Rotary Meadow, a garden of California native plants, is at the summit within the Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve.

Sutro Stewards.org: Map of Mount Sutro [8][9] Another access to the summit is from 7th Avenue on the west side of the mountain, climbing the 355-step public stairway from Warren Drive to Crestmont Drive (named Oakhurst Way on many maps), then turning left/north and entering the forest where Crestmont makes a sharp right/east turn.

In 2009, UCSF applied for a grant from FEMA to remove a majority of the eucalyptus trees on 23% of its land, for campus and residential neighborhood fire safety.

[10] Some local residents opposed the plan, so in February 2010, UCSF announced it was withdrawing its application to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and would instead conduct a full Environmental Impact Review (EIR) under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) before proceeding with plans to restore the original ecology of Mount Sutro.

[11] Much of 19th century Mount Sutro was within the Rancho San Miguel of Alta California, a Mexican land grant given to Jose de Jesus Noe in 1846.

The ranch property was acquired by Adolph Sutro in 1879, shortly after his Comstock Lode stock was bought out by his partners, the "Silver Big 4."

Sutro used annual Arbor Day celebrations to plant trees (eventually thousands of them) on the rocky coastal sage and chaparral clad slopes and hollows and in sand dunes on his properties.

[3] Adolph Sutro died land rich but cash poor in 1898, resulting in the settlement of his estate being long and arduous.

With the settlement of Sutro's estate, after almost twenty years of litigation, much of the developable, eucalyptus-covered land began to be cleared around 1930, and continued through the 1960s.