The 14 Most Amazing Peaks around Alameda

475 feet (145 m) Bernal Hill provides visitors with a breathtaking 360-degree panorama and clear views of San Francisco Bay, the Golden Gate Bridge, downtown, San Bruno Mountain, and the hills of the East Bay. These windswept slopes are still sunny when Twin Peaks is shrouded in afternoon fog. As one of the few remaining natural refuges in San Francisco, Bernal Hill has many wildlife inhabitants. A paved limited-access road and a network of well-defined dirt trails wind around the hill’s flanks and provide access to the summit. Bernal Hill was originally part of a 4,446-acre land grant awarded to José Cornelio de Bernal, a soldier in Juan Bautista de Anza’s 1776 expedition. The grant extended south from current-day Cesar Chavez Street to Daly City. The Bernal region became a squatter’s paradise over the next several decades, until the Van Ness Ordinance of 1855 decreed that these illegitimate tenants were in fact bona fide landowners and citizens of the city. In the mid-1800s, as San Francisco began to outgrow the downtown district, the Bernal Heights neighborhood emerged. The streets were laid out and many small - to moderate-sized homes were built. A tight-knit community, including Irish, Scots, and Scandinavians, took up residence in the shadow of the hill, which residents used extensively for cattle and dairy ranching. In May of 1876, the Bernal Heights community caught the California gold rush fever after Frenchman Victor Resayre announced his discovery of gold on the Bernal summit, ore that he claimed would fetch $1 million per ton. Extensive mining began, until it was revealed that the original discovery consisted of the considerably less valuable quartz. During the 1906 earthquake, because of the hill’s stable rock, few homes here were damaged, compared to those on landfill or former sand dunes. Bernal Hill’s steep slopes support a thriving grassland community, how much of the northern San Francisco peninsula might have looked 250 years ago. In the summer and fall its grasslands are dry and parched, and Bernal appears from a distance to be a tawny, uninhabitable monolith. The native grasses and wildflowers have dropped their seeds, for the winter rains to awaken them. By early February, the hill is transformed into a palette of brilliant colors as a multitude of native wildflowers bloom, including footsteps of spring, sun cup, blue-eyed grass, checkerbloom, and shooting star. Native purple needlegrass and red fescue blow in waves from the almost constant ocean breeze. https://sfrecpark.org/Facilities/Facility/Details/Bernal-Heights-Park-151

lbeautiful view of the island and the Bay Bridge

Round Top Loop provides a striking array of views, including of the volcanic quarry to the northeast, Round Top summit itself, and the Bay Area.

Bernal Heights is often the best place in the city for panoramic views of the San Francisco Bay Area. Twin Peaks, and the more westerly hills, can been covered in fog while Bernal Heights is still sunny and warm.

For a few years while the roads accessing the Treasure Island residential housing development are being rebuilt, this steep hill will be part of the only bike route connecting Treasure Island and its SF Muni bus & Ferry stop with the bike trail to the East Bay. At least it offers an elevated panoramic view of the island. Beware: due to construction activities the trail access may only be open on weekends!

Great panoramic views from this steep hill close to town. Fortunately it is protected as a park. Entering from the West is flat enough for biking, just the last few yards are stairs and steep single tracks to the summit. At the much lower North entrance are playground, restrooms, water fountain, and a natural climbing wall.

Nice hill challenge up steep, but quiet residential roads climbing up to this hill. The reservoir itself is not particularly beautiful, as it's covered, though it's interesting how it is shaped oddly around the topography of this summit.

Just above Blair Park, the Piedmont Reservoir site occupies more than nine acres straddling the Oakland-Piedmont border (8.3 acres of the site is in Piedmont). The East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) site contains a 22.8 million gallon water storage tank that provided water for Piedmont from 1905 to 2003. The facility was decommissioned and drained in 2003 as part of EBMUD’s facility modernization program, and Piedmont’s water now comes from other large tanks in the Oakland Hills. EBMUD will retain a portion of the site to develop a new 4.1 million gallon tank and pressure regulator, but most of the site will become available for other open space use for recreation, including sports fields or other recreational facilities in line with the Piedmont General Plan Land Use Diagram, to keep the site as a wooded buffer between Piedmont and Oakland. http://www.ci.piedmont.ca.us/publicworks/generalplan/03-landuse.pdf