With jagged borders that stretch into six neighborhoods, the sprawling McLaren Park feels like five parks in one. You can explore every corner in one day, but the best way to make sense of it is to understand its history.
Originally home to Ohlone and Miwok peoples, the land later became part of two separate ranchos via Mexican land grants. Through the 1860s, this land was partitioned into real estate tracts, leading to the development of surrounding neighborhoods (clockwise from the north) Portola, University Mound, Visitacion Valley, Sunnydale, and Excelsior. The land was mostly home to families growing flowers and produce — reasons why, today, Portola is fondly referred to as the “garden district.”
In 1926, the Board of Supervisors passed a resolution to reserve 550 acres in the area for public use, but a 1928 bond measure to fund the purchase failed, and the city instead acquired 313 acres, piece by piece, through 1958.
That’s why McLaren can feel like a decentralized patchwork. Some sections are dense with trees and quiet enough to hear every crunching leaf beneath your boots. Others open up to fields or tennis courts. Each neighborhood that it borders has entrances so distinct that some residents don’t realize auxiliary sections like the Crocker Amazon sports complex are even part of McLaren.
For the head, heart, and feet
An extensive network of trails totals seven miles. I started one of my explorations on the most popular trail, Philosopher’s Way, a 2.7-mile loop around the park’s perimeter that features 14 “musing stations” — markers with bits of poetry, benches for contemplation, and more. To get to the trailhead, either drive to the Overlook parking lot, take the Muni №29 bus to the intersection of Mansell Street and John F. Shelley Drive, or add extra sweat to your adventure by walking up Mansell from the Portola neighborhood, 10 blocks that are steeper than any trail in the park.
Approaching the trailhead to the left is an oddly shaped peninsula, dense with Monterey pines, that houses a new ropes course intended to serve low-income students in group sessions, though it’s also open to individuals one Saturday every month. They’re booked up until 2022, so plan in advance — or just enjoy the view of the bay and Cow Palace to the east. The terrain is summer-dry and dusty at this time of year, but turns electric green with rain.
(Look closely and you might find the hidden garden that snakes through several blocks of the Visitacion Valley neighborhood below.)
To start on the Philosopher’s Way, you’ll head west away from the bay, and appropriately enough you’ll face a moral dilemma: Stay on the main path, which soon joins the Coyote Trail, or explore one of the DIY trails that people have created over the years? Linda Litehiser, a park advocate, calls the steep ones “billy goat trails.” Most of them aren’t officially maintained, and they’re part of the ongoing debate whether a green space to serve a wide community should be as wild as possible, or optimally accessible and manicured.
This south-facing slope of the park is covered by a dense forest above the Visitacion Valley and Sunnydale neighborhoods, full of invasive eucalyptus trees that are slowly being replaced with native vegetation by SF Rec & Park. On a windy day, the leaves rustle so loudly they sound like crashing ocean waves and are just as calming. Stop to take in the smell, which perfumes the air in this secluded, shaded area of the park. Often the only sign of city life here is children playing among the trees, sporting backpacks and sweatshirts with the insignia of local schools.
The dense forest continues as you head west and reach Gleneagles, which is both a nine-hole golf course that turns 60 next year (with a notoriously difficult first hole that has been rebuilt several times), and a much newer 18-hole disc golf course on the same turf. The disc course was originally planned on an adjacent parcel, but opponents, citing its disruption of “one of the last bits of untamed land” in the park, blocked it. Those distressed by the neighborhood controversy can take a quick detour to grab a drink or bite at the Gleneagles Bar & Grill.
Tipsily sauntering on, the Philosopher’s Way curves north toward the Excelsior district. Sprawling below and to the west is the Crocker Amazon Playground with soccer fields (you might catch a sharp-elbowed match between two local club teams), baseball diamonds, tennis, bocce, a community garden, hummingbird farm, half-acre bike park, and a tiny skatepark with a steep, swimming pool-sized bowl.
If you want to continue on the Philosopher’s Way, follow the granite markers. But I recommend veering off at this point for a path less traveled to the park’s upper reservoir. (See map.)
To get there, you’ll cross Shelley Drive, a paved road that forms a loop through the northern half of the park. It is currently closed to cars.
