Where: Five field trips within 3 units of the Pine Hill Preserve, western El Dorado County

What to see: These tours will bring you up close and personal with not only the 8+ rare plant species that the Preserve was established to protect with habitat conservation, but you’ll also see the diverse habitats of the Preserve, from grassland to (two types of!) chaparral, to oak woodlands, and many, many other plant species. The Pine Hill Preserve is found within the El Dorado County gabbroic intrusive geological complex, where there are plant species that are found nowhere else on earth. However, within the area of this gabbroic complex, there are 740+ species of plants, making this a biodiversity hotspot within the biodiversity hotspot that is California as a whole. Depending on which tour you join, you will see many of these plant species as well as animals – several of our tours focus on these: birds at Kanaka Valley and Pine Hill, and pollinators at Pine Hill. See the tours list below.

Difficulty: This varies with each site. The Kanaka Valley tours include walking both flat ground and climbing up and back down a hill on a rocky trail, with a total of about 3 miles covered. The Cameron Park Unit tour covers less ground (about 2 miles total), but the trails are rocky and there is some climbing involved. The Pine Hill tours involve climbing from the base of the hill, with about 400 feet in elevation gained on a walk of about one mile to the top, on a road that is paved most of the way up and then graveled. There are no restroom facilities at any of these sites.

When: With the exception of the April 12th bird tour, the following tours will begin at 9:00 AM and conclude by 2:00 PM. The April 12th bird tour will begin at 7:00 AM and concludes at noon. CNPS: field trip leaders, PHP: Pine Hill Preserve staff.

• Sunday, April 12, Kanaka Valley Bird Hike – Chris Conard/CNPS
• Sunday, April 26 – Kanaka Valley Bird Hike – CNPS/PHP
• Saturday, May 9 – Pine Hill Plants and Birds – CNPS
• Saturday, May 16 – Cameron Park Plants – CNPS
• Saturday, June 6 – Pine Hill Plants, Pollinators and Birds – CNPS/PHP

Where: Tour locations are indicated above. Field trip participants will meet at designated areas and, for the Pine Hill tours, will carpool to the site; participants will be notified of where to meet with a confirmation email sent upon sign-up for each tour.