Our Headwaters Tour later this month now includes a stop at the University of California, Berkeley’s Sagehen Creek Field Station, a Sierra Nevada research and training facility where we’ll learn about forest ecology research and a forest restoration project.

Spots are still available for the June 28-29 tour, but sign up quickly here to ensure your spot! 

The 2-day, 1-night tour travels through the Sierra Nevada foothills, into the mountains and around the Lake Tahoe Basin to learn about upper watersheds and the critical role they play in water supply and quality across California. We will discuss meadow restoration, forest management and tree mortality, climate change, wildfire impacts and water quality. We overnight at Lake Tahoe.

On the second day, we will visit the Sagehen Creek Field Station north of Truckee, which is part of the University of California Natural Reserve System and includes the Sagehen Experimental Forest.

Since 1951, Sagehen Creek Field Station has been home to a broad mix of residents and managers, including A. Starker Leopold, who founded Sagehen and served as its director from 1965 to 1978.

Another frequent visitor to Sagehen was Starker’s younger brother, Luna Leopold. Luna is most famous as a pioneer in researching fluvial geomorphology, the study of how rivers are formed and shaped by their surrounding landscape. Much of his research was done at Sagehen. Their father was Aldo Leopold, author of A Sand County Almanac, who is considered by many to be the father of wildlife ecology in the United States.