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McLaren Park, a Bit of Feral Wildness in San Francisco
by Ann Sieck — published April 01, 2010
Draped over a cluster of hills in southeast San Francisco, 317-acre McLaren Park has plenty of civilized features--just about everything you could want in a city park--amid swaths of feral wilderness: "unimproved" meadows where blue-eyed grass, brodiaea, and buttercups bloom; coyote brush thickets active with juncos; stands of eucalyptus, pine, and cypress, all easily accessible by bus or bike. It's crisscrossed by more than seven miles of root-rumpled asphalt paths and dirt tracks, a retreat for picnickers, walkers, runners, and amiable fleets of off-leash dogs.
The less-traveled paths are to the south, but most efforts to restore riparian habitat are north of Mansell Avenue, where there are picnic tables on mowed grass and two landscaped ponds much enjoyed by ducks and the aforementioned dogs. Hills rising 400 feet above the city offer memorable views, but even on a morning when dense fog made the park's topography truly bewildering, we found delights: healthy plantings of ceanothus and monkeyflower and, near Cambridge Street, a small unnamed pond fenced to exclude dogs, where black phoebes darted above reedy shallows and two hooded mergansers glided behind a willow-grown island.
Getting there
From Balboa BART station, take Muni bus 29 to Mansell Avenue at Shelley Drive. Or by car, park in lots on Shelley. Some maps don't show the park's true borders; satellite photos give a better idea.
Ann Sieck, a semiretired teacher, has lived in Berkeley most of her life. Wheelchairtrails.net, her website, provides trail reviews focused on accessibility.
This article is part of our "On the Trail" series, which highlights a particular park or trail you can visit.
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