This commentary is by Katharine Suding, Ph.D., a plant community ecologist and distinguished professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at CU Boulder. She teaches courses in restoration ecology, conducts research on ecosystem resilience and recovery, and loves grasslands.
CU Boulder just received an incredible gift. Conservationist Linda Holubar Sanabria and her husband Sergio Sanabria donated 476 acres of forests and grasslands in Lefthand Canyon to be set aside for research and education. While the Spruce Gulch Research and Wildlife Reserve won’t be open to the public for exploring, it unlocks extraordinary possibilities worth celebrating.
Sanabria’s family has cared for the land that now forms Spruce Gulch for nearly a century. At the site, riparian coves along Lefthand Creek, at 5,600 feet elevation, climb steeply to 8,000-foot ridgelines bordering U.S. Forest Service land. Mosaics of closed-canopy forest, open meadows and ponderosa savanna support songbirds, mule deer and mountain lions. An easement with Boulder County specifies that CU must keep infrastructure to a minimum and restrict use to research and hands-on learning across the sciences, humanities and arts.
Spruce Gulch is poised to play a powerful role in Boulder’s efforts toward nature-based sustainability and resilience. CU Boulder already operates the Mountain Research Station, a high-elevation field station located between Ward and Nederland that has propelled the university to global leadership in alpine research. The acquisition of Spruce Gulch will allow CU scientists to pursue locally impactful science relevant to the lower grasslands and foothills region, where most of us live. Within a short drive from most parts of Boulder County, the reserve also opens the door for CU students and community members to dive into outdoor learning and volunteering right in their backyard.
Even before Sanabria officially donated the land, CU researchers and students used Spruce Gulch as an outdoor living laboratory. It was there that CU scientists discovered ecological ways to control noxious weeds, reducing the amount of chemicals sprayed in our open spaces. By studying how the reserve’s landscape recovered after wildfire, CU scientists pinpointed environmental conditions in the Front Range where planting tree seedlings would succeed — and where efforts to restore ponderosa pine forests would face significant challenges. In a long-running experiment, researchers manipulated climate conditions at the reserve and found that warming winters favor early-growing exotics like cheatgrass, which then put later-emerging native species at risk.
Apart from Spruce Gulch, local low-elevation research has advanced on lands managed by the city and county. Strong partnerships, plus a few creative adjustments, have opened these public lands to CU scientists for research.
My research group, for instance, has placed hundreds of temperature sensors in Boulder’s city parks to determine what tree species best reduce urban heat, labeling each to explain what those spaceship-like devices do. We install small plastic-roofed shelters to study grassland drought impacts in out-of-the-way spots to avoid drawing curious visitors off-trail. We bring only the highest-priority soil samples back for on-campus analyses, keeping our impact low. We wear bright “researcher” vests to reinforce that scientists do not all look the same and to spark conversations about our work. Indeed, the trade-offs required to work on public land are minor compared to the chance to co-create research and help manage land that matters to Boulder.
Spruce Gulch isn’t meant to replace these efforts. Rather, it helps connect research more directly to local challenges. It will offer scientists a space to experiment with bold, potentially transformative ideas — like altering grassland composition near neighborhoods to include less-flammable plants. It will serve as a hub to craft real-world strategies to tackle global challenges too, like the climate crisis, intersecting the sciences, arts and humanities. With its focus on translation, it will bring together diverse partners — donors, academic scientists, resource managers, resource users and policymakers — to collaboratively find solutions.
As programming at Spruce Gulch gets underway, look out for opportunities to get involved. Volunteers can keep the reserve’s ecosystems healthy by removing noxious weeds, repairing waterways and reducing fire risk. Nature nerds can join a guided walk to learn about local plants, birds or mushrooms. Painters and poets can find inspiration in its cliffs and canyons. And we will need help with hands-on research — tracking climate trends, mapping exotic species and monitoring ecological changes. If sweating (or spotting snakes) isn’t your thing, you can stay in the loop by following updates on the Spruce Gulch Research and Wildlife Reserve website.
I understand the disappointment in not having unlimited access to Spruce Gulch. I’d love nothing more than to start my day with a trail run or ride there. And I’m not alone: Most Boulderites would leap at the chance to explore a new park of its size and splendor. While we often first think about outdoor pursuits — the City of Boulder’s open space draws well over five million visits annually, easily more than Rocky Mountain National Park — our system of conserved lands grows stronger when they serve the public good in many ways.