Santa Clarita Valley officials and environmental activists recently recognized the contributions of longtime local biologist and naturalist Don Mullally, naming the Towsley Canyon Loop the Don Mullally Trail.

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Santa Clarita Mayor Laurene Weste, as well as representatives from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, Sierra Club and other community leaders took part in the recognition last Saturday, officials said.

Mullally, 90, was on hand to receive a plaque from Weste and the honor.

“I’m really excited to see (Mullally) and all his mapping and biology resource work be recognized,” Weste said. “We had to map the entire 8,000 acres to get all the biological reports together and identifying plants and wildlife in the area.”

Mullally’s work was crucial in the area’s fight against putting a garbage dump in the canyon, officials said.

Weste praised Mullally’s intelligence and work in the field, telling stories about how the two worked to help create trails in the area and how Mullally’s efforts were critical to the area’s preservation of open space.

Mullally’s biological studies helped outsiders recognize the value of the area’s wildlife, validating it’s significance and pristine nature, Weste said.

Ultimately, state officials deemed the area where the trail lies too small for a state park, but the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy joined in the preservation effort and, with support from city officials, the land was ultimately set aside as open space.

Weste shared a humorous anecdote about the two’s work together in the area, noting a time when the two were charting trails up a mountain into the evening, losing track of time. The pair ended up rappelling down the hills together one night.

A 1995 L.A. Times report from Chevron’s then-pending sale of 3,000 acres to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy — containing an area proposed as Santa Clarita Woodlands Park, which included Mentryville and the site of California’s first commercial oil well, as well as several of the canyons mentioned — quoted Mullally on the significance of the area.

In the L.A. Times report by Myron Levin, Mullally said: “One of the important things about the Santa Clarita Woodlands is no one lives in the Santa Clarita Woodlands. … This is all wilderness. And with flat areas for walking and picnicking, as well as steep slopes for more ambitious hikers, “this is the kind of park (that) is for everybody.”

The city of Santa Clarita currently has 6,192.5 acres of open space it wholly owns, and another 1,869 acres it owns jointly with preservation agencies, such as the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, inside the city’s more than 8,030-acre Open Spaces Preservation District.

The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy was created by the Legislature in 1980, “to acquire land in Southern California with the main goal of forming an extended system of ‘urban, rural and river parks, open space, trails and wildlife habitats’ and making those areas easily accessible to the public,” according to AllGov.

Joe Edmiston, the founding executive director, was a mentor to Weste and another integral figure in the preservation of the Santa Clarita Valley’s open spaces, Weste said.

Mullally has been involved in the preservation and documentation of the area since 1984, when he worked at O’Melveny Park in Granada Hills, said Sierra Club member and local activist Sandra Cattell.

That’s when he became involved with preserving the wilderness in the area through his work involving the Santa Susana Mountains. Mullally has published countless papers on the wildlife of the region as a result of his studies.

“It was just splendid to have his work recognized,” Cattell said, also giving recognition to the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority for its role in the area’s preservation.

“(The Towsley Canyon open space) wouldn’t be there if not for Don Mullally,” Cattell said. “It would be a dump.”

The city of Santa Clarita has an extensive website on its hiking trails here.

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