• 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
    • Bylaws
    • Neighborhood boundaries
    • Financials
    • GPA Meeting Minutes
  • News Stories
    • Glen Park News
    • Glen Park News archive
  • Greenway
    • About
    • Greenway Plan
  • GPA Grants Program
  • Crime & Safety
  • Contact
    • Contact
    • Volunteer Sign Ups
    • Event Submission
    • Author Submissions

Now’s the time for a walk in the park–New trail complete

March 2, 2013 by Elizabeth Weise

Completed stringer steps and platforms looking down from 120 feet atop the western slope in Glen Canyon. The stringer steps are the last portion of the Saddle Trail Project that began on January 16, 2013. The project is scheduled for completion in the first week of March 2013.
Completed stringer steps and platforms looking down from 120 feet atop the western slope in Glen Canyon. The stringer steps are the last portion of the Saddle Trail Project that began on January 16, 2013. The project is scheduled for completion in the first week of March 2013.

Story and photos by Murray Schneider

The Recreation and Park’s Natural Areas Program’s Saddle Trail Project that began on January 16 with the construction of 62 box steps along the canyon’s eastern slope was completed on March 1, after construction workers from Yerba Buena Construction Company spent the month of February building a series of narrower stringer steps that stretch along a western slope of Glen Canyon.

Christopher Campbell, a Rec and Parks Natural Area Program manager, inspected the stringer step construction work on February 20 more than halfway through that portion of the project. “Altogether, 26 steps have now been placed,” he said then. “Rain and the hardness of the chert slowed the work.”

A week later, on February 27, workers from Yerba Buena continued hauling materials up the work-in-progress.

Two days afterward, on March 1, the entire project was completed, ready for Glen Canyon Park day-trippers to enjoy. “This is an incredibly rocky hillside,” said Mike Hawley, a 30-year veteran working construction.

Hawley pointed to a worker below him slinging a sledgehammer and another wrestling a bucking jackhammer. Hawley hails from Yosemite where he has decades of experience building mountain steps. “This is a steep slope and these guys did great work.”

Hawley Walker     The earlier Saddle Trail Project component had positioned 62 box steps on the eastern canyon slope, which now allow hikers to ascend from the Willow Loop Trail to a series of switchbacks that punctuate two chert outcroppings 120 feet from the canyon floor.

The 62 box steps, some weighing as much as 135 pounds, end at a 120-foot canyon crest, which then morph into switchbacks that thread through two chert rock outcroppings. The stringer steps are the last leg of the journey, descending from the switchbacks.

Steve Walker, Hawley’s Yerba Buena co-worker, joined Hawley at the top of the narrow stringer steps on February 27. “This is second nature to us,” Walker said. “There will be 70 stringer steps when all is said and done.”

Funded by a $157,000, 2008 California Department of Parks and Recreation Habitat Conservation Fund Grant, the Rec and Parks’ Natural Areas Program project is designed to prevent erosion and increase recreational access to Glen Park’s 70-acre canyon.

Lisa Wayne, manager of the Natural Areas Program, wrote the grant that is consistent with the NAP land management mission, which seeks to protect Glen Canyon’s arboreal, plant, grass and riparian habitats.

The Saddle Trail Project is the third leg of the Wayne-written grant, which late last year funded sediment removal along Islais Creek and removal of invasive Cape ivy along a trail that leads to Diamond Height’s Turquoise Way.

Well over 400 habitat friendly California native plants complement the 62 box steps, put in place on January 19. Volunteers from Friends of Glen Canyon Park planted 50 of these plants. The coyote mint, silk tassel, coyote brush and California sage that embroider the hillside go hand-in-hand with the adjacent native grasses, which provide sanctuary and sustenance for canyon animals, birds and insects.

“We wanted to mirror canyon plants and plant composition,” said Christopher Campbell, a week after volunteers Ken and Monika Lewis and Kathy Velykis planted the shrubbery.

The rock bed housing the stringer steps is chert, the same geological formation that makes up the two outcroppings bookending the saddle. Canyon amblers had access to the completed box step portion of project since January 23. On February 6, the western slope was cordoned off by fencing and caution tape so Yerba Buena laborers could commence with stringer steps work.

The Saddle Trail Project should not be confused with the 2008 Glen Park Renovation Project, which is scheduled for completion in November 2013 and funded by the 2008 Clean and Safe Neighborhood Parks Bond. The same day that Mike Hawley and Steve Walker shouldered rebar up the stringer steps, workers paralleling Elk Street at the front of the canyon hauled debris from where tennis courts stood only weeks before.

