The two-year, $20 million China Beach project is the marquee improvement planned as part of the 50th anniversary of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area’s founding.

Nearly a decade in the making, the $7 million National Park Service project on Hawk Hill is restoring the former World War II gun batteries and Cold War radar pads and converting them into lookouts and paths for bicyclists, hikers and raptor researchers alike.

U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to serve as a U.S. Cabinet secretary, visited Alcatraz Island to highlight the progress made over the past five decades by Indigenous peoples.

It’s not technically a national park, but Golden Gate National Recreation Area is doing such cool accessibility work – and has so many beautiful and interesting things to see – that it’s worth mentioning to put on your vacation bucket list. 

With advanced notice, beach wheelchairs are available on-site at...

“Raptors are a gateway drug into bird-watching,” Allen Fish, Director of the Parks Conservancy's Golden Gate Raptor Observatory, said, explaining his 40-year obsession with birds of prey. “And bird-watching is a gateway drug into giving a damn about the environment.”