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The Battle Creek watershed is dominated by Blue Oak Woodlands in upland areas at intermediate elevations. Mount Lassen is at left and Eastside Pine and Sierran Mixed Conifer forests are visible as darker green as elevation rises in the Battle Creek watershed. Photo provided by the California Department of Fish and Game.


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This photo taken looking south from the Shingletown-Manton Road shows Blue Oak Woodlands in the foreground and grasslands on the Battle Creek valley floor are utilized largely for grazing. Photo by Pat Higgins.


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Digger pine and chaparral are mixed in with oaks in some mid-elevation locations. Photo by Pat Higgins.


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At higher elevations, increased snowfall helps conifers get established. These large pines arch over the road to Manton just down from Shingletown and represent a transition between oak woodlands and Eastside Pine forests. Photo by Pat Higgins.


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A mixture of grassland and oak woodland near Manton in late summer 1998. Native Americans may have burned areas such as this to maintain browse for deer and elk and to stimulate growth of plants used for basket making materials. Photo by Pat Higgins.


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Mount Lassen looms large over Manzanita Lake. The is typical, undisturbed Sierran Mixed Conifer forest at an elevation of just under 5000 feet, but the ecosystem changes on the shoulders of the mountain where trees give way to Mountain Chaparral and then bare bedrock and snow fields above the timberline (8000'). Photo by Pat Higgins.


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The rolling plateau in lower Digger Creek shown here is at a transitional elevation where chaparral and oaks coexist with conifers. Photo by Pat Higgins.


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This photo is taken looking down towards Manton in Blue Oak woodlands. The area near the center of the photo has been cleared for a vineyard. Photo by Pat Higgins.