In August 2023, Save Mount Diablo acquired the 10-acre Balcerzak inholding, one of the last inholdings—private land surrounded by public land—in Mount Diablo State Park.
It contains the most isolated house on all of Mount Diablo, a log cabin that can be reached three miles and up a steep dirt road from Morgan Territory Road.
The log cabin at Balcerzak. Photo by Mary Nagle
Despite its remote location, the land came with tens of thousands of pounds of scrap metal and other ranching and construction materials.
Volunteers have cleared more than 40,000 pounds of stuff from the Balcerzak inholding to date. Photos by Haley Sutton
Soon after we acquired the property, our volunteers and stewardship staff got to work filling recycling bin after recycling bin with stuff.
So far, our volunteers have devoted 211 hours of work to the Balcerzak inholding.
Before (left) and after (right): Our volunteers are amazing! Photos by Haley Sutton and Mary Nagle
The result? They’ve removed over 200 cubic yards of stuff, weighing more than 40,000 pounds. That’s at least two football fields of materials that are now gone!
These efforts included major cleanup projects, such as the removal of up to 80 percent of the barbed wire fencing surrounding the property, and a destroyed 40-foot-long mobile home. Plus enough stuff to fill several large shipping containers that were donated by CASS Inc.
We’ve removed enough stuff to fill several of these containers! Photo by Mary Nagle
And there’s a lot more work to do.
Removing fencing and other materials from this property is helping the wild lands surrounding it to thrive, so that we can have a healthier park.
Volunteers at Balcerzak. Photo by Haley Sutton
“We knew from our Curry Canyon Ranch property just how rich the biodiversity is—we’ve recorded over 800 species of wildlife there. There are big rocky sandstone cliffs, knobcone pine forest just above the property and cultural sites nearby. This inholding has been affecting hundreds of acres of the state park. We’re reassembling a gorgeous natural landscape,” said Seth Adams, Save Mount Diablo’s Land Conservation Director.
We’re already seeing the return of wildlife to the Balcerzak inholding, thanks especially to the removal of the barbed wire fencing.
The Balcerzak inholding surrounded by Mount Diablo State Park. Photo by Scott Hein
As we remove more stuff and eventually put native plants in the ground, the area will become even more hospitable to wildlife.
Want to be a part of the Balcerzak inholding restoration project? Volunteer with our Diablo Restoration Team. We’ll be out at Balcerzak on Friday, September 20 from 9 AM to noon for California Coastal Cleanup Day; you can sign up to help on VolunteerHub. Or you can schedule a corporate team-building day with us!
There’s much more work to be done at Balcerzak! Photo by Mary Nagle
