Rice Canyon Creek

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Rice Canyon Creek is a tributary creek or arroyo of Temescal Creek in Riverside County, California. Rice Canyon Creek has its source at the head of Rice Canyon at an elevation of 3440 feet in the Santa Ana Mountains at 33°41′54″N117°24′11″W / 33.69833°N 117.40306°W / 33.69833; -117.40306 east of the 4313 foot peak on the north south divide of the range. It is a wash that runs down from the canyon mouth 33°41′07″N117°27′08″W / 33.68528°N 117.45222°W / 33.68528; -117.45222 at 1631 feet to its mouth at its confluence with Temescal Creek near Alberhill, California at an elevation of 1220 feet. [1] Rice Canyon Creek has a tributary, Bishop Canyon Creek which enters the wash on the left a little below the mouth of Rice Canyon at 33°42′05″N117°24′07″W / 33.70139°N 117.40194°W / 33.70139; -117.40194 . [2]

Stream A body of surface water flowing down a channel

A stream is a body of water with surface water flowing within the bed and banks of a channel. The stream encompasses surface and groundwater fluxes that respond to geological, geomorphological, hydrological and biotic controls.

Arroyo (creek) A dry creek or stream bed with flow after rain

An arroyo, also called a wash, is a dry creek, stream bed or gulch that temporarily or seasonally fills and flows after sufficient rain. Flash floods are common in arroyos following thunderstorms.

Temescal Creek (Riverside County) Watercourse in Riverside County, California, United States

Temescal Creek is an approximately 29-mile-long (47 km) watercourse in Riverside County, in the U.S. state of California. Flowing primarily in a northwestern direction, it connects Lake Elsinore with the Santa Ana River. It drains the eastern slopes of the Santa Ana Mountains on its left and on its right the western slopes of the Temescal Mountains along its length. With a drainage basin of about 1,000 square miles (2,600 km2), it is the largest tributary of the Santa Ana River, hydrologically connecting the 720-square-mile (1,900 km2) San Jacinto River and Lake Elsinore watersheds to the rest of the Santa Ana watershed. However, flowing through an arid rain shadow zone of the Santa Ana Mountains, and with diversion of ground water for human use, the creek today is ephemeral for most of its length, except for runoff from housing developments and agricultural return flows.

Contents

Rice Canyon Creek flows in the rainy season in its upper reach but is an ephemeral arroyo in its lower reach below the narrows 0.80 miles above the canyon mouth, and flows on the surface below the narrows only after more heavy rain events, and is dry the rest of the year. Rice Canyon's creek flows during the rainy season below its narrows to its mouth but its surface flow dries up below the narrows about 0.8 miles above its mouth in the canyon during the dry season, and above that in years with severe drought conditions. However some waterholes remain even in the dry years in the upper reach. Much of the wash in modern times has been interrupted by clay mining operations that stops the surface flows of water from Rice Canyon Creek from reaching Temescal Creek.

Flora

Rice Canyon is characterized by oak woodland along the course of the stream and on the lower south slopes of the canyon, and by chaparral on the north slopes of the canyon to the narrows. Sycamore and cottonwood appear along the creek in places where water remains through the year, mostly underground in the dry season. Just above the narrows and just below it are found cottonwoods and in the wash below the narrows both oak and sycamore amidst coastal sage scrub. The canyon slopes are characterized by chaparral on the south and chaparral and coastal sage scrub on the north to its mouth.

California oak woodland

California oak woodland is a plant community found throughout the California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion of California in the United States and northwestern Baja California in Mexico. Oak woodland is widespread at lower elevations in coastal California; in interior valleys of the Coast Ranges, Transverse Ranges and Peninsular Ranges; and in a ring around the California Central Valley grasslands. The dominant trees are oaks, interspersed with other broadleaf and coniferous trees, with an understory of grasses, herbs, geophytes, and California native plants.

Chaparral shrubland or heathland plant community found primarily in the US state of California and in the northern portion of the Baja California Peninsula, Mexico.

Chaparral is a shrubland or heathland plant community found primarily in the US state of California and in the northern portion of the Baja California Peninsula, Mexico. It is shaped by a Mediterranean climate and wildfire, featuring summer-drought-tolerant plants with hard sclerophyllous evergreen leaves, as contrasted with the associated soft-leaved, drought-deciduous, scrub community of coastal sage scrub, found below the chaparral biome. Chaparral covers 5% of the state of California and associated Mediterranean shrubland an additional 3.5%. The name comes from the Spanish word chaparro, for evergreen oak shrubland.

<i>Platanus racemosa</i> species of plant

Platanus racemosa is a species of plane tree known by several common names, including California sycamore, western sycamore, California plane tree, and in North American Spanish aliso. Platanus racemosa is native to California and Baja California, where it grows in riparian areas, canyons, floodplains, at springs and seeps, and along streams and rivers in several types of habitats. It has been found as far north as Tehama and Humboldt counties.

Rice Canyon Creek is home to many Humboldt Lily plants that bloom near the creek in late June to early July at and above the narrows 3/4 of a mile above the mouth of the canyon. Papilio rutulus, Western Tiger Swallowtail, also found in the canyon are to be seen pollinating them.

