Residents have affectionally nicknamed El Cajon Mountain after Yosemite's El Capitan.

Rob Hutsel from the San Diego River Park Foundation returns to Treehuggers International to talk about his and the river park foundation’s efforts to organize the purchase of 385 acres along the summit crest, vertical relief, and base of San Diego’s El Capitan Mountain, known officially to cartographers as El Cajon Mountain. While most of El Capitan lies within the Cleveland National Forest and the county’s El Capitan Open Space Preserve, the 385 acres for sale are currently privately held between the two management areas.

Reaping the rewards of a summit view.

More about this post at:

• The San Diego River Park Foundation
• El Capitan Contribution Status Page
• Tackle Ups and Down [at] El Capitan Open Space Preserve (San Diego Reader, 11/21/02)
• El Capitan Open Space Preserve (San Diego Outside, 5/11/09)
• Cleveland National Forest

As nature intended: the San Diego River at flood stage in Mission Valley.

Rob Hutsel, the Executive Director of the San Diego River Park Foundation, stops by Treehuggers International to talk about the foundation and conservation work along the length of San Diego’s namesake river, including the foundation’s recent milestone of one million (!) pounds of trash being removed from the river since the organization’s beginnings in 2001.

The San Diego River Park Foundation is a community-based, grassroots organization seeking to tie the San Diego River together as a greenbelt along it’s 52-mile course, from the river’s headwaters in the Cuyamaca Mountains to the Pacific at Ocean Beach. Learn more about this incredibly active, efficient community steward as Rob also talks about this year’s San Diego River Days, happening May 9th to May 17th, for which Treehuggers International is a proud media sponsor.