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 158 volunteers who have subscribed to our regular email newsletters and work at this site. They have posted 82 photos and 32 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

• History of Mt Davidson