Join naturalist Will Bowen for a once a year opportunity to visit local vernal pools in their flourishing phase. Most of the year they are so dried out you would not be able to appreciate their unique beauty and understand why we need to protect the 3% of them still remaining in California. We should be able to see aquatic plants, water fleas, boatmen, larvae, tadpoles, and fairy shrimp in the waters with minuscule rare and endangered plants, like the intoxicatingly fragrant Del Mar Mesa Mint, sprouting on the edges of the pools. You have to bend down and look closely but it’s well worth your time to see the pools. Meet at the Carmel Mtn. Preserve Trailhead at intersection of Fairpoint and Shorepoint Ways.