Mission Trails Regional Park

The skies are clear so we should get a great view of this rare celestial occurrence. Enjoy, and happy Winter Solstice!

Yes, indeed! We love the birds at Mission Trails and in our own backyards.

SHOP our expanded online store! The holiday shipping rush could cause delays, so order TODAY to allow time for shipping. Select from MTRP merch, nature-related books for adults and children, toys, Kumeyaay items, curated gift bundles and more! https://www.mtrpstore.org/shop

Some of us have a little extra time on our hands these days, and we can put some of that time to use by helping to track our NATIVE bee population. There has been considerable attention paid to honeybees, but native pollinators need to be monitored as well. Learn more and find out how you can help through this article.

Our friends at the California Native Plant Society - San Diego Chapter are presenting a FREE online talk on the oaks of San Diego County on Tuesday, December 8. Learn more and register below!

This month, the Mission Trails Regional Park Foundation is launching a new lecture series and upcoming topics include bats, @iNaturalist, and wildlife at Mission Trails. Registration is free but required. Learn on our linktree where you can also find other links: https://linktr.ee/missiontrails Photo: Wendy Esterly

Meet Gary Hogue who has hiked Cowles Mountain 10,418 times since July 1983. In addition, he bikes several thousand miles a year and has climbed Mt. Whitney more than 20 times. A retired engineer, Gary has sponsored a bench at the base of Cowles for fellow hikers to enjoy. Thanks, Gary, for the bench and inspiration! City of San Diego #missiontrails

If you haven't watched our NEW VIDEO with Ranger Heidi about the trees of Mission Trails and how they help improve air quality, we encourage you to take a few minutes to enjoy this walk around Kumeyaay Lake and learn about the park's trees. Many thanks to the Coalition for Clean Air and SDG&E for supporting the project, and California Clean Air Day for encouraging all of us to support clean air initiatives.

Have you taken the Clean Air Pledge yet? Today is California Clean Air Day and we're inviting the community to join us in taking action to improve air quality.

It's California Clean Air Day! To mark the occasion, we've created two new videos with Ranger Heidi: one about the trees of Mission Trails and another on how to plant a tree in your own yard and help improve air quality. Watch the videos and take the Clean Air Pledge through this link: https://linktr.ee/missiontrails California Clean Air Day

Who's fascinated by bats? For the first of the Mission Trails Regional Park Foundation's online lectures, we offer a free online presentation by naturalist Don Endicott at 6PM on Thursday, October 29. Click to learn more and register!

We're excited to be participating in California Clean Air Day on Wednesday, Oct. 7. To mark the event, we're creating a short video about the trees of Mission Trails with Ranger Heidi, encouraging the community to grow trees and large shrubs in their own yards. In the meantime, take the Clean Air Day Pledge! https://www.cleanairday.org/pled/individual/mtrpfoundation/

The current issue of the Mission Times Courier includes a Q&A with Mark Berninger, Natural Resource Manager for the City of San Diego's Parks and Recreation Department’s Open Space Division. In the article, Mark shares some hard data and anecdotal evidence about changes in park usership since the onset of the pandemic. This article will also appear in the upcoming issue of the MTRP Foundation newsletter.

We've launched a new online store! The Mission Trails Regional Park Visitor Center and our gift shop are still closed, so we're offering MTRP branded items online, adding more inventory in the coming weeks. All sales support the park through the MTRP Foundation. #mtrpstore #shopforgood https://www.mtrpstore.org/

The City of San Diego is partnering on a series of free virtual workshops on backyard composting, great for those of us who have created or expanded our gardens this year. Composting not reduces food waste, but it also averts the need for fertilizers, which translates into energy and resource conservation, something that we nature lovers can appreciate. Sign up through the links below.

San Diego artist Roman de Salvo, whose "Fountain Mountain" was unveiled in February at Mission Trails, will lead a self-guided tour through five public works based at the watersheds of San Diego, from Mission Trails Regional Park to the ocean. This event is part of the inaugural San Diego Design Week. Click here for the route: https://sddesignweek.org//self-gui/watersheds-of-san-diego

Since it's WAY too hot to be at the park, but you can learn about its geology in a film we created earlier this year. Grab a cold beverage and enjoy "Rise and Fall of the Mountains at Mission Trails Regional Park" featuring Pat Abbott, professor emeritus at San Diego State University.