San Anselmo Creek | |
---|---|
Location | |
Country | United States |
State | California |
Region | Marin County |
Cities | Ross, San Anselmo, Fairfax |
Physical characteristics | |
Source | Eastern flank of Pine Mountain, Marin Hills |
• coordinates | 37°58′56″N122°38′33″W / 37.98222°N 122.64250°W |
• elevation | 1,200 ft (370 m) [1] |
Mouth | Corte Madera Creek (Marin County, California) |
• location | Ross, California |
• coordinates | 37°57′58″N122°33′31″W / 37.96611°N 122.55861°W [1] |
• elevation | 36 ft (11 m) [1] |
Basin features | |
Tributaries | |
• left | Cascade Creek, Fairfax Creek, Sleepy Hollow Creek |
• right | Carey Camp Creek, Deer Park Creek |
San Anselmo Creek is an eastward-flowing stream that begins on the eastern flank of Pine Mountain in the Marin Hills of Marin County, California. At its confluence with Ross Creek, it becomes Corte Madera Creek.
Its name came from the Punta de Quintin land grant, which marked the valley as the Canada del Anselmo, or Valley of Anselm, Anselm being the name of a native American who was baptized and later buried in the area. [2] The Canada de Herrera, a 6,658-acre rancho that includes the areas that are now Fairfax, Sleepy Hollow, and part of San Anselmo, was granted to Domingo Sais in 1839. His family used the land for crops, sheep, horses, and cattle and fished San Anselmo Creek for salmon. [3]
San Anselmo Creek, along with its Sleepy Hollow and Cascade creeks tributaries, is the principal steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) contributor of the Corte Madera Creek watershed. [4] Although short on water by late summer, Cascade Creek is considered to have the best trout habitat in the watershed. [5] Rich electrofished five species of fish in San Anselmo Creek in 1999 of which rainbow/steelhead trout were the most abundant, followed by threespine stickleback, California roach, sculpin species, and Sacramento sucker. [6]
Historically, Corte Madera Creek watershed supported coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) with observations recorded from 1926 to 1927, the 1960s, 1981, and the last sighting in 1984. [7] While salmon were reported across the whole Corte Madera Creek watershed, Fry specifically observed coho in San Anselmo Creek in 1936. [8] A spawning pair of Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) was observed by Michael Cronin just below Saunders Avenue in San Anselmo in 2003. [6]
River otter (Lontra canadensis) were photographed on the creek in 2007 despite not being listed as native to Marin County in Grinnell's 1937 Fur-bearing Mammals of California. [9]
Tributaries of San Anselmo Creek (from source to Corte Madera Creek) are Cascade Creek, Carey Camp Creek, Deer Park Creek, Fairfax Creek, Sleepy Hollow Creek and Ross Creek. [1] In summer 2012 a partial fish passage barrier, the culvert beneath Center Boulevard in San Anselmo, is being modified with a fish ladder and concrete baffles, the latter to create resting places for migrating salmonids as they try to transit the high-velocity flows created by the concrete culvert. [10]
The Napa River is a river approximately 55 miles (89 km) long in the U.S. state of California. It drains a famous wine-growing region called the Napa Valley, in the mountains north of the San Francisco Bay. Milliken Creek and Mt. Veeder watersheds are a few of its many tributaries. The river mouth is at Vallejo, where the intertidal zone of fresh and salt waters flow into the Carquinez Strait and the San Pablo Bay.
Coyote Creek is a river that flows through the Santa Clara Valley in Northern California. Its source is on Mount Sizer, in the mountains east of Morgan Hill. It eventually flows into Anderson Lake in Morgan Hill and then northwards through Coyote Valley to San Jose, where it empties into San Francisco Bay.
Lagunitas Creek is a 24 miles (39 km)-long northward-flowing stream in Marin County, California. It is critically important to the largest spawning runs of endangered coho salmon in the Central California Coast Coho salmon Evolutionary Significant Unit.
Alameda Creek is a large perennial stream in the San Francisco Bay Area. The creek runs for 45 miles (72 km) from a lake northeast of Packard Ridge to the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay by way of Niles Canyon and a flood control channel. Along its course, Alameda Creek provides wildlife habitat, water supply, a conduit for flood waters, opportunities for recreation, and a host of aesthetic and environmental values. The creek and three major reservoirs in the watershed are used as water supply by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, Alameda County Water District and Zone 7 Water Agency. Within the watershed can be found some of the highest peaks and tallest waterfall in the East Bay, over a dozen regional parks, and notable natural landmarks such as the cascades at Little Yosemite and the wildflower-strewn grasslands and oak savannahs of the Sunol Regional Wilderness. After an absence of half a century, ocean-run steelhead trout are able to return to Alameda Creek to mingle with remnant rainbow trout populations. Completion of a series of dam removal and fish passage projects, along with improved stream flows for cold-water fish and planned habitat restoration, enable steelhead trout and Chinook salmon to access up to 20 miles (32 km) of spawning and rearing habitat in Alameda Creek and its tributaries. The first juvenile trout migrating downstream from the upper watershed through lower Alameda Creek toward San Francisco Bay was detected and documented in April 2023.
