Fifield-Cahill Ridge Trail Exploration

Fifield-Cahill Ridge Trail

This Exploration created in collaboration with the  

In the middle of San Francisco Bay sits Angel Island State Park, offering spectacular views of the San Francisco skyline, the Marin Headlands and Mount Tamalpais. The island is also alive with history. Three thousand years ago the island was a fishing and hunting site for Coastal Miwok Indians. It was later a haven for Spanish explorer Juan Manuel de Ayala, a cattle ranch, and a U.S. Army post.

From 1910 to 1940, the island processed hundreds of thousands of immigrants, the majority from China. During World War II, Japanese, and German POWs were held on the island, which was also used as a jumping-off point for American soldiers returning from the Pacific. In the ‘50s and ‘60s, the island was home to a Nike missile base.

Today, there is one automated active Coast Guard station – at Point Blunt – on the island (this area is off limits). Angel Island became a State Park in 1954.

On October 12, 2008, Angel Island was ravaged by a wildfire. In just 2 days, 303 acres went up in smoke. We’re visiting the island a year later to see how the land is recovering and learn how the fire helped one scientist unearth a bit if the island’s history.

Getting There

Special thanks to Breck Parkman of the xxx and Sylvia Lange of Angel Island State Park, for assisting us on this project.

Hiking the Peninsula Watershed: View 150 Years of Resource Conservation

Crystal Springs reservoir, a familiar sight from Interstate 280, has helped serve San Francisco’s water needs since it was dammed in the 1880s. The dam, made of interlocking concrete blocks, survived the 1906 earthquake with little damage. The four reservoirs of the Peninsula Watershed are in the valley created by the San Andreas fault.

All this history and nature is brought to you by the San Francisco Peninsula Watershed. Managed by the Public Utilities Commission, the watershed plays a starring role in the life of San Francisco. But this is no ordinary pastiche of hillsides and reservoirs. Trails around the watershed give hikers access to remote wilderness and special opportunities to appreciate their drinking water’s fantastic journey.

Several trails with varying levels of access surround the reservoirs. The Sawyer Camp trail, one of the most heavily used in the Bay Area, runs along the edges of Crystal Springs and San Andreas reservoirs. It provides a paved, accessible road for about six miles. At the northern edge of PUC land is the Sweeny Ridge trail, managed by the national park service, a 600-foot climb to sweeping views and a favorite with mountain bikers.

Pacific stonecrop is an example of how the watershed provides a protective home for endangered species. This little succulent is the sole host of the San Bruno Elfin butterfly, which has been on the endangered species list since 1976.Perhaps the most special trail through the watershed is the Fifield-Cahill ridge trail. This trail runs a 10-mile length through the watershed’s many habitats, and offers views of all four of the area’s reservoirs, as well as vista of the city, old-growth forests, and a chance to glimpse some rare and endangered flora and fauna.

The Fifield-Cahill trail opened to the public with much fanfare in 2003. Only parties of 20 or less are allowed on the trail, and must be accompanied by a trail guide. Why? The PUC is concerned with preserving the habitat and resources here, and also must minimize risk of fire, erosion, and pollution, entities that can affect the water quality in the reservoirs.

(You can make reservations to explore the trail on foot, bicycle or horse by visiting trail.sfwater.org.)

It’s those lovely reservoirs that were the impetus for establishing a protected wilderness here in the first place, and they’ve been vital to the development of San Francisco. All the dams were constructed between 1860 and 1880 and made it possible for the population of San Francisco to grow as it did after the Gold Rush. Marvels of engineering, the dams survived the 1906 earthquake, quite an impressive feat, considering that the San Andreas fault runs right through the valley that contains the reservoirs.

The Pulgas Water Temple was built at the terminus of the Hetch Hetchy aqueduct as a monument to the new water system. It’s located within the watershed, just south of Crystal Springs Reservoir. An inscription at the top reads, “I give waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people,” a quote from Isaiah. The landscape in this area seems almost perfectly designed by nature for catching rainfall. Coastal marine layers move on shore over the hillsides, dumping lots of rain into the rift valley. The area around Pilarcitos reservoir can sometimes receive four or five times the rainfall of the airport, which is only 5 miles away.

So where does the rest come from? San Francisco outgrew its water supply long ago, as was evidenced during the 1906 earthquake, when there wasn’t enough water to fight the fires that ravaged the city. Shortly after the quake, in 1909, San Francisco purchased land in the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park. The following year, San Francisco voters to build a 160-mile-long system to bring water from the mountains to the city with a $45 million dollar bond—and enormous sum at the time. It took twenty-two more years to build the dam and the gravity-driven tunnel system that would carry the water to the peninsula. In 1934, the first rush of Hetch Hetchy water swooshed over a small waterfall in the Pulgas Water Temple and then down into Crystal Springs reservoir while San Francisco cheered.

Now the water system serves 2.4 million people throughout the Bay Area, including the east and south bay regions. It still flows through the old tunnels to San Francisco, all downhill, using virtually no pumps. Not only does it deliver some of the nation’s purest water to a large metro area, it provides us with a wilderness to explore and appreciate as well.