Emerald View Park encircles Mt. Washington, Duquesne Heights and Allentown in a tight hug, an embrace from which Derek Stuart prepared to depart.
He stood on the grassy expanse that separates the sloping, western end of Grandview Avenue from the steep drop to the rivers’ edge and laid out a climbing rope beside bright pops of blue, red, orange and purple webbing.
“It’s just high-angle trash collection,” said Stuart, 54, of Fox Chapel. “Sometimes I think the outdoor community, we’re a bit selfish. We use the outdoor spaces, we go hiking, climbing and things. So when we can help clean things up and make things better we do our best to join in.”
Stuart is part of the Explorers Club of Pittsburgh, which organizes an annual Mt. Washington hillside clean-up with the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy and the Allegheny Mountain Rescue Group.
It makes a big difference, said Judith Koch, volunteer and landscape coordinator for the conservancy. She told a bundled crew of 40-plus experienced climbers to look toward the eastern end of Emerald View Park.
“Since you haven’t been there for three years, it looks really, really trashy," she said. "There is a lot of litter.”
Pickers alternate from year-to-year across opposing ends of Grandview, battling mid-Spring brush beneath one of Pittsburgh's most popular tourist destinations.
From a rappel, the climbers clip garbage bags to well-worn harnesses and navigate their way in pairs down the slope. They pluck water-logged beer cans, plastic bottles and shredded Styrofoam takeout containers from tangled branches and fallen tree limbs.
Plastic bags cling like seaweed to the shrubbery. They routinely find car batteries, hubcaps, small electronics and all manner of discarded or misplaced rubbish, Koch said.
“If anyone wants a real challenge, there is an old shopping cart that I’ve been trying to get out for years. If you can get it out ... I’ll buy you a coffee,” she said.
Volunteers this weekend removed 16 industrial-sized garbage bags of trash, 10 bags of recyclables, 70 pounds of metal, several yards of irrigation pipe and one wet, dirt-flecked $100 bill. Also, the shopping cart.
Ginette Walker Vinski, the explorers club's environmental chair, said that's a pretty typical haul.
John Zolko, 61, of Murrysville said he’s found sandbags stuck in trees, automotive supplies and once, a working Kindle. He didn’t spot anything like that Saturday, but when the club rappels beneath the observation decks, he said he always comes up with dozens of sun-bleached baby pacifiers.
“You never know what you’re going to find,” said Matt Evans, 36, of Shaler. He pointed to a sticky, silver Toshiba laptop and a couple of car batteries. “How does this stuff get down here?”
Matt Benson, 34, of Wexford joined with the search-and-rescue crew.
“It’s a great way to practice our rope skills and enjoy the day while doing something good for the community,” he said.
The endeavor requires a trio of legal waivers and warnings not to empty any full cans or bottles. Participants should look for – but never touch – medical syringes, and they use special grain and seed bags for added protection.
Nathan Brooks, 30, of Shadyside said he could be out there clearing shards of glass all day.
“Most trash, unfortunately these days, is plastic. And it’s very persistent. It doesn’t go away,” said Michael Carlin, who chairs the beautification committee for Neighbors on the Mount, which ran its own separate community clean-up on Saturday. “And the trouble with the garbage on Mt. Washington is, much of it is very difficult to get at. You can only go so far before you’re taking your life into your hands.”
Next year, the explorers group expects to take on the area beneath Grandview’s overlooks closer to the Monongahela Incline.
Kim Autore, 27, of Lawrenceville said she thinks it’s setting a good example. Neighbors out walking their dogs and enjoying the weather see the clean-up effort and consider their own complacency.
"They’re realizing even just picking up a little bit of trash here and there makes a big difference,” she said.
Matt Tolbert, 47, of Jefferson Hills said that spirit is “one of the things we’re just very proud of about Pittsburgh."
"What spoils it," he said, "is all the garbage.”
