Mount Sutro is a

hill A hill is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain. It often has a distinct Summit (topography), summit. Terminology The distinction between a hill and a mountain is unclear and largely subjective, but a hill is universally con ...

in central

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. It was originally named Mount Parnassus.

Geography

The low mountain is in elevation. Mount Sutro is one of the many named hills within San Francisco, and among its original "Seven Hills". Most of Mount Sutro is owned by the

University of California, San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It con ...

(UCSF). A parcel, including the summit, is protected as the Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve by UCSF, and open to the public.UCSF.edu: Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve
/ref>

Sutro Tower Sutro Tower is a unique three-legged tall TV and radio lattice tower located in San Francisco, California. Rising from a hill between Twin Peaks and Mount Sutro near Clarendon Heights, it is a prominent feature of the city skyline and a landma ...

, a large television and radio broadcasting tower for the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

and very visible City landmark, is not on Mount Sutro. It stands on a lower hill to the south between it and

Twin Peaks ''Twin Peaks'' is an American Mystery fiction, mystery serial drama television series created by Mark Frost and David Lynch. It premiered on American Broadcasting Company, ABC on April 8, 1990, and originally ran for two seasons until its cance ...

Sutro Forest

Mount Sutro has been covered by a dense forest, with about 80% being introduced

eucalyptus ''Eucalyptus'' () is a genus of over seven hundred species of flowering trees, shrubs or mallees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Along with several other genera in the tribe Eucalypteae, including '' Corymbia'', they are commonly known as euca ...

trees, that was planted in the late 19th century.Sutro Forest.org: Homepage
/ref> The older trees are now over tall. The mountain is within San Francisco's fog belt, receiving fog throughout the summer. The tall trees precipitate the fog, with the moisture being absorbed by the duff and tree roots, and the forest remains damp through the summer months. It receives some 30 to 40% of its moisture from fog drip. There is a dense understory of non-native Himalayan blackberry (''Rubus armeniacus'') and several other plants. The forest provides habitat for a number of bird species, including

great horned owl The great horned owl (''Bubo virginianus''), also known as the tiger owl (originally derived from early naturalists' description as the "winged tiger" or "tiger of the air"), or the hoot owl, is a large owl native to the Americas. It is an extrem ...

s and various

woodpecker Woodpeckers are part of the bird family Picidae, which also includes the piculets, wrynecks, and sapsuckers. Members of this family are found worldwide, except for Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, Madagascar, and the extreme polar regions. ...

s. Over thirty species were recorded in a single morning of

bird watching Birdwatching, or birding, is the observing of birds, either as a recreational activity or as a form of citizen science. A birdwatcher may observe by using their naked eye, by using a visual enhancement device like binoculars or a telescope, by ...

. The city-owned portion of Mount Sutro and the eucalyptus forest, called the Interior Green Belt, is contiguous with the UCSF-owned Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve portion. The forest is bounded on the north by the

UCSF Medical Center The University of California, San Francisco Medical Center is a research and teaching hospital in San Francisco, California and is the medical center of the University of California, San Francisco. It is affiliated with the UCSF School of Med ...

and the UCSF Stem-cell Research Building; on the west by the Sunset District; on the south by the Forest Knolls neighborhood, built in the late 1950s on cleared forest land; and on the east by the

Cole Valley Cole Valley is a small neighborhood in San Francisco, California. It borders Golden Gate Park to the north, Haight-Ashbury to the northeast, The Castro to the east. and Twin Peaks to the south. Near Kezar Stadium, Cole Valley is the smallest ne ...

neighborhood.

Recreation

Rotary Meadow, a garden of

California native plants California native plants are plants that existed in California prior to the arrival of European explorers and colonists in the late 18th century. California includes parts of at least three phytochoria. The largest is the California Floristic ...

, is at the summit within the Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve. It was funded by a $100,000 grant from the San Francisco Rotary Club #2 and its members in 2004. The garden is maintained by the Sutro Stewards volunteers, and has water supplied by UCSF. It is accessible by paved road from Clarendon Avenue through UCSF's Aldea San Miguel housing complex. Most of the garden's plants reach peak bloom in the spring. It is encircled by the Eucalyptus forest, and therefore has no views of the city, as the nearby non-forested

and Tank Hill do. The hill and forest are accessible by hiking trails, many of which are suitable for mountain bikes
Sutro Stewards.org: Map of Mount Sutro
Another access to the summit is from 7th Avenue on the west side of the mountain, climbing the 355-step public stairway from Warren Drive to Crestmont Drive (named Oakhurst Way on many maps), then turning left/north and entering the forest where Crestmont makes a sharp right/east turn.

