Save the Trees of Glen Canyon Park, San Francisco

One of the many new staircases in Glen Canyon

The ‘Trails’ project, used as an excuse to remove over 30 trees, is well under way in Glen Canyon. The hillside is getting covered with staircases. Earlier, there were gradual sloped trails, punctuated with short sections of shallow steps. Now, there are wooden box steps, installed at considerable expense, supposed to make access easier.

If you happen to be one of the lucky people with a lot of stamina and a stride that matches the pitch of the steps, that may actually be true. But people we spoke to find they’re tiring and hard on the knees. Instead of being able to determine your own step length, it’s determined for you by the staircases.

As someone said as a comment on the SFForest.org website on an article about Glen Canyon:

‘The Escher print is EXACTLY how all those stairs in Glen Canyon strike me. EVERYONE is complaining about them: that all those stairs hurt their knees, or that it’s so much more difficult to walk now, that the magical “wild” has been too tamed, that it no longer is a natural place, but a gardened place with sidewalks. Those who don’t seem to mind all the stairs are young folks who run with earphones plugged into their ears, oblivious to everything that’s around them — they use the park as their outdoor “stair master” checking their timings on their iPhones at the top of the stairs. Even some of the construction workers told me that the number of stairs was “crazy” — that it was obvious that RPD had “money to burn”.’

Here’s the article ‘Glen Canyon with Stairs and Coyote’ from the sfforest.org website, being republished here.

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This is one of our “park visitor” series – first person accounts of our parks, published with permission.

Source: Wikipedia (fair use)

It was dusk when I climbed down into Glen Canyon from the Christopher Playground. It’s been some months since I visited it last, and I was saddened by the changes stemming from SF Recreation and Parks “trails” project.

All the hillside trails have been made into staircases. It reminded me of a drawing by Escher: they’re nearly as as difficult to walk. The risers of the box steps are high and the pitch not suited to everyone. Tiring and hard on the knees, and so it will effectively restrict access to many people.

COYOTE…

But then a coyote came out of the bushes. I was delighted, though not surprised. Coyotes inhabit most of the city now, and the park has coyote-spotting signs up at the Christopher playground. But what followed was a surprise (to me, anyway!)

The park is surrounded by urban areas, and an emergency vehicle was racing by on the street above, siren wailing. “Watch,” said my companion. “He’s going to howl with the siren.” And sure enough – the little coyote raised his muzzle to the sky, gave a few barks, and then howled along with the siren.

I managed to get a blurry photograph. A few dogs from nearby homes responded with a woof or two, but they weren’t serious. The siren-coyote duet continued until the vehicle raced away and the sound faded. The coyote sat down, convinced, I thought, that it had told off the intruder into its territory and announced who really occupied this space.

The dusk deepened, and this magical moment was broken by flights of mosquitoes. I’ve been to Glen Canyon many times over many years, and these are a new thing for me. Wonder if it’s anything to do with the Islais Creek – and the felling of the bat trees.

Trail work has been racing ahead in Glen Canyon. Today, we were visiting the area just below the Christopher Playground.  There’s a new trail now. (Number 2 in the picture below.) It runs above a shallow drainage channel (Number 3) and the trail that runs along it (4), which will presumably be closed since the two trails connect the same points.  Another shallow drainage channel (1) that carried rainwater run-off into Islais Creek – and also functioned as a trail –  is being closed and planted over.

Except. There’s a reason that the drainage channels exist. And a reason the trail was on the downhill side of the channel. Channel 3 caught the water running off the hill and kept trail 4 dry on rainy days.

The new trail has got seeps all along it, making it muddy even on a dry day like yesterday. It’s catching the same runoff, but it’s not a channel. It looks like this.

The drainage channel – shrouded in black net for some unknown reason – is full of standing water.

We have no idea what it’s doing to the stability of the hillside, but luckily there are no homes in that vicinity. We hope the blocking of the drainage channel (1) isn’t having a negative impact, but we won’t know until a year of heavy winter rains. Where will the water go then? Wherever it wants.

Here’s what the drainage channel and path looked like three years ago, in February 2011. We can’t see what was objectionable about it and required a new trail that essentially connected the same points.

Here’s what the whole scene looked like in February 2011.

There’s been another change, too; some trees that screened the homes next to the Canyon have been removed (5), giving it a more urban feeling (and probably improving the views for the homes there).

What’s next?  Here’s the plan for all the trail work in Glen Canyon.

And once the Trails project is over, next up will be “Urban Forestry” and more tree removal. Glen Canyon is being “Improved.”