As sheltering in place has prompted nearly everyone to take regular walks, more and more people are discovering Berkeley’s many paths and stairways.
Whether you’re walking by the art-filled “goose farm” on Oakridge Path East, climbing the seemingly endless step stairs on Tamalpais Path, or relishing the view on the bench at the top of Atlas Path, you’ll find a variety of ways to enjoy these public treasures. Not only can you create challenging aerobic workouts close to home, but also you can plot more leisurely routes that will increase the pleasure of being outside.
And, if you have children to entertain, the paths can be a real boon.
Carol Wang, the mother of two small boys, finds that adding the paths to a family walk is like going on a “mini-adventure.”
“Even though we’ve lived in the Elmwood for almost 10 years, we had never really explored the stairs and walkways until now,” she says.
“They have been a lifesaver while we’ve been cooped up all day doing home school and work,” Carol reports. “It’s pretty quiet when we take our walks in the early evening, and it feels like we have the paths to ourselves.”
At her neighbor’s suggestion, Carol got a copy of BPWA’s Berkeley and Its Pathways map. ”It’s amazing how many different routes are tucked away right under our noses.”
For 20 years, Leah Brumer lived on Oakridge Path East and knew all the nearby paths. But without access to swimming and working out at the Claremont Tennis Club, she began taking fitness walks farther afield. “I've been doing the self-guided walks on Path Wanderers website, including a couple of 6- and 7-mile hikes through neighborhoods in the North Berkeley Hills, where I have had the wonderful sense of being in an unknown place. It’s been amazing to discover these new vistas.”
Online sales of BPWA’s map have doubled since the lockdown began. A fun feature of the map is the path checklist that enables you to track how many of the paths you have taken. Depending on how paths with multiple sections are counted, Berkeley has more than 140 officially named and numbered city-owned paths. That total doesn’t include the additional unnumbered ones shown on the map, like the Ohlone Greenway, the paths near the Berkeley Marina, or the trails on the University of California, Berkeley, campus.
For now, BPWA has cancelled its twice-a-month, free, guided path walks, but Path Wanderers president Alina Constantinescu says the group is considering how they might safely restart them in small groups, perhaps by reservation only.
Meanwhile, a variety of self-guided walks are online. In addition, every month, BPWA is adding the directions for 5 new walks, excerpts from Step It Up: An Adventurer’s Guide to Forty Walks on the Paths, Trails, and Streets of Berkeley and Beyond by Jacob Lehmann Duke and Aviva Gerwein. Now in college, the young authors came to our attention when they were 11 and 12 respectively and walked every path in Berkeley — a total of 40 miles — in a single day. They turned that effort into an annual ritual, varying their route each year and inviting hardy path wanderers to join them for all or part of the trek. BPWA also has discontinued its regular path-maintenance work parties.
Until these cleanup sessions can resume, organizer Mary Lynch encourages neighbors of paths to pitch in with brooms and clippers to keep them clear and safe. “If neighbors generate a large pile of weeds and trimmings,” Mary says, “they can email me (path.maintenance@berkeleypaths.org), and I’ll arrange for the city pick it up.”
Walter Garms, who lives next to The Steps on Hillcrest Road, offers a good example of how neighbors can beautify a path. He devoted more than a week of his sheltering-in-place time to clearing his side of the stairway of a thicket of nearly indestructible agapanthus that was obstructing part of the stairway. He then added attractive landscaping, much to the delight of those who use the path.
Until neighbors and friends once again can walk the paths together, Alina reminds us “the simple presence of the paths connects our socially distant community.” She encourages everyone to enjoy solo walks and to be courteous when encountering others on the paths and sidewalks. As she writes on the BPWA website: “We shall get through this together, if momentarily we’re apart.”
[An earlier version of this feature appeared in the July issue of Claremont-Elmwood Social magazine.]