The Mt. Sutro Stewards and students from Lowell High School have been chosen as our June Volunteers of the Month, for their restoration work at the UCSF Mt. Sutro Open Space Reserve.
The Mt. Sutro Stewards organization works with community volunteers to help restore and conserve the UCSF Mt. Sutro Open Space Reserve, a wilderness area situated in the heart of San Francisco. Mt. Sutro’s dense eucalyptus forest and fog-shrouded slopes are home to an amazing variety of vegetation and wildlife habitat. The summit native plant garden and expanding trail network are a quiet refuge for neighbors, visitors, and UCSF students and staff.
In the fall of 2007 UCSF and the Stewards were contacted by Alex Yi, a student from Lowell High School interested in performing a community service project on Mt. Sutro. Several potential projects were identified and evaluated and a proposal written that included the scope of work and number of hours to be contributed. The selected project involved the restoration of a scenic rock outcrop, along Mt. Sutro’s Historic Trail, which was hidden behind a screen of dense thorny blackberry. The challenge was working on a steep slippery slope while trying to remove many decades’ worth of growth.
The initial day’s work was stunning! Alex and his volunteers first exposed a twenty-foot-tall rock outcrop and cleared the blackberry from around the site. Then the students discovered that the rock was just the tip of a geologic formation that runs for hundreds of feet just above the Historic Trail. At that point the simple little project took on a life of its own.
For a period of over six-months, groups of Lowell students and community volunteers continued to clear blackberry bushes and root bulbs by hand from the steep slope. In February 2008, habitat restoration expert Jake Sigg of the California Native Plant Society and Peter Brastow from Nature in the City worked with volunteers to begin replanting the slope. Now after several months and a good deal of rain the newly planted slope is beginning to thrive.
Before the student project was complete the Lowell volunteers had a final request. They wanted to make a significant and lasting contribution to the area. The students worked with the Stewards to construct a stone retaining wall at a switchback on the Lower North Ridge Trail. The result was a major improvement to one of the most heavily used trails through the open space. Without a doubt the students’ project and contributions will indeed leave a lasting and scenic impression on the slopes of Mt. Sutro.
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| Caption: Lowell students Alex Yi (left) and Adam Whitlatch (right) admire the rock wall they constructed with the Mt. Sutro Steward volunteers |
If you wish to volunteer with the Mt. Sutro Stewards you may take part on the first Saturday of each month from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.. More information, including the volunteer schedule, location and a map can be found online: http://natureinthecity.org/mtsutro.php
--Craig Dawson
