A Tree-Mendous Walk Through Piedmont

Provided below is Lori A's summary of this past week’s walk that Matt G led for us.

The Piedmont Recreation Department’s Walking on Wednesdays group had a strong turnout of forty-three walkers and two K-9 best friends at the Exedra last Wednesday.

Matt G, guest leader, invited the walkers to “tiptoe through the redwoods” with him. A longtime Piedmont resident who loves redwoods and our city’s hidden passages, he designed the walking route to include both.

The walk began with a short stroll along the upper path in Piedmont Community Park to our first secret stairway which headed up to Hazel Lane and merged onto Requa Road. That’s where we spotted our first gigantic coastal redwood tree. It was so magnificent that one exuberant walker even gave it a big hug. Coastal redwoods are the type of redwood we see in Piedmont. They are fast-growing and are the tallest trees on Earth. Often reaching 200 to 250 feet, the tallest one in Redwood National Park tops out at 380 feet. The other type of redwood tree is the giant sequoia. They grow in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, such as in Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks, and are the largest redwood trees by volume.

The walkers continued to wind down Requa until it ended at Wildwood Avenue. After a block, they used the crosswalk at the top of Prospect Avenue to navigate usually busy Wildwood which was quieter than usual due to the summer break. After a steep walk downhill, Prospect ended at Harvard Road. That’s where we found our second enormous redwood tree and took the official group photo for the walk. On the hunt for more redwoods, the group turned onto Portsmouth Avenue and then continued to Ranleigh Way, where we discovered our second secret stairway.

That stairway led up 42 steps to lower Wildwood Avenue, where the walkers halted momentarily at “The Five-Way Stop,” the junction of the four-Ws: Wallace Road, Warfield Avenue, Wildwood Avenue (upper and lower), and Winsor Avenue. Then we headed past “The Camel House,” a local landmark. A beige Mediterranean-style home painted brown Dromedary (one-hump) camels adorn its walls on corners under the roof line. The house doesn’t change hands very often, but when it does, the new homeowners inherit the stencils so they can carry on the cavorting camel tradition.

After crossing Palm Drive at the foot of Wallace, the walkers entered our third hidden passage, a verdant tunnel of shrubs, from Palm to Magnolia Avenue. Then the climb began! We trudged up Magnolia one very long block to Jerome Avenue, where we caught our breaths at a beautiful small redwood grove at the intersection of Jerome and Fairview Avenues. Fellow walker and Piedmont Park Commission member, Jack F, estimated the trees to be thirty to fifty years old. He explained the reproduction differences between coastal and giant redwoods. Coastal redwoods reproduce through burls on their trunks, while sequoias drop seed pods which need fire to open them up. Fifty years ago, government employees used to rake up the leaf litter, but now they do controlled burns instead, helping new trees to sprout.

This redwood grove was planted on former right-of-way for the Key System. The Key System was a privately owned transit network that served the East Bay from 1903 to 1960. It connected local communities to San Francisco using an iconic network of streetcars and transbay ferries, and later via the lower deck of the Bay Bridge. The system's original logo was a literal skeleton key. The teeth represented its ferry pier berths, the shank was the pier itself, and the three-pronged handle represented its core East Bay destinations: Berkeley, Piedmont, and Oakland.

Leaving the redwood grove, the walkers crossed Oakland Avenue and headed uphill (again) to El Cerrito Avenue. The group turned north to reach Blair Avenue which skirts Dracena Quarry Park. The park is home to six rare Dawn redwoods, which were thought to be extinct until rediscovered in China in 1948. The trees are in back of the park which is on the site where Walter Blair’s 1850s quarry stood. The Park Commission designated these redwoods as Heritage Trees in 2018 during the inaugural year of the program, which allows the community to nominate trees for the title based on aesthetic, educational, or historical qualities. Any tree in Piedmont’s parks or public spaces is eligible for consideration, but trees on private property are not. The Wednesday Walkers last saw these redwoods in March 2026, so we did not visit them again last week.

The group climbed up to Hillside Avenue and then headed back to center of town, crossing Oakland Avenue at the traffic lights. We passed by Frank C. Havens elementary school and admired the westward view of a very clear downtown San Francisco, as the sun beamed through blue skies and puffy white clouds. The walker gave Matt G. a big cheer at the end of the walk and kudos for following safety protocols of crossing streets at crosswalks or traffic lights.