Bidwell Park

Middle Park extends from Manzanita to a point roughly equal to the upstream edge of the Chico Municipal Golf Course.

Lower Park is flat and level with a deep soil structure supporting a thick canopy of trees which provide ample shade for visitors.

The park's climate is classified as Mediterranean because it has cool rainy winters and hot dry summers.

Animal species include mammals such as American black bear, little brown bat, cougars, beavers, coyotes and others.

Prominent birds in the park are acorn woodpecker, red-tailed hawk, Western screech owl, turkey vulture, mallard, Canada goose, and northern flicker.

Fish species include salmon (although their numbers have declined greatly), trout, bass and bluegill.

Plant life in the area changes as the park rises out of the valley, from riparian to chaparral and oak woodland.

Big Chico Creek enters the park from the east within Iron Canyon, a deep, thin channel characterized by large boulders of basalt, and tall, steep cliffs.

It consists of sandstone and fossils from an ancient sea that once covered the Central Valley and the ancestral Sierra Nevada Mountains during the Cretaceous Period.

Evident by its dark, smooth complexion, the Lovejoy Basalt makes up most of Iron Canyon in Upper Bidwell Park.

This rock erupted from an ancient volcano near present-day Susanville, CA about 15 million years ago, during the Miocene.

The formation dives beneath Chico and holds the city's immense aquifer from which it derives its water.

Lower Bidwell Park sits atop a deep soil complex of alluvium deposited by Big Chico Creek.