Crossing into Summer: A Visit to the New Bushy Dell Creek Bridge

The weather last Wednesday was beautiful for our Piedmont Recreation Department’s Walking on Wednesday group’s last spring walk of 2025.There was a large turnout of 52 walkers and three K-9 best friends at the Exedra to enjoy it.

It was a morning to celebrate the beauty of this day and the coming summer. That Friday, June 20^th, would be the first astronomical day of summer in the Northern Hemisphere. This is also known as the “summer solstice” and information about it was shared. It is the longest day of the year with approximately 15 hours 9 minutes of daylight. In Piedmont it will occur at 7:42 PM PDT. This is the moment when the earth is tilted north to its maximum farthest extent, 23.5 degrees from the celestial equator, towards the sun. The point on the Earth where the sun appears directly overhead at noon is known as the “Tropic of Cancer.”

The area between the Tropic of Cancer and its southern counterpart, the “Tropic of Capricorn,” is known as “the tropics.” This region receives more direct sunlight than other parts of the Earth, which contributes to its generally warmer and sometimes wetter climate. The Tropic of Cancer passes through countries across Africa, Asia, and North America that include Mexico, Bahamas, Western Sahara, Algeria, Egypt, India, and Taiwan.

The word “solstice” literally means "sun standing still." It is derived from combining the Latin words sol for "sun" and sistere for “To Stand Still”. For the previous six months, the sun has appeared to move on a northerly course in the sky. At the moment of the solstice that motion stops and the sun begins to move south. This will continue for six months until the sun drops to its lowest point below the equator and stops again. It is another solstice marking the beginning of winter.

Humans have been observing the sun's position in the sky for a long time. Solstices have also influenced many traditions and celebrations around the world. It is believed that solstices have been celebrated at Stonehenge in the United Kingdom for thousands of years. The sun rises behind its ancient entrance to a stone circle and sunlight is channeled into the center of the monument.

Piedmont doesn’t have a summer solstice celebration, but the City held a ribbon-cutting ceremony on June 4^th to celebrate the official opening of a new pedestrian footbridge in Piedmont Park. The project began in mid-February, and the City installed the bridge over Bushy Dell Creek in the southwest portion of the park on March 20th.

The old bridge was first identified as needing replacement in 2015. It was over 30 years old and had required substantial repairs twice in the past five years. Holes in the wood decking had been patched with plywood and temporary side rails were constructed in 2023 after the original railings collapsed due to rotten wood. The new bridge is designed for long-term durability with a weathered steel frame and pressure-treated wood decking. It was fabricated off site, driven into the park, and lowered in place by a crane. This minimized disruption to the surrounding environment of Bushy Dell Creek. The project came in about $5,000 under its $208,000 budget and had a total cost of $202,661. A California Proposition 68 grant provided $119,000.

We had been meaning to go see the bridge for a while and this Wednesday we were going to check it out. We went behind the Exedra to the park’s top entrance and down its lower trail along Bushy Dell Creek. The trail is lined with huge eucalyptus trees that have been constantly watered by the creek for decades. Along the way, we read Piedmont Park History Trail makers including ones for the Sulphur Springs Grotto, the Eucalyptus Amphitheater, and “the Cascade,” a lush tropical paradise, that Frank C. Havens created for his Piedmont Park in the early 1900s. We came to and crossed the bridge and took a group photo on it.

Mark D later did some research and reported that the creek gets its name from the "rural and romantic" character of the ravine it flows through. The surrounding bushy landscape was once called "Bushy Dell." The creek was popular in early Piedmont times for its mineral springs. Mark also found a reference to the creek earlier being called "Red Rock."

The morning was still young and there was time to see some nearby sites. The PHS softball field was just to the right, and we went over to see it. It is on the former site of Havens’ Amphitheater, an open-air theater he built in 1908 for Shakespearian and other performances in the park. Nancy D shared that the Piedmont Play School, a two-room building owned and maintained by the Piedmont Recreation Department, later was on this site too. The building was demolished and the school eventually moved to Hampton Park when Witter Field was renovated in 1998 to create the Witter Sports Complex.

From the softball field we went over to an almost secret Piedmont athletic field, Bern Field. This is a relatively new, small turf field on a service road above Witter Field. Cathy L lives nearby and said a woman, June Bern, once lived there. She made the land available to the school district and a Piedmont soccer club created the field for young players to play.

We went down to the walkway above the stadium and up to the steps to Wildwood Avenue for a sunny and warm return to Exedra. Along the way Sherry Jacobs pointed out two openings in the bushes that the area’s abundant deer have beaten and use.

We had enjoyed seeing and celebrating the new park improvement, as well as the surrounding sites, on a week that was a bridge between Piedmont’s beautiful spring and summer seasons.