Restoration and preservation

In 2009, UCSF applied for a grant from FEMA to remove a majority of the eucalyptus trees on 23% of its land, for campus and residential neighborhood fire safety. It was supported by native

habitat restoration Restoration ecology is the scientific study supporting the practice of ecological restoration, which is the practice of renewing and restoring degraded, damaged, or destroyed ecosystems and habitats in the environment by active human interrupt ...

advocates, for the return and expansion of indigenous

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

s that support native flora and fauna within the city. Some local residents opposed the plan, so in February 2010, UCSF announced it was withdrawing its application to the

Federal Emergency Management Agency The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), initially created under President Jimmy Carter by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 and implemented by two Exec ...

, and would instead conduct a full

Environmental Impact Review Environmental Impact assessment (EIA) is the assessment of the environmental consequences of a plan, policy, program, or actual projects prior to the decision to move forward with the proposed action. In this context, the term "environmental imp ...

(EIR) under the

California Environmental Quality Act The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is a California statute passed in 1970 and signed in to law by then-Governor Ronald Reagan, shortly after the United States federal government passed the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), t ...

(CEQA) before proceeding with plans to restore the original ecology of Mount Sutro. After over four years, the first step, a preliminary Draft EIR for public review and comments, has yet to be completed by UCSF.Sutro Stewards.org: "The State of Sutro Forest, June 2014"
. accessed 8.14.2014

History

19th century

Much of 19th century Mount Sutro was within the Rancho San Miguel of

Alta California Alta California ('Upper California'), also known as ('New California') among other names, was a province of New Spain, formally established in 1804. Along with the Baja California peninsula, it had previously comprised the province of , but ...

, a

Mexican land grant The Spanish and Mexican governments made many concessions and land grants in Alta California (now known as California) and Baja California from 1775 to 1846. The Spanish Concessions of land were made to retired soldiers as an inducement for ...

given to Jose de Jesus Noe in 1846. The ranch property was acquired by

Adolph Sutro Adolph Heinrich Joseph Sutro (April 29, 1830 – August 8, 1898) was a German-American engineer, politician and philanthropist who served as the 24th mayor of San Francisco from 1895 until 1897. Born a German Jew, he moved to Virginia Cit ...

in 1879, shortly after his

Comstock Lode The Comstock Lode is a lode of silver ore located under the eastern slope of Mount Davidson, a peak in the Virginia Range in Virginia City, Nevada (then western Utah Territory), which was the first major discovery of silver ore in the Unit ...

stock was bought out by his partners, the "Silver Big 4." That enabled Sutro to invest in San Francisco real estate on a very large scale, at one point owning almost 10% of San Francisco's total acreage. Sutro used annual Arbor Day celebrations to plant trees (eventually thousands of them) on the rocky coastal sage and chaparral clad slopes and hollows and in sand dunes on his properties. Sutro originally planned to develop residential neighborhoods on the hill, then named "Mount Parnassus," and on another to the east he named "Mount Olympus." The hill was later renamed Mount Sutro, in honor of Sutro who also was the 24th

mayor of San Francisco The mayor of the City and County of San Francisco is the head of the executive branch of the San Francisco city and county government. The officeholder has the duty to enforce city laws, and the power to either approve or veto bills passed by ...

, from 1894 to 1896. In July 1895, Sutro donated a site on the "Parnassus bench" overlooking

Golden Gate Park Golden Gate Park, located in San Francisco, California, United States, is a large urban park consisting of of public grounds. It is administered by the San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department, which began in 1871 to oversee the development ...

, to serve as a campus site for the Affiliated Colleges of the University of California, the present day University of California, San Francisco Parnassus Campus. Adolph Sutro died land rich but cash poor in 1898, resulting in the settlement of his estate being long and arduous. Some plans of the Sutro Development Company were completed, including a street railway on Parnassus Boulevard that operated to serve those developments, while many others were stopped by litigation.

20th century

With the settlement of Sutro's estate, after almost twenty years of litigation, much of the developable, eucalyptus-covered land began to be cleared around 1930, and continued through the 1960s. The city expanded westward, and the land was developed for commercial and residential needs. Though planned as a recreational forest, some areas were logged by Sutro's heirs. In 1934, after a fire, this effort was discontinued. The forest was logged again during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, for use as a domestic fuel due to war rationing. Mount Sutro itself, and most of its remaining forest, was within the parcel purchased by the University of California in 1952.

References

External links

*
Sutro Stewards.org: Map of Mount Sutro trails and neighborhood access.
* *
Sutro Stewards.org: Homepage
— ''non-profit organization for creating urban recreational opportunities, while practicing sustainable

habitat conservation Habitat conservation is a management practice that seeks to conserve, protect and restore habitats and prevent species extinction, fragmentation or reduction in range. It is a priority of many groups that cannot be easily characterized in te ...

.'' * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sutro, Mount

Mount Sutro Mount Sutro is a hill in central San Francisco, California. It was originally named Mount Parnassus. Geography The low mountain is in elevation. Mount Sutro is one of the many named hills within San Francisco, and among its original "Seven Hill ...

Mountains of the San Francisco Bay Area