San Francisquito Creek is a creek that flows into southwest San Francisco Bay in California, United States. Historically it was called the Arroyo de San Francisco by Juan Bautista de Anza in 1776. San Francisquito Creek courses through the towns of Portola Valley and Woodside, as well as the cities of Menlo Park, Palo Alto, and East Palo Alto. The creek and its Los Trancos Creek tributary define the boundary between San Mateo and Santa Clara counties.
Redwood Creek is a mostly perennial stream in Marin County, California. 4.7 miles (7.6 km) long, it drains a 7-square-mile (18 km2) watershed which includes the Muir Woods National Monument, and reaches the Pacific Ocean north of the Golden Gate at Muir Beach.
San Leandro Creek is a 21.7-mile-long (34.9 km) year-round natural stream in the hills above Oakland in Alameda County and Contra Costa County of the East Bay in northern California.
Arroyo Corte Madera del Presidio is a 4.1-mile-long (6.6 km) year-round stream in southern Marin County, California, United States. This watercourse is also known as Corte Madera Creek, although the actual stream of that name flows into San Francisco Bay further north at Point San Quentin. This watercourse has a catchment basin of about 8 square miles (21 km2) and drains the south-eastern slopes of Mount Tamalpais and much of the area in and around the town of Mill Valley; this stream discharges to Richardson Bay.
San Gregorio Creek is a river in San Mateo County, California. Its tributaries originate on the western ridges of the Santa Cruz Mountains whence it courses southwest through steep forested canyons. The San Gregorio Creek mainstem begins at the confluence of Alpine and La Honda Creeks, whence it flows 12 miles (19 km) through rolling grasslands and pasturelands until it meets the Pacific Ocean at San Gregorio State Beach. It traverses the small unincorporated communities of La Honda, San Gregorio, Redwood Terrace and Sky Londa.
La Honda Creek is a 7 miles (11 km) long stream on the Pacific slope of the Santa Cruz Mountains and is a tributary of San Gregorio Creek. From its source near Bear Gulch Road and Skyline Boulevard (CA 35) in San Mateo County, California, La Honda Creek's water flow south to its confluence with Alpine Creek to form San Gregorio Creek in La Honda, and thence to the Pacific Ocean.
Searsville Dam is a masonry dam in San Mateo County, California that was completed in 1892, one year after the founding of Stanford University, and impounds Corte Madera Creek to form a reservoir known as Searsville Reservoir or Searsville Lake. Searsville Dam is located in the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve and is owned and operated by Stanford University. Neighboring cities include Woodside and Portola Valley, California.
Corte Madera Creek is a short stream which flows southeast for 4.5 miles (7.2 km) in Marin County, California. Corte Madera Creek is formed by the confluence of San Anselmo Creek and Ross Creek in Ross and entering a tidal marsh at Kentfield before connecting to San Francisco Bay near Corte Madera.
Corte Madera Creek is a 7.3-mile-long (11.7 km) creek that flows north-northwest to Searsville Dam and then joins with Bear Creek to form San Francisquito Creek in California.
Bear Creek, or Bear Gulch Creek, is a 6.6-mile-long (10.6 km) southeastward-flowing stream originating north of the summit of Sierra Morena in the Santa Cruz Mountains, near the community of Kings Mountain in San Mateo County, California, United States. It flows through the town of Woodside. Bear Creek and Corte Madera Creek join to become San Francisquito Creek in the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve at Stanford University.
Cascade Creek is a stream that flows south then southeast from its source on White Hill to its confluence with San Anselmo Creek just west of Fairfax in Marin County, California.
Larkspur Creek is a short stream which flows 3.5 miles east to meet Corte Madera Creek in Larkspur, California just before reaching Richardson's Bay. The creek was named for the town of Larkspur, which was named by Georgiana Wright, a Briton and spouse of the 1887 developer of the area. She named the town of Larkspur for lupine flowers on the hills that she mistook for larkspur.
Scott Creek, also called Scotts Creek, is a 12.2-mile-long (19.6 km) stream and surfspot in Santa Cruz County, California. It is a few miles north of Davenport and a few miles south of Waddell Creek.
San Felipe Creek is a 14 miles (23 km) stream that originates in the western Diablo Range in Santa Clara County, California. It flows south by southeast through two historic ranchos, Rancho Los Huecos and Rancho Cañada de San Felipe y Las Animas before it joins Las Animas Creek just above Anderson Reservoir. One of the nine major tributaries of Coyote Creek, the creek's waters pass through the Santa Clara Valley and San Jose on the way to San Francisco Bay.
Chileno Creek is a stream in western Marin County, California, United States. It originates west of Petaluma, California at 220-acre Laguna Lake which straddles Marin and Sonoma Counties, from which it flows west 6.25 kilometres (3.88 mi) before joining Walker Creek, a tributary of Tomales Bay.
Old Mill Creek is a 2.3-mile-long (3.7 km) year-round stream in southern Marin County, California, United States. Old Mill Creek is a tributary to Arroyo Corte Madera del Presidio, which, in turn, flows to Richardson Bay at Mill Valley's municipal Bayfront Park and 106 acres (0.43 km2) Bothin Marsh.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)