Deer Creek Hills Preserve

Step back in time and join us for the Deer Creek Gold Rush. Lead docent David Scharlach will guide us on a hike 3-miles long and a century and a half back in time as he retells the story of the search for gold at Deer Creek. In 1849, it is said that a gold nugget the size of your fist was found nearby on the Cosumnes River at Cooks Bar. By 1850, the town that sprang up there boasted…

Buddy up with your horse and take a docent-led equestrian adventure, traveling over the rolling hills, and maneuvering past outcrops of rocks along the trail’s edge. Take in the seemingly endless grassland and tree-studded horizons of this pristine protected landscape. BYO horse and gear, including a muck bucket and water for your horse after the ride. Groups travel at a walk and are usually from 8-10 in size. Horses and riders should be accustomed to riding in groups and in…

What grows at Deer Creek Hills Preserve? This month's docent-guided natural history hike (second Saturday of every month, Feb-May) will be a 2-3 mile Mushroom Meander. Join our docents who will share what they have discovered in the way of macrofungi this past week. This will be a slow moving stroll through the blue, live and valley oaks on the property. A short informational handout will be provided. A camera and hand lens will be helpful in this exploration. As…

Current SVC equestrian docents will gather at Deer Creek Hills to review emergency response protocols, practice hands-on emergency scenarios and gain valuable information on how to ensure group safety during an emergency. There will be a 30 minute review of protocols and orientation to docent resource binder followed by a short hike to the training location near the Oxbow pond. Snacks and drinks will be provided at the corral. Docent and nurse Sue Fossum will be leading the human safety scenarios and Docent and Veterinarian…

Docents welcome all ages of new and experienced birders alike, who are ready to tackle this 3-4 mile off-trail walk through open grasslands that overlie the Gopher Ridge (metavolcanic) Formation. Open grassland habitat in the Sacramento area continues to disappear making this local resource ever more important. These are hunting grounds for winter resident raptors such as Ferruginous and Rough-legged Hawks and year-round residents such as Red-tailed Hawks and burrowing Owls. Falcons are represented by the year-round American Kestrel and…

Buddy up with your horse and take a docent-led equestrian adventure, traveling over the rolling hills, and maneuvering past outcrops of rocks along the trail’s edge. Take in the seemingly endless grassland and tree-studded horizons of this pristine protected landscape. BYO horse and gear, including a muck bucket and water for your horse after the ride. Groups travel at a walk and are usually from 8-10 in size. Horses and riders should be accustomed to riding in groups and in…

"We often forget that WE ARE NATURE. Nature is not something separate from us. So when we say that we have lost our connection to Nature, we’ve lost our connection to ourselves..." ~Andy Goldsworthy, Artist Please join SVC Docents on a guided, gentle "mindfulness" hike among the Blue Oak Woodland. We will explore Nature while doing some gentle stretching and yoga (no previous yoga experience required), breathing, Nature observation/discussion, and mindfulness exercises. The walk will be about 1-2 casual miles…

Real life Solomon Miser will take you from his homestead into the hills of Deer Creek to reminisce about coming to California before the gold rush, the wagon train he led West and his neighbors and early settlers like Jared Sheldon, Bill Daylor and William Hartnell. Join Deer Creek Hills historian David Scharlach as he tells of the amazing first owners of Deer Creek Hills including a cowboy Casanova, a drunken scoundrel and murderer, the intrepid teenage daughter (and survivor)…

Buddy up with your horse and take a docent-led equestrian adventure, traveling over the rolling hills, and maneuvering past outcrops of rocks along the trail’s edge. Take in the seemingly endless grassland and tree-studded horizons of this pristine protected landscape. BYO horse and gear, including a muck bucket and water for your horse after the ride. Groups travel at a walk and are usually from 8-10 in size. Horses and riders should be accustomed to riding in groups and in…

How A Blue Oak Woodland Grows in Drought. The increasingly drier and hotter climate in the Sacramento Valley is rapidly changing the Deer Creek landscape. Blue oaks have evolved over millennia to respond to drought in some unique ways. Learn about the survival strategies of California’s blue oaks which grow nowhere else. We will wander under the trees to examine the microcosm of life they support and the mechanisms they use to stay alive under changing climate conditions. Wildflowers have…

Join experienced docents for a venture to the southern part of Deer Creek Hills, Sacramento’s largest open space preserve. The lovely South Pond is home to Wilson’s Snipe, Sora and vocal (and many times visible) Virginia Rail. Up to 31 Snipe have been observed at one time sunning themselves along the pond’s edge. Loggerhead Shrike are occasional visitors here as well. We will make a nice transect through the old growth blue oak woodland looking for winter and year-round resident…

Buddy up with your horse and take a docent-led equestrian adventure, traveling over the rolling hills, and maneuvering past outcrops of rocks along the trail’s edge. Take in the seemingly endless grassland and tree-studded horizons of this pristine protected landscape. BYO horse and gear, including a muck bucket and water for your horse after the ride. Groups travel at a walk and are usually from 8-10 in size. Horses and riders should be accustomed to riding in groups and in…

"We often forget that WE ARE NATURE. Nature is not something separate from us. So when we say that we have lost our connection to Nature, we’ve lost our connection to ourselves..." ~Andy Goldsworthy, Artist Please join SVC Docents on a guided, gentle "mindfulness" hike among the Blue Oak Woodland. We will explore Nature while doing some gentle stretching and yoga (no previous yoga experience required), breathing, Nature observation/discussion, and mindfulness exercises. The walk will be about 1-2 casual miles…