbles over a wall of columnar basalt into a wide pool, perfect for swimming. The surrounding area features a pebbled beach that provides breathtaking views of the falls and lush greenery.

Emily Taylor noted that her phone was 'ringing off the hook' with calls about rattlesnake sightings, indicating a dramatic increase in encounters this year compared to previous years.

Get up early to drive into the hills and park in the main lot, which opens 30 minutes before sunrise. This will leave you with enough time to make your way to the peak through the wildflower-scattered trails and watch the sunrise over the Bay.

"This is truly one of the most iconic landscapes in America," said Chance Wilcox, California desert program manager for the National Parks Conservation Assn., as he stood atop a rocky slope within the project footprint.

For 2025, there was good news and bad news: overall, these areas were visited 323 million times over the course of the year. That's the good news; the bad news is that this figure was down ever so slightly - specifically, 2.7% - from a record-setting 2024.

Named after the legendary Big Sur female pioneer and rancher, Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park stands out even among the rest of the region's attractions. The park features stands of centuries-old redwood trees and provides a haven for a variety of California wildlife, though it's best known for the 80-foot-high McWay Falls, an impressive cascade that drops directly from a sheer cliff to the sandy beach below.

The new trees number in the thousands - at least 4,000 per acre or as many as 20,000, depending on who is counting. A few rise above head-height, the most energetic sentinels of regeneration. What will become of this nursery in the wild in the next hundred years, or thousand, is the crux of a scientific and policy dispute.

If that sounds like a dry lab statistic, here's the part you'll actually remember: Lyme is one of those infections that can make you feel like you got hit by a truck. Feverish. Wiped out. Achy. Foggy. And it can start as the kind of "I'm just run down" stretch that people blow off for a week or two - especially when it's winter and everyone's tired anyway.

Global travel booking website Skyscanner has named its top five destinations for solo travel this winter, and a Northern California favorite the Sonoma Coast made the list. The Sonoma Coast invites a different kind of stillness, the guide notes, praising the rugged shoreline as an antidote to crowded itineraries and overplanned escapes. The roundup also includes Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas, Tangier Island in Virginia, Olympic National Park in Washington and Red River Gorge in Kentucky.