We are pleased to introduce the newest addition to the CWC Board of Directors: Sorrel Stielstra. Sorrel came to Claremont fifteen years ago and immediately threw herself into environmental, social, and economic justice issues through Sustainable Claremont.
Sustainability has been a life-long passion for her ever since childhood, owing in part to her father’s cutting-edge interest in energy efficiency and solar energy. She came to understand that social, economic, and environmental sustainability are linked. “You can’t attend very well to any of those without understanding that,” she said.
She also quickly discovered the joys of the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park when she arrived. Her major activity there is strolling with her dogs. She greatly appreciates the chance to relax and recharge.
“I just thought it was so spectacular that we had access to all of that open space with public access right above the city. It’s so congested down here. It’s very crowded, and being able to go up there just feels so lucky.”
“I felt really grateful to the people who had worked hard to to preserve that. We know that it all could easily have been developed. In so many places it is.”
Sorrel brings us her deep non-profit and governmental expertise from Sustainable Claremont as well as from her current job with Growing Inland Achievement, a regional “cradle-to-grave” non-governmental organization focused on educational and economic equity.
All these endeavors fit together within her larger sense of mission in the world: “the caretaking and preservation of resources and quality of life for people and animals and future generations.”
CWC Board Member John Norvell met Senior Wilderness Park ranger Jaime Torres at the Mills Ave. Park entrance and chatted about the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the Park and its visitors. Jaime has been a CHWP ranger for eight years, senior ranger for five.
JN: What are the aspects of being a ranger here in this park that you like the best?
JT: I think the interaction with people. We encounter so many different people every weekend that I’m out here. So I think the interaction with people and that’s really what makes this very good.
JN: What would you say have been the most challenging aspects of being a ranger in the CHWP during the COVID-19 pandemic?
JT: I think the most challenging would have to be the enforcement of certain rules that apply to the pandemic only: mask use, one-way trail hiking. You know, I think those are the greatest challenges. Having to enforce the mask rule was a real challenge for the rangers, having to stand at the front gate was a real challenge. But with that said, the cooperation that we got from the visitors was probably 90% or thereabouts, and that was pretty impressive to see.
JN: Yeah that’s more than lots of places.
JT: That’s more than lots of places and with minimal resistance. We didn’t have to get the police involved. We didn’t have to get any other groups involved and it was basically just the rangers. We’re able to communicate with people and just asking them to please abide by this rule. And we got very good cooperation, but it was very challenging to do that.
JN: What would you say the park meant to people when it reopened, because it reopened with those rules fairly early on, right?
JT: Yes. So I think with the Park being open, what that meant to people was the freedom to go out and explore. You know, a lot of other places were still closed. Most gyms at that time were still closed, other facilities were closed, so that’s what that meant to people, in my opinion: the ability to be able to get out of their houses and frequent the place where they can come out and do some exercise. So the City having this park open as a resource to these people who were stuck at their houses, it was huge. And I think that’s also part of the reason why they were so compliant to our requests to come out here and keep their distance from other people, one-way trekking, put your mask on—I think they understood that as long as they followed these rules, the park would remain open, which is a lot of help to us.
JN: Can you think of a specific example of somebody having a really good experience in the Park during the pandemic?
JT: Yeah, I think what I noticed is the people that had medical conditions, those people came to us and said, hey, thank you for being out here. We really appreciate you guys doing this. And they would disclose that they would have a certain medical condition and that they were concerned about being out here. So us rangers being out here and enforcing those rules, it really provided them a sense of, not necessarily security, but they felt better about being out here knowing that we were trying enforce the rules.
During those times, we experienced high numbers of visitors. A lot of the rangers, we spend most of our time educating people. During those times, we also had a lot of new visitors that were never familiar with the Park, or the rules of the Park, you know, stay on the marked trail, and so on. Don’t go off trail, dogs have to be on leash. So, we know there have been a lot of new visitors. They were not aware of the rules of the Park. So we also spent a lot of time enforcing not only the mask rules but also the regular, everyday rules. We still catch a lot of people that are going off trail. We still catch a lot of bikers that are, you know, doing damage to the trail. And I think that’s going to be an ongoing occurrence as long as the Park remains open.
The Claremont Hills Wilderness Park is a great place for volunteer and citizen scientists to explore and learn about Southern California’s native plant and animal species. Within the park there is an abundance of invasive, nonnative species. These can often disrupt native habitats. An important focus of the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park Master Plan is monitoring the natural environment to ensure that native and sensitive species survive and minimize the introduction and spread of nonnative species.
