• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

The Glen Park Association

Up-to-the-minute news from Glen Park

  • Home
  • Glen Park Association
    • About the Glen Park Association
    • Join the GPA
    • GPA Board Contacts
    • GPA Meeting Minutes
    • Bylaws
    • Neighborhood boundaries
  • News Stories
    • Glen Park News
    • Editor’s Picks
  • Greenway
    • About
    • Greenway Plan
  • GPA Grants Program
  • Crime & Safety
  • Contact
    • Contact
    • Volunteer Sign Ups
    • Event Submission
    • Author Submissions

Glen Canyon trail improvements coming along

December 15, 2014 by Elizabeth Weise

photo

Story and photos by Murray Schneider

The Recreation and Park Department’s 15-month Glen Canyon Trails Improvement Project is expected to be completed in early 2015.

Work crews soon will maneuver their last Bobcat earth mover along Alms Road, exiting San Francisco’s 70-acre natural area, leaving in their wake freshly minted recreational trails built with scores of sturdy box steps.

photo 1As recently as December 10, Yerba Buena Engineering & Construction workers fashioned straw berms along Islais Creek banks, designed to prevent mudslides impinging on their work as they anticipated the next day’s deluge.

photo 1-1Funded by the 2008 Clean and Safe Neighborhood Parks Bond to the tune of $900,000, the project was supported with two additional grants totaling $320,587. More financing came from the 2013 Habitat Conservation Fund in the amount of $130,000.

photo 2Recreation and Park’s Glen Canyon Trails Project, which was planned over several years during 12-different community meetings, also removed hazardous trees, improved drainage, conducted sediment basin repair, and updated Americans for Disability Act (ADA)) access between Bosworth Street and Silver Tree camp-Glenridge nursery school.

photo 2-1Glen Canyon strollers, dog-walkers, summer campers, nursery school children and their parents will now enjoy improved pedestrian access in a sanctuary removed from the city’s urban bustle. Along trails named Gum Tree Girls, Islias Creek and Coyote Crags, they can continue observing coyotes, red-tailed hawks, great horned owls and white-crowned sparrows.

photo-1“The canyon trail work is great and it’ll benefit the young and old, joggers and walkers,” said Jim Hanratty, a Friends of Glen Canyon Park volunteer, and who lives on the first block of Stillings Avenue. “There’s a little something for everyone.”

Winding through a variety of habitats, from riparian willow to rocky grass and scrublands on the canyon’s steep eastern slope, recreational walkers can negotiate a path from Elk Street to Christopher Playground.

photo-2It was possible to do so before construction began in October 2013, but now, assisted by durable box and stringer steps, hikers have a reduced fear of faltering or straying off trail, which in past years contributed to erosion and endangered sensitive habitat areas.

Taking advantage of three new stream crossings, canyon users of all ages can now better take in several Islais Creek restoration refuges. While protected by new retaining walls and split-rail fencing, hikers can observe Franciscan chert outcrops and eucalyptus and redwood trees, each of which borders either the east or west side of one of San Francisco’s two remaining above ground running creeks.

photo-4What caps the project, though, is a final 300-yard segment of trail mosaic.

Yet to be constructed is a path that will be the length of three football fields, which will eventually switchback through San Francisco Unified School District property and add the last link to Recreation and Park’s Creeks to Peaks trail vision.

With the project in mind, Phil Ginsburg, General Manager of Recreation and Park weighed in:

“The Creeks to Peaks trail project is a model trail system. It provides easy public access to a natural oasis in an urban environment.”

Seeded with $85,000, Creeks to Peaks is a featured project of the San Francisco Park Alliance, which held a gala dinner in September at the Randall Museum to trumpet Recreation and Park’s greenway centerpiece.

When completed walkers will be able to dogleg west of stanchion-built Turquoise Way houses, step over a freshly-built Islais Creek stream crossing and, following interpretative and wayfinding signage, strike a path to Portola Drive. Utilizing this green-belt throughway, walkers never again need suffer exhaust fumes from cars along O’Shaughnessy Boulevard.

