Bernal Heights Park
" Most of the city's famous hills are covered with housing, but 24 acres at the top of the 433-foot hill that is the centerpiece of the Bernal Heights neighborhood is open grassland. In the summer it is brown and dry, but in the winter and spring the hill is as green as Ireland and supports wild iris, California poppy and lupine among other plants. The upper slopes of Bernal Hill have been a park since 1972, but the city has relied on volunteer caretakers to pick up trash and watch over the park.The Pitschels were key members of a group of neighborhood people who worked on weekends to remake the top of the hill to what Jacob Sigg of the California Native Plant Society called "a piece of the original landscape of the city as it was for thousands of years."
Carl Note remembers Roland Pitschel Read more: sfgate.com/.../2009/08/14
"When Catherine Wagner needs organic arugula, she exits her door in north Bernal Heights and walks up and over Bernal Hill to the shopping strip on the other side.....Bernal Heights cannot be separated from its hill - a steep grassy mound of open space that creates a unique mesh of city and country."
[Read more: .sfgate.com/.../2001/05/06/
YELP FAVE: "I feel like if I were single, in my mid-30s, and had a dog, I'd walk up here with my dog and use it as a vehicle to flirt with the other single-ish dog walkers. It's too bad that I only like dogs enough to pet them on the head and return them to their owners once said dog drools or poops in my general vicinity. I much prefer cats. But it's kind of hard to walk a cat on a leash. So, sometimes, I jog, pant, then promptly walk dogless up here in the evening. Taking in a 360-degree view of the city really does clear my head after a day at work."
Mia L. Start-Up Maven http://www.yelp.com/biz/bernal-heights-park-san-francisco
GETTING THERE:
BUS: 67 MUNI from the 24th and Mission BART
FOOT or BIKE: If walking or biking Folsom street turns into a semi-brutal hill toward the top
BY CAR: Get to the lower entrance to the park by driving up Folsom street past Ripley where it heads up the hill and turns in to Bernal Heights Boulevard. Mid-way as you wind up the hill you’ll see a turn off on your right with a few parking spots and the park entrance. If this lot is full, which is very likely, keep going up Bernal Heights Boulevard circling around the park to your right until you get to the end of the road and the top entrance to the park.