Nancy Hamlett, a retired professor of biology and a longtime resident of Claremont, is piloting two collection projects with the Friends of the Wilderness Park (FWP), the citizen support group established in the Master Plan. She and the FWP have created a collection project using an online network tool called iNaturalist. The project, called “Biota of the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park,” focuses on everything that lives in the park. So far, this project has documented nearly 1,200 observations and 358 species. A second CHWP collection project, using Calflora, another networked online application, is called “concerned with weeds”; its name speaks for itself. These online networks are helpful tools that allow us to combine our efforts in the Park and provide a mechanism to help scientists and naturalists share information. They have mobile phone apps that make it easy to upload photographs and quickly record observations.
Nancy Hamlett documents plants in her CHWP project. (Photo credit: Vicki Salazar)
Nancy’s work also includes finding and documenting sensitive species within the park, such as the crotch bumble bee (Bombus crotchoii). This bee is one of many species that have suffered a decline in population; it is now listed as a candidate endangered species. To bring awareness to its plight, California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s website featured a photograph of the crotch bumble bee taken by Nancy in the CHWP, their “photo of the month” for February 2020.
In addition to her work with the Friends of the Wilderness Park, Nancy has been the volunteer coordinator and webmaster for the Claremont Colleges’ Bernard Field Station for over ten years. Nancy’s knowledge and tireless volunteer work is invaluable to the CHWP and the City of Claremont.
~Vicki Salazar is a CWC Board Member and volunteer with the Friends of the Wilderness Park.
As I complete my second year as president of the Claremont Wildlands Conservancy, I am grateful for the vision set out in 2000 by our founders Nancy Wing and Suzanne Thompsonas well as the organizational foundation established by our previous president, Lissa Petersen. We have an exceptional volunteer board dedicated to achieving our purpose of expanding the amount of accessible and protected open space in the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park and surrounding area. Our board was strengthened this year by the addition of Alison Martinez and Muriel Poston. You can read more about them in this newsletter.
I
am especially appreciative of Ali’s deep knowledge of the CHWP and
its Master Plan as well as her passion for educating others about
park appreciation and stewardship. I am also grateful that Muriel is
willing to contribute her knowledge of botany, her thoughtful
perspectives and passion for community and external engagement. Ali,
Muriel and John Norvell are launching a new program to educate
children about responsibly enjoying nature in their nearby Wilderness
Park.
We
reported in 2017 that the size of the Wilderness Park expanded by 463
acres thanks to the generous gift of Evey Canyon by Pomona College.
During the last year, the property was officially accepted by the
City of Claremont and work begun to integrate it into the CHWP.
There are challenges. One is security at the parking lot at the
entrance to the Evey Canyon trail and the other is the safety for
pedestrians parking across Baldy Road. There is no continuity
between the fire road at the CHWP and Evey Canyon since a portion of
the fire road crosses private land.
Members
of the Claremont Hills Conservation Corporation voted this year to
dissolve. The organization was established to oversee the City of
Claremont’s stewardship of the land originally donated by Pomona
College to establish the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park. The City’s
history of responsible management of the property and use of a well
considered master plan for the park indicated that such oversight was
no longer necessary. A portion of the remaining funds was donated to
build a new kiosk at the Mills Avenue entrance to the CHWP.
The
City continues to implement the CHWP Master Plan and to foster a
culture of respect for wildlife in and neighbors living next to the
park. Most important to the implementation are the 17 rangers who
greet and assist visitors. I congratulate the Friends of the
Wilderness Park, the grass roots organization working with the City,
for the contributions they have made to establishing this culture.
They greet visitors and pick up litter on the second Saturday of
every month, have mapped invasive species and are working to
establish an overall plan for signage. Please read about mapping
invasive species and the iNaturalist project in another article in
this Newsletter and go to www.friendsofthewildernesspark.org
to learn more.
The owner and developer of Clara Oaks, a 103-acre hillside parcel along
Webb Canyon Road just north of the Webb School Campus, has recently
submitted a draft Specific Plan for the development of luxury homes in
the southern cluster area and the contribution of the rest of the
property to the CHWP. While we welcome additional land for the CHWP, we
continue to advocate for maintaining all available hillside properties
adjacent to the CHWP as open space. We will, of course, continue to
monitor the progress of this development.
I
want to thank former board members Nick Jensen and Beverly Speak for
their contributions over the last years. Both have moved to pursue
other endeavors but their legacies remain.
I
hope that all of you receiving our newsletter feel welcome to join
our efforts by serving on one of our committees or joining us at our
booth on Earth Day or Independence Day in the coming year. Please
take a look at our new web site and let us know if you can find all
that you hope to see. We welcome your comments and contributions of
stories or photos. If you would like to contribute photos to our
gallery, please email them with the photographer’s name and
captions to info@claremontwildlands.org.I
hope to see you on the trails.
