Mt Davidson Description
Mt Davidson is the highest hill in San Francisco, and the 40 acre parcel preserved in its park is one of the largest and best of our remnant natural areas. Mt Davidson’s habitat restoration workparties with the Natural Areas Program are official activities of the San Francisco Group of the Sierra Club.
Mt D’s piebald look is due to the different way that Adolph Sutro managed his piece of the hill compared to Leland Stanford. More details here.
The trees on most of Mt D capture vast quantities of fog drip, converting the understory into a rain forest where invasive English ivy, cape ivy, blackberry, and ehrharta grass predominate. Management there involves careful thinning of diseased and failing trees to open up the understory, removal of the overburden of invasive weeds, and planting coastal scrub grasses and forbs and protecting those that arise spontaneously from the remnant seed bank in the soil.
The main issue in the much drier grassland area is invasive annual grasses, though we also battle French broom and radish. Despite the invasive weeds, there is a remarkable collection of native bunchgrasses and many wildflowers still thriving in the grasslands. Here is the management plan.
The juncture between the trees and the grasslands along the north-east corner of Mt D has become one of the most important bird stopovers in the City due to the 13 different species of native berries that grow there. Unfortunately this is exactly the site where the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission planned to trench in a new water main up to the water reservoir at the top of the hill, but fortunately due to volunteer and neighborhood outcries, this plan was shifted to route the pipeline into the noncritical weedy areas under the trees. This work will happen during 2008, and we will be monitoring it closely indeed here at SF Natural Areas.
Mt Davidson currently has 167 volunteers who have subscribed to our regular email newsletters and work at this site. They have posted 61 photos and 26 posts to their blog.
Regular Workparty Schedule
- 1st Saturday of each month from 9:00 to 12:00
Regular Meeting Location
- 36 Bus Turnaround -- [Map and Details]
Additional Information
Blog Posts
Here are blog posts about the Mt Davidson project — presented 2 at a time in reverse chronological order. Browse to earlier or later posts via the pagination controls below.
PUC Work About to Begin
Wed, 09 Jul 2008, 5:28pm, Tinman said:
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Here’s a notice from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission that just arrived today:
NTK Construction, the contractor for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) Mt Davidson tank, pipeline and pump station project, will begin a control survey of the pipeline alignment on Mt Davidson during the week of July 14th, with a duration of approximately five days. Rough staking of the alignment will start on or around July 21st.
The San Francisco Recreation & Park Department will review the alignment and rough staking and will work with NTK Construction and the SFPUC to ensure the best alignment.
A public notice will be mailed to residents on Dalewood Way this week informing them about the installation of a temporary mobile pump station near their homes. Please see the attached public notice. Thank you.
So, the time for vigilant observation is about to start. If you see any irregularities, post them here with photos and call Brian Roberts (415-740-4382) and SFPUC (415-551-4659 and 415-550-4911 after hours) to complain.
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July 2008
Sat, 05 Jul 2008, 3:07pm, Tinman said:
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Despite the heavy fog and July 4 holiday weekend, we had an excellent group of intrepid volunteers today:
The prime objective was to clear blackberry from the rehabed areas at the Levi site on the NE flank. Where there was once nearly impenetrable blackberry, there now is a gorgeous complex mix of 12 different native berry bushes and other grasses and forbs. Still, the blackberry re-erupts, and that was what we attacked. Here is only one of the piles we extracted:
Working with blackberry is one of the more challenging tasks, as its barbs are nasty and its canes are heavy and awkward. Still, we clearly had a good time:
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