Water above and below
The upper reservoir is perhaps the most joyful area of McLaren Park, a small body of water where dogs are allowed to swim. It’s hard to miss the contagious laughter of small children watching their terriers paddle ferociously after a tennis ball, or the whirr of a golden retriever whipping dry his shaggy coat.
Descending toward the reservoir, you can also see the tremendous La Grande Water Tower, servicing 30 residential blocks. It’s hypnotizing just by virtue of its size, and hard to miss, despite the fact that its eggshell blue color is meant to help it blend in with the sky.
From the southeast corner of the reservoir, take a quick trip straight uphill along the center-most dirt path to see not only the much-photographed Philosopher’s Labyrinth, a maze decorated with ever-changing artsy knickknacks, but also a variety of structures that people have built between the trees. They’re made as art, but it’s clear that people camp here — more for recreation than necessity.
“I have never seen any trace of trash left behind. They’re lovely little structures people have built and left,” says Sonia Gonzalez Banks, the director of external affairs for San Francisco Parks Alliance and a park neighbor who spends time there with her children.
Between the labyrinth and the reservoir is also one of McLaren’s best kept secrets: massive blackberry brambles with perfectly ripe, juicy berries right about this time of year.
Stay within the Shelley loop and head east. It’s here you’ll find the park’s best known landmark: the Jerry Garcia Amphitheater, named for the Grateful Dead guitarist, singer, and psychonaut 10 years after his death in 2005, because he grew up in the nearby Excelsior district.
It’s psychedelic and groovy in name only. Built in 1971, its backdrop is a wall of vertical, brutalist concrete slabs that suggest the same upward motion as the tall trees behind it, with small gaps through which musicians and actors can escape backstage.
The amphitheater is under renovation and should reopen in September to mark its 50th anniversary, according to Rec and Park. What to expect: more space for food trucks, improved accessibility, and a larger green room that the city hopes will entice bigger acts to play, perhaps turning it into a mini Stern Grove.
Ghost flowers
Next to the amphitheater is a much lower-key monument to the city’s past — back beyond the hippies to the agrarian homesteaders who lived in the area at the end of the 19th century. The last building from that era is the “caretaker’s residence,” now a Rec and Park facility where gardeners store heavy lawn mowers and tree trimming supplies.
Historical records show that the property, what was once 630 Cambridge Street, was owned by the widowed florist Marie Gregorie, who lived there with her three youngest children Leon, Alfred, and Leonie. Tucked between hills and a line of trees, the property had protection from afternoon winds and was ideal farmland for delicate, thin-petaled flowers.
Records show that other Belgian families with the last name Gregorie lived on the surrounding properties, suggesting they were connected to the same Gregorie family (sometimes spelled “Gregoire” or anglicized to “Gregory”) which grew carnations commercially under the name “Gregorie’s Flowers” until 1970, part of the neighborhood’s storied greenhouses that have become a point of contention for new housing development.
They would have also had fresh spring water on hand, living next to Yosemite Creek and its marsh and watershed. The one-acre McNab Lake, across Shelley Drive from the amphitheater, was built from the reclaimed marsh, and there has been talk for years of daylighting the creek, now diverted and buried as it flows to the bay. (The project is technically still ongoing but has been put off for years.)
Unless you want to stop and fish for carp in McNab’s murky waters, it might be time to head back uphill, to the south, and finish the loop. Poke around to find charming bridges and picnic areas and before you reach Mansell Avenue.
Before you finish, there’s one more oddity in a park full of them: the Wilde Overlook Tower, built on top of a disused reservoir. Like the amphitheater, it’s no architectural standout. It’s also locked, so you can’t climb the stairs to the top. But like so much of McLaren, it affords great views, and perhaps one day it will also be refurbished, reimagined, and another bit of hidden SF history will be restored.
How to get there
McLaren Park has several entrances and is a relatively short walk from the Excelsior, Portola, Bayview, and other neighborhoods. The 29 bus cuts through east-west, and several lines will take you to the park’s perimeter. (Schedules and routes might have changed due to COVID; please check first.) The park also has several parking lots. Some fill fast when the Crocker Amazon fields are filled with sports.
[Corrections: This story has been changed to clarify the history of the disc golf course and to correctly identify Sonia Gonzalez Banks’s employer.]