<i>Lilium humboldtii</i> species of plant

Lilium humboldtii is a species of lily native to the US state of California and the Mexican state of Baja California. It is named after naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt. It is native to the South High Cascade Range, High Sierra Nevada, south Outer South Coast Ranges, and the Santa Monica Mountains and others in Southern California, growing at elevations from 600 metres (2,000 ft) to 1,200 metres (3,900 ft).

<i>Papilio rutulus</i> species of insect

Papilio rutulus, the western tiger swallowtail, is a common swallowtail butterfly of western North America, frequently seen in urban parks and gardens, as well as in rural woodlands and riparian areas. It is a member of the genus Papilio, of which Papilio appalachiensis and Papilio xuthus are also members. It is a large, brightly colored and active butterfly, rarely seen at rest; its wingspan is 7 to 10 cm, and its wings are yellow with black stripes, and it has blue and orange spots near its tail. It has the "tails" on the hindwings that are often found in swallowtails.

Fauna

Wildlife species found in the canyon, include: Mountain lion, mule deer, bobcat, coyote, raccoon, gray fox, spotted skunk, wood rat, raven, red tailed hawk, canyon wren, speckled rattlesnake, Pacific rattlesnake, rosy boa.

Mule deer species of deer

The mule deer is a deer indigenous to western North America; it is named for its ears, which are large like those of the mule. The several subspecies include the black-tailed deer.

Bobcat Small wild cat

The bobcat is a North American cat that appeared during the Irvingtonian stage of around 1.8 million years ago (AEO). Containing 2 recognized subspecies, it ranges from southern Canada to central Mexico, including most of the contiguous United States. The bobcat is an adaptable predator that inhabits wooded areas, as well as semidesert, urban edge, forest edge, and swampland environments. It remains in some of its original range, but populations are vulnerable to local extinction ("extirpation") by coyotes and domestic animals. With a gray to brown coat, whiskered face, and black-tufted ears, the bobcat resembles the other species of the midsized genus Lynx. It is smaller on average than the Canada lynx, with which it shares parts of its range, but is about twice as large as the domestic cat. It has distinctive black bars on its forelegs and a black-tipped, stubby tail, from which it derives its name.

Coyote species of mammal

The coyote, Canis latrans, is a canine native to North America. It is smaller than its close relative, the gray wolf, and slightly smaller than the closely related eastern wolf and red wolf. It fills much of the same ecological niche as the golden jackal does in Eurasia, though it is larger and more predatory, and is sometimes called the American jackal by zoologists.

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Rancho Temescal was a Mexican land grant in present-day Temescal Valley in Riverside County, California, granted by Governor José María de Echeandía in 1828 to Leandro Serrano.

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Devil Canyon Creek river in the United States of America

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Alberhill Canyon, is an informally named valley and arroyo in the Temescal Mountains of Riverside County, California. It is named for the former mining settlement and populated place of Alberhill that lay opposite the mouth of the arroyo at its confluence with Temescal Creek.

Walker Canyon is a canyon in the Temescal Mountains, in Riverside County, California. It lies divides Alberhill Summit, on the west and the balance of the range to its east. Temescal Creek flows northward through the canyon from where it heads at 33°42′33″N117°21′43″W in Warm Springs Valley into the upper reach of the Temescal Valley near Alberhill, California. Coming from the Temescal Mountains to the east, Gavilan Wash has its confluence with Walker Canyon near mid way along its length, and Alberhill Canyon has its confluence with Walker Canyon at its mouth.

Mason Valley is a valley in San Diego County, California. Mason Valley was named after a settler, James E. Mason who established a ranch in the valley in the later 19th century. The mouth of the valley is at an elevation of 1,995 feet / 608 meters, at the point where the valley narrows into a canyon where the Vallecito Wash continues as Vallecito Creek and passes between the Sawtooth Range and the Vallecito Mountains. The head of Mason Valley is at an elevation of 2550 feet at 33°01′05″N116°28′53″W at the junction of Oriflamme Canyon and Rodriguez Canyon where Vallecito Wash has its source.

Bull Canyon is a canyon at the top of Palm Canyon Wash, which is a tributary to the Whitewater River, in Riverside County, California. Bull Canyon and the creek of Palm Canyon Wash heads at 33°36′47″N116°33′23″W, at an elevation of 6,165 feet in the southern western slope of a ridge in the San Jacinto Mountains. The waters of the creek of Palm Canyon Wash are augmented by Bull Canyon Spring at 33°35′22″N116°33′24″W, at an elevation of 5,331 feet / 1,625 meters. The mouth of Bull Canyon is at an elevation of 4,508 feet / 1,374 meters at the head of head of Palm Canyon. The mouth of an unnamed creek flows north down from Vandeventer Flat into the head of Palm Canyon at its confluence with Palm Canyon Wash at 33°34′08″N116°31′43″W at an elevation of 4,460 feet.

References

  1. ↑ U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Rice Canyon
  2. ↑ U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Bishop Canyon

Coordinates: 33°43′40″N117°23′35″W / 33.72778°N 117.39306°W / 33.72778; -117.39306

Geographic coordinate system Coordinate system

A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are often chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position and two or three of the numbers represent a horizontal position; alternatively, a geographic position may be expressed in a combined three-dimensional Cartesian vector. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation. To specify a location on a plane requires a map projection.

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