PG&E’s Sierra Discovery Trail
Bear Valley, Nevada/Placer County
David Magney assisted
Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) with the Bear Valley Sierra Discovery
Trail education center. PG&E owns a
portion of Bear Valley, located along State Route 20 in the northern Sierra
Nevada Mountains on the Nevada/Placer County line.
The project goal is
public education, especially children, about the environment and how PG&E
generates electricity and manages land under its authority.
With those goals in
mind, PG&E obtained Mr. Magney’s assistance, while he was with Jones &
Stokes Associates, with an environmental assessment of the project, and to
develop environmental interpretive signs.
Mr. Magney developed text and assisted with graphics for several large
interpretive signs, as well as numerous small trail signs for specific plants
and wildlife found in Bear Valley.
Photographs of each of
the large interpretive signs developed by Mr. Magney are shown below.
This kiosk is the focal
point of PG&E’s Sierra Discovery Trail interpretive center. The kiosk
houses numerous interpretive signs designed to provide information, in laymen’s
terms, to pique the reader’s interest.
Creating the perfect balance between providing an effective depth and
amount of information is more art than science.
These last two
interpretive signs are located along the loop interpretive trail, placed where
the California Black Oak (Quercus kelloggii) and Pine Violet (Viola
lobata var. lobata) plants each grow, respectively.
Mr. Magney posing next
to one of his creations. The boardwalk
provides trail access across the wet meadow in Bear Valley while protecting the
sensitive wetland environment. During
construction, Mr. Magney advised PG&E to use portable landing strip planks,
as used by the military, to give access to the construction site by heavy
equipment without causing permanent damage to the fragile and soft wetland
soils.