Standing half way up the western slope a week before March 1, surrounded by hammers, shovels, electrical cord, buckets and jackhammers, Christopher Campbell surveyed what had already been accomplished. He watched several day hikers crest the hill, negotiating the switchbacks that themselves will eventually be feathered with California native plants and shrubs, enriching further the park experience for everyone.

“It’s about access as well as erosion control,” Campbell said. “These steps improve access.”

Two days before the project’s completion, Mike Hawley pronounced them good.  “These steps will outlast us all.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Primary Sidebar

IMPORTANT UPCOMING DATES

Arlington Path Beautification
Saturday, July 19, 10 a.m. to noon
Meet at 300 Mateo (x Arlington) for an exciting day of weeding, watering, seed collecting.
Tools, gloves and good company provided.


2025 Glen Park Night Market poster


 


Monthly cleanup on the Greenway
First Saturday of the Month (usually)
Click here to learn more


Friends of Glen Canyon’s
Glen Canyon Habitat Restoration
Every third Saturday 9:30 a.m to noon
Sign up here

Subscribe to this Newsletter

Sign Up for Glen Park Association News Updates:

* indicates required

Check It Out at the Glen Park Library

Click the above button or here to see all upcoming Glen Park Branch Library events. Subscribe to the Glen Park Library monthly newsletter to get events highlights in your inbox.

Glen Park Rec Center

Glen Canyon Park sign
Click the above button or here to see
the latest Glen Park Rec Center schedule.



Saturdays 3-4:45 p.m.
Questions? Call 415-239-4007


 

Renew Your Glen Park Association Membership for 2025

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 Association Advertising Sponsors

JE_Digital Small Space Ad
Diamond Heights Digital Ad
GPA Ad- Perez Construction ad 6.27.22 v Glen Park
moroco
Center for Creative Exploration - adult
JE_Digital Small Space Ad
Diamond Heights Digital Ad
GPA Ad- Perez Construction ad 6.27.22 v Glen Park
moroco
Center for Creative Exploration - adult
previous arrow
next arrow
Shadow

Current Weather & Air Quality

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 is at Glen Park Greenway.
11 hours ago
Glen Park Association

More people are discovering our Glen Park Greenway to Glen Canyon Park!

#glenparkgreenway #glenparksf #sanfrancisco #takeawalk #walk #hike #urban #urbanexplorer #crosstowntrail
... See MoreSee Less

More people are discovering our Glen Park Greenway to Glen Canyon Park!

#glenparkgreenway #glenparksf #sanfrancisco #takeawalk  #walk #hike #urban #urbanexplorer #crosstowntrail
View on Facebook
· Share
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email
View Comments
  • likes 2
  • Shares: 0
  • Comments: 0

0 CommentsComment on Facebook

Glen Park Association is at Glen Park Greenway.
5 days ago
Glen Park Association

Saturday’s Glen Park Greenway Work Party is Cancelled.

“I’m very sorry to say that
we have cancelled our Work Party for this Saturday July 12, along with all organized volunteer activity on the Greenway until further notice.
As you may have read in the news, our fiscal sponsor, San Francisco Parks Alliance (SFPA), has shut itself down. Just as SFPA has shut itself down, the Greenway, as an organized part of SFPA, has also been “shut down.” We are busy looking for a suitable alternative fiscal sponsor that is willing to replace SFPA. That search is going well but it is a slow process. We had hoped to find temporary ways to enable the Greenway project to function responsibly as a community activity without a fiscal sponsor. Sadly, despite our best efforts and the help of many others in Glen Park, we have failed. That is why we must cancel our Saturday Work Party and discontinue future work parties and other organized volunteer activity on the Greenway (like weeding and watering) until further notice. We recognize that the Greenway is public open space and that the organizers of the Greenway project have no control over the activities of you or of anyone else on the Greenway. However, if you do venture onto the Greenway to satisfy your urge for outdoor recreation, please be aware that your activity is not in any way organized or sanctioned by the organizers of the Glen Park Greenway project. I’m well aware of the efforts that many of the
Greenway’s supporters are making to get the Greenway organized with a new fiscal sponsor and I’m confident that this will be arranged within weeks or perhaps a few months.
However long it takes, I will contact you with news of our progress.
Many thanks for all that you do for the Greenway.”

Nicholas Dewar, volunteer Project Director

#glenparkgreenway #glenparksf #sanfrancisco @rafaelmandelmand8 @danielluriesf @crosstowntrail
#crosstowntrail #sfparksalliance #publicspace #nature
... See MoreSee Less

Play
View on Facebook
· Share
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email
View Comments
  • likes love sad 8
  • Shares: 0
  • Comments: 1

1 CommentComment on Facebook

Wonder what’s stopping just organizing it separate from that non-profit. It seems like the volunteers largely come from Glen Park.

Blog Roll

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

Copyright © 2025 · Metro Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in