Eastbay District Has Many Sites For Outings Sun, Jun 3, 1923 – Page 37 · Oakland Tribune (Oakland, Alameda, California, United States of America) · Newspapers.comEastbay District Has Many Sites For Outings
Not all families in the Eastbay are going to be able to make either the seashore or the Sierra on their vacations this summer. Even the comparatively inexpensive Russian river trip will be taboo to some who must content themselves with a few days' camping in localities only a few miles from home. To these who have camp outfits, there will be an opportunity to rusticate close to nature in country near home quite as enjoyably as though transferred to the high mountain country.
Because of the growing demand for camping and picnicking places in the Contra Costa hills, back of Oakland, the East Bay Water company has planned a combined camp and picnic grounds just off the Skyline boulevard on the saddle leading to Round Top. This camp is now in process of construction and may be ready for use by the public in another three weeks. The exact date, however, will be printed in The TRIBUNE as soon as the water company engineers in charge make the announcement.
COTTAGE ERECTED.
Already a caretaker's cottage has been erected and provision made for maintaining the highest possible degree of sanitation on the watershed. The camp is situated on the divide between the San Pablo creek and San Leandro creek drainage systems. Water falling on the north side of the camping grounds flows into the San Pablo reservoir, while water on the south side flows into Lake Chabot.
All persons camping or picnicking on the grounds must sign up with the caretaker and promise to observe the rules and regulations of the camp. No expense attaches to its use. Fireplaces are in course of construction so that campers and picnickers may have fires for cooking. In short the water company is making of this site a regular camping and picnicking spot where people may go with or without autos and spend a day or more in a beautiful portion of the Contra Costa hills. The camp may be easily reached from Piedmont, Montclair or Claremont.
Camp Cinderella, situated in the ravine northeast of the Joaquin Miller home, has much of the attractiveness of a mountain resort. Palo Seco creek winds through the miniature canyon, the creek offering some of the finest drinking water available in the Oakland hills. Camp Cinderella is maintained by Oakland's Recreation Department for the convenience of over-night hiking parties and weekend camping trips. Campers bring their own blankets and other equipment, but the camp is well provided with drinking water, fire places and latrines. This camp is particularly attractive to people who can not leave home for an extended vacation and yet can enjoy a few days' outing.
CAMPSITES PROVIDED.
Berkeley has made excellent provision for campers and picnickers through the establishment of outdoor fireplaces, latrines, and other camp conveniences in three of the city's splendid parks. Most famous of these is John Hinkle Park in Northbrae, where a huge fireplace is maintained for the use of Berkeley people who make application to the park commission. John Garber Park on the hillside just back of the Claremont Hotel offers greater attractions for the camper, in that the location of the fireplace in wild hill country has a varied sort of scenery. Water is piped into this park. At Thousand Oaks Park there are two fireplaces, the use of which is restricted to those who make proper application to the park commission.
Some families' vacations this year will depend more or less upon the possibility of a change of employment. Apricots, prunes and peaches are the chief harvests of the Santa Clara valley where, during the height of the picking season there is always a demand for pickers. However, families seeking such work will do well to get in touch with the Prune and Apricot Growers' association at San Jose to learn of the labor conditions and possibility of employment.
Not all families will be able to take even a week off from the business of making both ends meet. At best there will be opportunity to spend Sunday occasionally away from home. To such the attractions of the Eastbay country itself must limit choice of outings.
PICNICS AT LAKE.
Picnic parties are the most adaptable forms of outing under such conditions. Lake Merritt, the recreation center of the East bay district, should be more widely appreciated than it is. Unquestionably many thousands of people in the Eastbay have no conception of the diversity of amusements offered at the lake. Almost completely surrounding the lake is a beautiful park. In this park is a bandstand where Sunday Concerts of a high quality are provided. A sand beach is one of the attractions for the little tots of the family, and at the municipal boathouse are canoes, and boats for large and small parties. Picnicking in the park is encouraged by the city's recreation department. At the canoe house an open fireplace is maintained where coffee pots, weenie sticks and even firewood are provided.
A feature that is comparatively little known by Oakland people is the tea rooms conducted at both
Mosswood Park on Broadway and at the municipal boathouse. In Mosswood Park the veranda of the
Nine park playgrounds are maintained by the city of Oakland.
Their names and locations follow: Bay View, Eighteenth and Wood; [now Raimondi Park - MF] Boat House, Oak street near Fourteenth; Canoe House, Lakeside Park; Bushrod. Sixtieth and Shattuck; De Fremery, Eighteenth and Poplar streets; Golden Gate, Sixty-second and San Pablo; Mosswood, Thirty-sixth and Webster, Park Boulevard and Newton; Poplar street, Thirty-second and Peralta.
HIKING GOOD PASTIME.
One of the most pleasurable, most instructive and most health-building pastimes is hiking. While the advent of the auto has done much toward atrophying the lower limbs of some auto users, there are still many who prefer to see new country under their own power. Hiking is a most inexpensive sport, requiring only a slight capacity to walk and a determination to enjoy the scenery at leisure and not as too many autoists see it, in a blur while speeding from one point to another.
The family with only a day or two to enjoy a change of scene may board the electric cars and strike into the Eastbay hills at almost any point. From Grand Canyon Park at the mouth of Wildcat creek, east of Richmond, down to Niles canyon on the southeast. the Eastbay hiker has plenty of room for exercise and the pleasurable viewing of new country. A pretty trip and one that would not prove irksome to the average family would be to take a street car to San Leandro, get off at Estudillo avenue, walk east across Foothill Boulevard and thence to Lake Chabot. The round trip would not exceed four or five miles. Another objective of about the same mileage would be a hike to Joaquin Miller Park, on the west slope of Redwood Peak. For this trip take the Park Boulevard car to the end of the line, then walk via the old quarry to the Joaquin Miller road, thence to "The Hights" where a walk through the former Miller estate (now a city park) will disclose many objects of interest, including the four stone monuments erected by the Poet of the Sierra to General Fremont, to Moses, to Browning, and the monument from which he requested that his ashes be scattered to the four winds. If the family or group of hikers feel so inclined they may continue up the slope of Redwood Peak to the summit, passing many redwood trees en route.
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