All Blog Posts (47)

Roots are a major concern for any trail designer. They cut through trails, breaking apart rock walls and pushing paving stones out of place. They are forever uneven and slippery when they get wet, making them a legitimate safety concern. When a root crosses their trail, most designers simply rip them out. But, as with any trail treatment, that wont work everywhere.

Thick, matted patches of roots dot the Upper Historic trail. When faced with the question of how to deal with…

Re-designing and applying the top layer of trail is a great way to mitigate pooling and encourage draining - but it wont work everywhere. For areas that see a lot of water all at once (think of a trail with steep, rocky up-slopes), drains are the way to go.

On March 28^th I, along with Gered Doherty and Pieter Buysschaert (neither of whom had any idea what they were getting themselves into), hiked up the Upper Historic Trail to put in a trench drain. The drain is…

Those of you who frequent the western slopes of Mt Sutro may have noticed some changes to the Upper Historic Trail.

As the Hydrology and Trails Intern with the Sutro Stewards, I have been working since November on designing and testing new ways to keep water from pooling on the trails. I had my first chance to put in a test treatment on the February 4^th volunteer day when a small crew and I refinished a ten-foot patch on the Upper Historic. We scraped off the organic debris…

Wednesday's Sutro Nursery work was a treat! We transplanted our first flats of seedlings into larger containers, 500 in all! Very rewarding to really begin to fill up the tables with plants. At this rate, within a few more months, we'll be moving plants out of the nursery and locating them throughout Mt. Sutro. Our next Nursery event is on Saturday April 21st, join us if you can.…

Had a blast with my six year old son.  Rode downhill on Historic Tr.  Had to stop for some workers keeping the trail in its awesome condition.  Amazing area and looking forward to riding more and also volunteering.

What is now Rotary Meadow was Nike Site SF-89 in 1960. I made short video documenting some of the history of SF-89. It may be of interest to the Steward group who maintain this wonderful area. As a kid, living near the site, this was my eerie playground. 

SEE IT HERE

  Al 

Overjoyed to have a bonus day this month! It means I can be 1/29th more productive than the average February. Currently my desk is well hidden under layers of Sutro Stewards paperwork. Strategic planning, event planning, March 3rd planning, a very special event coming up in May, National Trails Day in June, the…

Happy New Year to All !

Looking forward to this year - already the weather has given me an opportunity to be up riding on Sutro without getting real dirty.

I'm also stewarding the Oak Woodlands Natural Area in northeast Golden Gate Park , our City's remaining remnant of its pre - European settlement  Coast Live Oak  ' forest '.

If you are interested in seeing what we have been doing in the Oak Woodlands during the past 15 years please come and join us on Sat Jan 14 ,…

Dawn broke on Saturday November 5th with the most beautiful blood red sky behind a still dark Mount Sutro. I regarded this as a good omen for a very challanging day of stewardship that had been in the making for several months. The Sutro Stewards hosted the Bay Area Ridge Trail (BART)/REI service day for the first time. We set the bar (rock bar if you will) very high and capped registration for the event at 100, making this our largest event ever. We reached that goal with a few days to…

There was a steepish trail I used to scramble up from somewhere on Crestmont in the Forest Knolls ‘hood into Sutro Forest before the trails up here were as well maintained as they are now. Today upon reaching the top of the long Oakhurst stairway at Crestmont (first pic), turned left to look for it. It’s marked on the Sutro Stewards trails map as a steep…

I sometimes consider looking for old trails or semi-trails hiked before serious trailwork began some years ago on Mount Sutro. 



One was where I’d climb up from Crestmont rather steeply in one instance, being obliged to sometimes hold onto tree branches while slipping and sliding on damp eucalyptus leaves. Now I’m not sure exactly where this one was. It seems to have disappeared…

Thanks Craig,  for posting all the photos !

We , of the volunteer stewardship movement, really like  signage - it gives the public information about what we are trying to do and ways to hook up and help out.

One of my peeves about some of the ' restoration ' projects in the City is that ' signage ' has not been placed as a priority , so it is next to impossible for a public user of these trails and ' under restoration '   green spaces to know who contributes to these efforts…

Was even more impressed with the Lower Historic Trail today than on my earlier visits. Heaven does exist – right here in mid-city San Francisco.



Started up via the Farnsworth stairway (149 steps – first photo) and south a couple blocks to the vehicle dead-end for Edgewood Ave. and the trailhead for the Edgewood Trail (second pic). Pleased this time to see that here and…

Found a whole series of wonderfully informative videos on Youtube. The quirk is that a few videos have mismatched titles, so the Basic Trail Maintenance video is titled "Constructing Trail Switchbacks", and the Handtools for Trailwork videos (two parts) are titled "An Axe to Grind" (and vice versa), but once I figured out this part I was able to enjoy the videos in all their glory :) So here is a correct list of videos; you'll have to disregard the fact that the titles are wrong. The channel…

This is a verbatim post from my blog on Weebly: 

http://galomorro.weebly.com/stairways-are-heaven.html

New photos coming soon...

Originally planned to just walk Mount Sutro’s new Lower Historic Trail once today – the opposite way from my first trip last week. Started up Farnsworth Lane (149 steps – see first pic) and the few very…

Take a Hike... Using Newly Uncovered Mount Sutro Trail

LINK TO SFRPD BLOG