Warm weather provides good opportunities for community cleanups, and this year there have already been a bunch of them! On March 14, Shasta Chapter CNPS and Shasta Group of Sierra Club led a cleanup of the Clear Creek Greenway Trail, from the Clear Creek Gorge parking lot almost to Horsetown-Clear Creek Preserve, where the trail ends. Six of us cleaned the entire trail of trash within two hours.
On March 21, nine volunteers came out for Horsetown-Clear Creek Preserve’s Adopt-a-Highway cleanup, including people from Sierra Club and CNPS, as well as Mark Ewing from Beautify Shasta. Horsetown-Clear Creek Preserve treated us to lunch at Carl’s Jr. afterwards.
Photo by Lisa Ross.
And then on March 22, Shasta Chapter CNPS led a spontaneous cleanup of Upper Sulphur Creek. We have been doing this annually for years, but because it was not advertised this year, only four people show up. Nonetheless, that was enough to finish in two hours, and that included identifying some of the native plants on the way! We also saw one large rock with many shell fossils embedded in it. This area used to be under an ancient sea, which extended above Oasis Road.
Fortunately, we did not find any new homeless encampments around Sulphur Creek. Most of the trash had been left by small-time miners who had dug considerably in one area of the creek bank.
Thanks to all who helped on these cleanups. Even with just a few people, we cleaned up a lot of trash. ~David Ledger