When, in 2008, Betty Olds retired from serving District 6 on the Berkeley City Council after 16 years, the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that the council “will lose its crankiest, wittiest, and often most rational member.” Six years later, the path that connects Sterling and Whitaker avenues in North Berkeley (previously known as Twain Path, #68 on the BPWA map) was renamed the Betty Olds Path in her honor. The children’s room at the North Branch of the Berkeley Public Library also bears her name.
On the easternmost edge of Berkeley, close to the border with Tilden Park, wanderers will find Scott Newhall Path following the contour of Hill Road. To younger walkers, this name will probably mean nothing. But to anyone who was living in the Bay Area in the ‘60s and ‘70s, it will ring a deeply familiar bell.
Like Berkeley, the Kensington community just to the north has a set of walking paths, created when the area was subdivided in 1910. But while Berkeley’s paths are owned by the city, due to an historic anomaly Kensington’s paths are not officially publicly owned.
Berkeley’s paths and stairways take walkers along some of the city’s prettiest neighborhoods and streets. But there’s one that might well surpass all the others in terms of history and architectural interest: If you’re looking for a path to share with visitors to demonstrate the richness of Berkeley’s culture, look no further than Rose Walk.
Indian Rock is one of many volcanic rhyolite rock outcroppings found across the Bay Area that are estimated to have occurred between nine and eleven million years ago. Anyone who has climbed the steep steps in its face has also seen the depressions of mortar holes still evident here, especially in the aptly named Mortar Rock, where the Ohlone people used the bedrock as a grinding surface for food and medicine.
On the south slope of Claremont Canyon above the Claremont Hotel, lies one of the best-kept secrets in the Berkeley-Oakland Hills: Garber Park. This 13-acre City of Oakland wildland park has significant stands of big leaf maple, California buckeyes, regenerating coast live oak, and the typical understory found in woodland forests. Harwood Creek meanders through it in winter and spring.
Our newest path will also have a new name. Completed this fall, Keeler Walk (#32 on our map) soon will be christened John Muir Path. It is the 34th path that BPWA volunteers have built with wood timbers and connects Grizzly Peak Blvd. and Creston Rd., midway between the end of Euclid and Marin Aves.
Our newest path will also have a new name. Completed this fall, Keeler Walk (#32 on our map) soon will be christened John Muir Path. It is the 34th path that BPWA volunteers have built with wood timbers and connects Grizzly Peak Blvd. and Creston Rd., midway between the end of Euclid and Marin Aves.
Stepping across the seasonal creek on Lower Covert Path just got a bit easier.
In October 2017, a small group of Path Wanderers volunteers met to install a wooden bridge across the creek gulch just above Keith Avenue. Like most local creek crossings, it’s not flowing water that gets in the way; it’s the deep channel needed to accommodate peak flow that challenges walkers.
When Francesca Verdier clicked volunteer on our website a year ago, it was a lucky day for Berkeley’s walkers. She brought to BPWA her passion for building trails and six years of varied experience volunteering on weekends in parks all over Northern California.
