Oakland Geology

Lion Creek was once an Oakland landmark, named for the mountain lions and their habitat high in its catchment. Today it sneaks its way, mostly underground in culverts, to the bay. Didn’t use to be like that. Nowadays, the only place the creek is cherished and well cared for is on the Mills College campus. Here’s a brief tour from top to bottom.

At the top (west) end of the campus, Lion Creek feeds Lake Aliso, as I mentioned a few posts back. I was astonished on my last visit to find that the lake has been drained! This is the view from the dam. It’s a temporary calamity for the lake, but now the creek is visible.

I’ve been trying to reach someone at Mills to tell me the story without success. Maybe one of you knows. In this close-up, you can see that the water is yellow, I assume from the rehabilitation work going on upstream at the former sulfur mine.

And maybe the lake is drained just to let that crap wash out to sea.

The creek is, to my mind, the aorta of the campus, the way Strawberry Creek is at UC Berkeley. The old oaks and bay trees are still in place as the creek meanders graciously west.

Just before the old west entrance, the creek is culverted, curving left past a small lobe of the Fan on its way out.

And that’s it for Lion Creek, except for a little exposure along 64th Avenue by Bond Street, until it hits the old Coliseum Gardens property in its remade bed.

This entry was posted on 29 January 2015 at 3:24 pm and is filed under Oakland streams and water, the Fan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.