Volunteers needed to teach hikers about wildflower blooms on Ring Mountain
Springtime visitors to Ring Mountain can expect to see a colorful array of poppies, lupines, buttercups and even the rare Tiburon mariposa lily — and they’ll also find volunteer docents scattered along popular trails ready to tell them all about the preserve’s annual wildflower blooms and the surrounding environment.
More than a dozen people are part of the Ring Mountain Wildflower Docents program, which was launched last year by the nonprofit Nature Conservancy, and the program is currently recruiting more volunteers to traverse the mountain on weekends from April to mid-June, depending on when the flowers stop blooming.
Ring Mountain stewardship coordinator Amanda Magallanes, who helped organize the docent program, said the focus of the volunteers is to help visitors develop an appreciation for preserving the special habitat and its rare species.
“Sometimes it can be a really powerful experience to talk to someone while on a hike to learn a little more about a flower,” Magallanes said. “It might make you feel more connected to and more receptive to learning additional steps to take to protect the flowers.”
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