Pre-Conference Tours

Two sequential Pre-Conference Tours are being offered to allow for a range of schedules and budgets. Tours are only open to conference registrants and a partner or spouse. Please see the Conference event page for registration details. Both tours will depart from the Hyatt Place hotel on the UC Davis campus. Questions about the Post-Conference Tours should be directed to Abbey Hart at aghart@ucdavis.edu.

Sierra Nevada Tour

Yosemite National Park

Schedule: 8 am, Monday, October 15 through 8 am, Friday, October 19

Tour Fee: $1170 (single occupancy), $790 (double occupancy). Fee includes lodging for four nights, breakfast and lunch for four days, and transportation by motor coach. Please note that dinners are on your own.

Tour Description: Join us for a four-day tour exploring some of California’s great wild landscapes and oak habitats. Our journey will start in California's Central Valley with a visit to see fine examples of valley oak (Quercus lobata) in the riparian forest and then climb above the valley floor into the blue oak (Q. douglasii) savanna. Climbing higher, we’ll catch the Q. chrysolepis and Notholithocarpus of the mixed-evergreen woodland in the rolling Sierra Nevada foothills. We will explore the world famous Yosemite Valley and Tioga Pass with its iconic vistas and species including Q. kelloggii, Q. vacciniifolia, Q. wislizeni, and of course the great Sequoiadendron giganteum. Next, we will journey beyond Yosemite to the Eastern Sierras and the White Mountains. There, we will see beautiful examples of wildland Q. kellogii, Q. ×morehus, and Chrysolepis sempervirens as well as impressive specimens of cultivated Q. agrifolia. We will explore the full range of highland conifer species including Pinus jeffreyi, Juniperus occidentalis, and Abies concolor, and hopefully catch the stunning fall color of Betulus and Populus. Finally, we will climb into the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, habitat of the oldest known living non-clonal organisms, Pinus longaeva. Returning to Davis, this tour will have traversed some of the most iconic landscapes and plant communities of California.

Itinerary Notes: This tour starts and ends at the Hyatt Place hotel in Davis.

Tour Leaders: Stewart Winchester, Abbey Hart (see bios below)

Cascade-Siskiyou Tour

Mount Shasta

Schedule: 8 am, Friday, October 19 through 8 pm, Saturday, October 20

Tour Fee: $250 (single occupancy), $180 (double occupancy). Fee includes lodging for 1 night, lunch on Friday, breakfast and lunch on Saturday, and transportation by large passenger van. Please note that dinners are on your own.

Tour Description: This two-day journey to Northern California will take us to some of the most biodiverse ecosystems and beautiful vistas of the American west. Heading north from Davis, we will visit a classic example of valley oak (Quercus lobata) woodlands and blue oak (Q. douglasii) savanna at the northern end of the Sacramento Valley. We hope to catch California's montane fall colors on the slopes of the magnificent Mt. Shasta. We will ascend into the subalpine forest of Abies magnifica, Chrysolepis sempervirens, and Q. vacciniifolia. We will visit a natural spring at the headwaters of the Sacramento River. After spending the night in Yreka, we will head northwest to see Q. garryana var. breweri in fall color and the unique Q. sadleriana. Our final botanical destination will be Cook and Green Pass in the Klamath-Siskiyou region, which has a phenomenal concentration of native species. The trip will conclude with an evening drive back to Davis.

Itinerary Notes: This tour starts and ends at the Hyatt Place hotel in Davis.

Tour Leaders: Stewart Winchester, Abbey Hart

Our leader Stew Winchester has decades of experience leading tours studying California’s unique plant communities. He has been teaching field identification in Environmental Horticulture for 40+ years, currently at Merritt College in Oakland. He has been a landscape design consultant for two decades, specializing in Arboriculture, as well as a Wholesale Grower/Nursery consultant. He has been leading tours of the Western North American native habitats and species since 1982. A recent California transplant from New Orleans, Abbey Hart is the Nursery Special Projects Manager at the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden.

Accessibility Note: These tours will encounter rugged, off-trail terrain.