Earth Day in McLaren Park: a nature walk in San Francisco

Golden Gate Park is world-famous, but even San Franciscans tend not to know our second-largest city park, expansive and wildlife-loving McLaren Park in the southeast part of the city, with 317 acres.

As I boarded a bus for the Earth Day festival, I had only the vaguest notion how to get to McLaren Park, let alone the festival site. Soon I noticed a pair of fellow-riders equipped with daypacks. Since the Muni #52 ends near the park, it wasn't too much of a stretch to ask if by chance they were headed that way. They said yes and offered to point me towards the festival. Naively I assumed that was where they too were going.

Disembarking on the north side of the park, we found a set of concrete stairs, and next to them, tucked under a bush, were various walking sticks.

My guides picked one each, and we set off into the park. The trail was less grand than Yosemite, but also much less crowded. Birds and butterflies were abundant. The trail led gently upward through a mixed forest, mostly non-native blue gums, Monterey cypress, and Monterey pine. The trees appeared more `natural', especially the cypress and the pine, because they were not trimmed as in our more populated parks, but broken and gangly. The cypress just dip or tip to the ground. The pines have sheered off broken branches reminiscent of a scary-movie set. The forest was intermixed with meadows.

My guides seemed a bit piqued that I had a destination, for they were carefree, out only for the hike and the nature around them. As we came within earshot of the festival with its musicians, my guides pointed me in the right direction and said, "So long." Off they went, so pure, out in perhaps San Francisco's best park, hiking with abandon and joy. What a way to celebrate Earth Day.

The festival had a lot to offer. There were booths on frogs, native plants, kids in parks, Gay and Lesbian Sierrans, etc. Lots of people were there, milling about or coming back from one of the many nature walks. My friend Barbara came up to me and offered to show me the nesting winter wren. Imagine nesting winter wrens next to a parking lot in a park surrounded by a large bustling city! There they were, almost performing for us, with their chestnut chests and turned up tails, bustling about carrying fresh insects to their nest. Not only birds, but butterflies also performed their spring rituals. Festival participants tallied 10 species that day: anise swallowtail, western tiger swallowtail, cabbage white, California ringlet, painted lady, West Coast lady, common buckeye, common checkered skipper, golden grass skipper, and fiery skipper.

With almost 800,000 inhabitants in just 49 square miles of land, San Francisco retains a remarkable amount of nature. We are almost surrounded by water, and much of the shoreline is parkland.

In addition, along the ridge that forms the center of our peninsula, the San Miguel Ridge, most of the hilltops are parks or other public open spaces: Corona Heights (where Gay and Lesbian Sierrans holds a monthly habitat-restoration work party), Kite Hill, Tank Hill, Mount Sutro, Twin Peaks, Hawk Hill, Edgehill Mountain, Mount Davidson (site of the San Francisco Group's monthly work party), and Brooks Park. The ridge actually continues south down to San Bruno Mountain, beyond the city's boundary. At the outer fringes of this ridge are other large open spaces, including McLaren Park.

A map of San Francisco shows the parks and, with luck, hilltops but is there a "San Miguel Ridge Trail"? Hardly. That's actually the best part of urban hiking: every hike can be a different route. As you pass from one favorite park to another, one day you'll walk a busy street with shops, another day you'll climb a set of steps, and yet another day you'll pass houses with gardens.

You can include side trips into the other open-space areas, each time figuring a new self-designed urban `trail'. You can construct loops and figure-eights, or with the help of Muni transit maps, one-way trips with a pleasant bus ride at start or finish.

Such urban hiking is great from the perspective of environmental justice: you don't need a private car to get to where the trail goes. No need for a driver's license, automobile insurance, or the mighty private internal-combustion engine itself.

Don't wait for the next Earth Day. Come visit these wildlands at the heart of San Francisco. You will find rich wildlife habitat. San Franciscans live just a walk or a bus ride from nature.

Pinky Kushner, vice chair, San Francisco Group