A wonderland FOR wanderers
Link by link, the stunning San Francisco Bay Trail surrounds us
Ten years ago, Kurt Schwabe was walking his dog in Marin, when he came across a sign for the San Francisco Bay Trail. So he went home and Googled it.
“I wanted a project, one that would mean something,” says Schwabe, a marketing manager in San Francisco, who was unemployed at the time. “I had just finished reading Cheryl Strayed’s book ‘Wild,’ where she (wrote about doing) the whole Pacific Crest Trail. This seemed like something that was more manageable.”
Schwabe decided he would hike the Bay Trail. And he did — over the course of 30 consecutive days. He headed out early each morning to walk the shorelines of the San Francisco and San Pablo bays and returned home at night on public transportation to reduce his carbon footprint.
“I was always totally in the moment, not thinking about yesterday or tomorrow or even five minutes ahead,” he recalls. “I ended up noticing things I otherwise would have missed, like an owl and her owlet in a tree in Coyote Hills or a deer several yards down a steep, tree-studded hillside nestled in a thicket with her fawn. When I finished the trek, I was in a great space mentally.”
Schwabe is one of the rare few who can claim to have explored the near-entirety of the Bay Trail, which measures more than 350 miles from San Jose up to Marin and Napa down to the East Bay. Along the way, it skirts the waterline from Crockett and Rodeo to Emeryville, Fremont, Mountain View and more. Future adventurers will have a bit farther to explore. When it’s eventually completed, the trail will mirror the Proclaimers song and allow people to walk (or bike) 500 miles through nine counties, 47 cities, more than 130 parks and seven toll bridges.
The trail beckons you to places you might never otherwise experience. There are moody wetlands bristling with pickleweed, rocky cliffs cloaked in updrafts of iridescent sea spray, habitats for Pacific harbor seals and elusive, gem-colored garter snakes. History lovers can appreciate its grand World War II battleships and Chinese fishing settlements, while urban nerds might monitor operations at major airports and shipping yards and stand atop the Golden Gate Bridge itself.
All together, the trail’s an impressive human
ent — though early on, ay have seemed insane. Western settlers came the Gold Rush and
, they primarily saw the s bug-infested swampwanted to stay away where they established nd was essentially a p to move not-so-nice away from where cities g built,” says Lee Huo, a nner at the Metropoliportation Commission, rdinates the develophe trail. eology began to change 0s. “A bunch of activists y who helped create Save which still exists as a — essentially said, ‘Wait The Bay is this resource, we all live around. It’s me here in the first we shouldn’t be looking lace to build on.’” ressured state legislators the 1965 Mcateer-petris h essentially dictate shoreline belongs ody and shouldn’t be ss necessary. That was n the 1980s by Sen0, calling for a bicy-hiking path circling the of the bays, meant for reation and for linking ties together. here came the 1989 plan y Trail, which at that asured about 120 miles. cant growth over the decades has come in ary ways: when public ake the initiative to install new stretches or when developers are obliged to build sections in order to get permits.
There’s always work being done on the trail’s spine. But there are also smaller connections growing through new communities, making the whole thing more rich and comprehensive. The slow and piecemeal linkage is traced out in a massive, cross-governmental spreadsheet with entries like, “Burlingame — Slough crossing near gas station,” “Tiburon — access to Blackie’s Pasture,” “Mountain View — Stevens Creek Trail” and “Proposed — Bay Bridge West Span.”
So what’s the best way to experience this ever-evolving wonder?
“Here’s what I would do,” says Schwabe. “I would look at a map of the Bay Area and find an area you’re totally unfamiliar with, maybe Pinole or Alviso or even West Oakland, and I would go there. I would walk around and learn something new about the cultures and what we have to offer out there.”
Carry plenty of water and snacks and perhaps an official set of Bay Trail map cards sold by retailers such as San Francisco’s Museum of Craft and Design as well as the mtc.ca.gov site (just search “map cards”). And if you plan to go hardcore like Schwabe did, consider your choice of footwear wisely.
“I started out with my running shoes and then about halfway through, my arches were ready to collapse,” he says. “I thought, ‘My god, I’m severely injured!’ and realized I’d been walking 150 miles with no support. So I switched to North Face hiking boots and, with no injury, was able to finish it off.”
Here are 10 of our favorite stretches along the Bay Trail, plus tips on where to grab a bite afterward.
The marshlands of Coyote Hills FREMONT
It’s easy to momentarily lose your sense of time or even place on the Bay View Trail in Fremont’s Coyote Hills Regional Park. After January’s winter storms, the hills on one side of the trail ar keted with emerald-gree punctuated by craggy re On the other side, surpri clear, blue-green water ri a former salt pond stretc out into the Bay. It’s a wo from the office parks, str and subdivisions of Frem Newark.
The 1,266-acre park, d in 1967, is notable for its treeless hills — part of an range — that suddenly ri amid the flat expanse of and the Bay. The park dr ers, joggers, bikers and b ers to its network of well trails, including the Bay Alameda Creek and Apay are part of the Bay Trail.
and marshlands, climb of Red Hill and venture evees built around ration ponds once ine salt from the Bay. an also view sites once he Tuibun, a Chochen-speaking tribe, who re for 2,000 years before l of Spanish missionaries.
3.5-mile loop starts at the r and winds up and around the he hills. On the western side, rs great shoreline views and en longer trails, including the ek and No Name trails, which evees to the Shoreline Trail in s San Francisco Bay National uge.
The 19th-century waterfront SAN FRANCISCO
This fascinating walk is like taking a distilled shot of Bay history — straight, no chaser. Begin just outside the sea lion-crowded waters of Hyde Street Pier at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. Here you might think you tripped into a wormhole to the 1800s, with the square-rigger Balclutha and other historic ships lined up for public touring. A visitors center holds a pirate’s bounty of artifacts, from remnants of local wrecks and a lighthouse Fresnel lens to pictorials showing how sailors slept underneath wood-plank sidewalks (the housing market was tough even back then).
Across the street, you might spot a drenched-looking individual exiting the South End Rowing Club, which has popularized recreation in these frigid waters since 1873. Pay a small day-use fee, and you can step inside the hallowed club to ogle its boats, enjoy the sauna and listen to athlet swimming to Alcatraz Isl ry Hunt has made that jo times. “That’s nothing,” s on a recent afternoon. “T four or five people who’v over a thousand times. T is chump change.” (Now’s time to mention the club’ “No sniveling.”)
Alcatraz is front-and-c in the crescent-shaped sc Aquatic Park. Look down tide for a weirder view: S of the seaweed-carpeted on the waterfront are act grave markers. San Franc expansion required a lot material, and tombstone the Gold Rush occasiona bill. A narrow staircase j leads to a secret-feeling c by Fort Mason, where sh mustered for America’s c pursuits. The old Black P lery fortification with its cannon is pointed out to waiting to rain hell on th and Confederates.
From here, it’s a two-m to Crissy Field with its fa Bay views. But an equall sive experience can be fo Marina Green, where lus unrolls like a landing str ed at the Golden Gate Br a fine place to take a bre enjoy a snack and think