Heading north, leaving the School of the Arts behind them, hikers can cross the heavily trafficked street at Glenview Drive and continue up an uninterrupted stretch that leads to Twin Peaks.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Primary Sidebar

IMPORTANT UPCOMING DATES

February 4th, 2023
9:00 AM
Details Here
 

Renew Your Glen Park Association Membership for 2023

Join the Glen Park Association and help promote our community’s interests. Together, we can secure improvement funds, publicize neighborhood concerns and strive to speak as one voice on neighborhood and city issues.

Membership in the Glen Park Association is only $10 annually and can be purchased online.

Glen Park Rec. Center

Glen Park Association Advertising Sponsors

JE_Digital Small Space Ad
GPA Ad- Perez Construction ad 6.27.22 v Glen Park
martin
moroco
JE_Digital Small Space Ad
GPA Ad- Perez Construction ad 6.27.22 v Glen Park
martin
moroco
previous arrow
next arrow
Shadow

Current Weather & Air Quality

Subscribe to the blog

Sign Up for Glen Park Association News Updates

* indicates required

Glen Park featured on…

FacebookSF ChronInstagramTwitter

Join the Glen Park Association on Facebook

Comments Box SVG iconsUsed for the like, share, comment, and reaction icons
Glen Park Association
2 weeks ago
Glen Park Association

Meet one of the Greenway’s most diligent volunteers -- A Townsend Warbler as far as Google knows. Progress in removing invasive oxalis is going well, but work remains! As the sun comes out, please join us at the Glen Park Greenway Native Meadow (between Lippard and Brompton Streets) to carefully remove invasive oxalis plants. Email our oxalis remediation lead, Kathy Keller at greenway@glenparkassociation.org if you can help! ... See MoreSee Less

Meet one of the Greenway’s most diligent volunteers -- A Townsend Warbler as far as Google knows. Progress in removing invasive oxalis is going well, but work remains! As the sun comes out, please join us at the Glen Park Greenway Native Meadow (between Lippard and Brompton Streets) to carefully remove invasive oxalis plants. Email our oxalis remediation lead, Kathy Keller at greenway@glenparkassociation.org if you can help!
View on Facebook
· Share
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email
View Comments
  • Likes: 3
  • Shares: 0
  • Comments: 0

Comment on Facebook

Glen Park Association
2 weeks ago
Glen Park Association

Join us THURSDAY JANUARY 19 at the Glen Park Association Quarterly meeting. We'll be in-person at the Glen Park Rec. Center at 6:30 PM. Our agenda includes:

-- A special presentation from QuitCarbon,
-- Meeting the new owners of @canyonmarket ,
-- Learning more about projects at @sfrecpark & @sfpublichealth, and
-- Electing 2023 GPA officers.

Have you renewed your membership for 2023 yet? Help keep our neighborhood vital by joining today at www.glenparkassociation.org/glen-park-association-membership/
... See MoreSee Less

Join us THURSDAY JANUARY 19 at the Glen Park Association Quarterly meeting. Well be in-person at the Glen Park Rec. Center at 6:30 PM. Our agenda includes:

-- A special presentation from QuitCarbon, 
-- Meeting the new owners of @canyonmarket , 
-- Learning more about projects at @sfrecpark  & @sfpublichealth, and
-- Electing 2023 GPA officers.

Have you renewed your membership for 2023 yet? Help keep our neighborhood vital by joining today at https://www.glenparkassociation.org/glen-park-association-membership/
View on Facebook
· Share
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email
View Comments
  • Likes: 4
  • Shares: 0
  • Comments: 0

Comment on Facebook

Blog Roll

Coyote Yipps
Friends of Noe Valley Rec Center
Glen Park Neighborhoods History Project
Open SF History
Sunnyside Conservatory
Sunnyside History
Sunnyside Neighborhood Association
Tramps of San Francisco
Upper Noe Neighbors

Copyright © 2023 · Metro Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in