The River Park closed escrow last week on 90 acres of beautiful back country property adjacent to Farmer Road, north of Julian. This acquisition was facilitated by The Trust for Public Land, and funded by the State Wildlife Conservation Board, with $1,360,000 in funds from Proposition 13, the Clean Water Bond act approved by the voters of California in 2000. The Santa Ysabel Ranch East, a County-owned open space preserve, is west of and adjacent to the new acquisition. Across Farmer Road to the east is the 23-acre parcel that the San Dieguito River Valley Conservancy purchased three years ago. Together, these properties form a contiguous corridor of preserved natural open space from Highway 79 at Santa Ysabel to the summit of Volcan Mountain.

Attend Third Annual "Lagoon Day" on March 30th

April Workshops: "Artifact Interact" and "In the Shadow of the Valley"

Free April events: Birdwatching and Work Parties

As this photo shows, San Diego trail users won't wait long to get back out on the trail. This year was certainly the test for the San Dieguito River Park Trails. For the most part, they held up well. However, Ranger staff will be busy repairing some flooded areas and downed fences. And of course, when the Lake Hodges Dam spills, it's an exciting event.

The Final Mitigated Negative Declaration for the Lake Hodges Bicycle/Pedestrian Bridge has been issued. A Public Hearing to approve the MND and the Bridge, previously scheduled for March 18, has been rescheduled to April 1, 2005 at 9:30 a.m. at the County Administrative Center, 1600 Pacific Highway, Room 302/303, San Diego.

Despite the rains, winter is the best time to implement many of the Park's habitat restoration projects. Trails and Resource Manager Jason Lopez writes about Field Management in his regular column, " What's Growing On".

San Dieguito River Park started the New Year closing escrow on 636 acres of rolling meadow and oak land in the backcountry, east of Lake Sutherland. These important purchases closed several gaps in the publicly owned land along the San Dieguito River. Now there is added urgency to the San Dieguito River Valley Conservancy's Fundraising Drive, which was launched last month to acquire the remaining, adjacent Lake Sutherland property.

Many River Park supporters may not know that the River Park has converted from a print-based news distribution to an e-mail based distribution only. Therefore, please forward this e-mail to anyone you think would be interested. Then they can sign up for themselves if they wish to continue receiving the San Dieguito River Park's RiverScape newsletter. Thank you!