East Bay Trails. David Weintraub
system in the 1830s did nothing to improve conditions for the remaining native people; instead many of them became serfs and slaves on the new Mexican ranchos. When the cry of “Gold!” echoed from the Sierra foothills in 1848, what had been a trickle of immigration to California from the United States and other countries turned into a flood. During the Gold Rush, newcomers used dubious means to seize many of the ranchos, and then relied on Indians serfs and slaves to work the land. When California entered the Union in 1850, the California legislature initially denied its native people citizenship.
Despite hardship, disease, and efforts to exterminate them, the East Bay’s Indians clung to their cultural and spiritual values, and today Ohlone descendants work to keep alive their history, culture, religion, and language. You can learn more about this fascinating aspect of the East Bay by visiting Coyote Hills Regional Park, where there are displays, information, and interpretive programs about the Ohlone people, some presented by Ohlone descendants themselves.
East Bay Regional Park District
The agency responsible for overseeing most of the open space in the East Bay is the East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD), governed by a publicly elected board of directors and headquartered in Oakland. With more than 95,000 acres of land under its jurisdiction, EBRPD administers 65 regional parklands and about 1150 miles of trails, including 29 regional inter-park trails. This extensive network of parks and trails, which has put regional park areas within 15 to 30 minutes of each and every resident of Alameda and Contra Costa County, had its genesis in 1928, when the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) completed its consolidation of local water systems and declared surplus approximately 10,000 acres of former watershed land.
But the true beginning of the regional park system goes back another 60 years or so, to a suggestion by Frederick Law Olmsted, famed designer of New York’s Central Park, that “scenic lanes” be constructed in the Oakland and Berkeley Hills. In the years following the Civil War, however, the Bay Area was experiencing rapid growth, and Olmsted’s was an idea whose time had not yet come. After the turn of the century, two prominent city planners, Charles Mulford Robinson and Werner Hegemann, each called for the creation of East Bay parklands, but they too were ignored.
It took the threat of development—EBMUD’s 10,000 acres were up for grabs—to get the ball rolling. Prominent citizens like Robert Sibley, executive manager of the University of California Alumni Association, joined with outdoor groups like the Sierra Club to petition EBMUD to preserve its surplus land and open it to the public for recreation, but the District refused. In 1930, the landscape architecture firm Olmsted Brothers—run by the sons of Frederick Law Olmsted—and Ansel F. Hall of the National Park Service were hired to produce a survey of possible East Bay parks. Their 41-page report was far-sighted: It emphasized preserving easily accessible land for a variety of uses.
The Miwok Trail at Round Valley Regional Preserve traverses oak-studded hillsides where wildflowers bloom.
Supporters of parklands, now banded together in the East Bay Regional Park Association, used the Olmsted-Hall report to again petition EBMUD to open its surplus lands. When the District declined, the East Bay Regional Park Association called for the formation of a regional park district, unprecedented at the time, to include parklands in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. State Assemblyman Frank K. Mott, a former mayor of Oakland, drafted AB 1114, which was passed and signed into law in 1933, to authorizing the establishment in California of regional park districts, a new concept.
The next step, under California law, was to get approval from the voters in nine East Bay cities—Alameda, Albany, Berkeley, El Cerrito, Emeryville, Oakland, Piedmont, Richmond, and San Leandro—who would have to pay for the new parks. In response, some 14,000 people signed an initiative petition placing a measure on the November 1934 ballot to approve an East Bay Regional Park District, elect its board, and assess property owners five cents per $100, not an inconsiderable sum during the Depression, to pay for it all.
Now the plan hit a roadblock: the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors decided against sanctioning the initiative, causing the cities of El Cerrito and Richmond to withdraw from the proposed district. The Supervisors were responding to concerns of farmers in the mostly rural county who did not see the need for additional taxes to acquire parklands when there was plenty of remaining open space at their doorsteps. The Supervisors were also concerned about taking too much land off the tax rolls, and there was sentiment in the county against creating a new tax-and-spend agency with broad powers. So voters in the remaining seven cities—all in Alameda County—would have to support the initiative on their own. (It was not until 1964 that most of Contra Costa County was annexed to the East Bay Regional Park District, and it was in 1981 that the remaining part of the county joined.)
Although it was approved by a more than two-to-one majority, the East Bay Regional Park District still had no land, and it took more than a year and a half of negotiating with EBMUD to make the first purchase. But on October 18, 1936, opening ceremonies were held to dedicate three new regional parks: Wildcat Canyon (now Tilden Regional Park), Roundtop (now Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve), and Lake Temescal. New Deal agencies—the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and the Public Works Administration (PWA)—contributed money and workers to the District for projects that included the construction of parts of Skyline Blvd. and the administration building at Lake Temescal.
Next came the acquisition of Redwood Regional Park in 1939, and after World War II, Grass Valley (now Anthony Chabot Regional Park) in 1952. The 1960s brought a tremendous increase in EBRPD land acquisition under the leadership of William Penn Mott, Jr., including Briones and Coyote Hills regional parks, and Las Trampas and Sunol wildernesses. Mott, a former Oakland Superintendent of Parks, was the District’s general manager from 1962 to 1967, and later went on to become director of California’s Department of Parks and Recreation and then head of the National Park Service. Mott Peak in Briones Regional Park is named in his honor.
Attention turned in the 1970s to the shores of San Francisco Bay, which were losing open space and salt-marsh habitat at an alarming rate. The District responded by acquiring land for Point Pinole, Miller/Knox, Hayward, San Leandro Bay (now Martin Luther King, Jr.), and other regional shorelines. At the same time, inland parks such as Mission Peak, Morgan Territory, and Black Diamond Mines regional preserves were being developed. A system of regional inter-park trails, including the East Bay Skyline National Recreation Trail, was conceived at this time; many of the trails are in place now, with more to be developed in the years to come.
The twenty-first century will undoubtedly see a steady increase in the East Bay’s population, along with an increased demand for accessible outdoor recreation. Future District plans call for continued parkland acquisition and the improvement of existing park facilities. Other priorities include working to complete the planning of Eastshore State Park, creation of an environmental education camp for students at Arroyo Del Valle, and the continued development of programs to increase public awareness of the regional parks system.
Comfort, Safety, and Etiquette
Most of the trips in this book can be enjoyed with a minimum of preparation and equipment, calling for nothing more than sturdy footwear and plenty of water. Probably the biggest safety concern is driving around the Bay Area. And trail etiquette means simply being considerate of others and picking up after yourself (and your pet). However, the more detailed information that follows may enhance your outdoor experience.
Preparation and Equipment
A little common sense goes a long way when preparing for the outdoors. Be realistic about your level of physical conditioning—there are trips in this book to suit all abilities. None of the routes require anything more complicated than putting one foot in front of the other. Some, however, require you to do this for several hours or more, uphill and down. In addition to terrain, weather conditions such as heat, cold, and wind, can affect individual performance.
Although hiking is a “low-tech” sport, requiring little in the way of equipment, a pair of sturdy, well-fitting boots will increase your enjoyment and help prevent sore feet and mishaps like a fall or a twisted ankle. Today’s