Green Spaces in Profile: Glen Canyon Park



When considering population density of major U.S. cities, the port of San Francisco plays kid sister only to New York City (17,000 and 27,000 people per square mile, respectively). Thus any opportunity  to escape the hoi polloi is a goddess-send. Parks and green spaces can succeed on many levels beyond attendance. San Francisco, in fact, nabbed the number one spot in the nation for best park system by The Trust for Public Land, using metrics like acreage, services and investment, and access. I often judge on the Secret Garden principle: the less exposure, the more special. So it pains me to have to reveal San Francisco's wooded treasure but thankfully you my readers are small in number.









Glen Canyon Park is wrinkled between the neighborhoods of Glen Park and Diamond Heights. Similar to Boston's Roslindale Village (Rozzi Square) and its adjacent Arnold Arboretum, Glen Park gives a strolling access to its green oasis. You don't often here about Glen Canyon Park but hiking there is like being transported to a corner of Montana or Colorado along with a sweet quietude in a city not known for its hush-hush library hours. Mauricio and I took the J-Line to downtown Glen Park and walked a couple of hundred meters before entering through the recreation center. Soon we encountered patches of blackberry bushes and fields of wild fennel. Glen Canyon Park has a lush set of trails where you can witness the dips of an Anna's Hummingbird, the hops of a Western Scrub Jay and the circles of a Red-Tailed Hawk. We collected a couple of quarts of blackberries (which Mauricio made into a jam). The tall, feathery fennel provided us with enough fish herbs to last for a year.

Naked Ladies or Belladonna lilies that grow on sunny hillsides in Mediterranean climates.




To get there: Hop on the Outbound J-Church MUNI Train from Church and Market Street and take until Glen Canyon Park. Exit platform and walk down Diamond Street. Take a left on Bosworth Street sticking to its north side. Take a right after half a mile onto Elk Street. The entrance to Glen Canyon Park will be on your left behind the Recreation Center building.

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