Park Stories

Our trees may not change even a hue and our weather may not get much chillier, but you can find hints of more “traditional” autumn phenomena in the Golden Gate National Parks. Save yourself the plane ticket to the Northeast, and find the fall in the national parks in your backyard.

You have 75th anniversary fever. You’ve assembled your International Orange outfit. You’ve baked Bridge-shaped cookies. You’re forming Bridge towers out of your mashed potatoes. Now what? Here are the top seven-and-a-half ways to celebrate this momentous year for the Golden Gate Bridge—that international icon in the heart of our national parks.

Learn how the Parks Conservancy’s nursery and restoration program has powerfully connected young people with the national parks in their backyard.

In a personal essay, Parks Conservancy Board Trustee Odette Alcazaren-Keeley shares why public lands represent the best of our democracy—and how we at Golden Gate continue to strive to make national parks open, welcoming, and relevant to all.

Discover the history of the “true” peak of Mt. Tamalpais—and how to best explore this seldom-visited site. Also, learn about the Oct. 5 forum where you’ll hear a range of possibilities for its restoration and get the chance to voice your opinion.

It’s been “Arma-goat-don” for the weeds at Fort Mason’s East Black Point. This past month, a herd of the quirky, cloven-hoofed critters cleared the area of invasive vegetation. Learn where the goats came from, why they’ve been in our parks, and how you can carry on their work.

FOMO ALERT! For the young and young at heart, the parks are full of must-see spectacles and must-do activities this autumn. Check our list of the top eight park attractions this fall, and then fire up your social media apps and get those hashtags ready.

“It has begun.” So begin the reflections of Laura Echávez, a Golden Gate Raptor Observatory intern, as she experiences her first fall migration from Hawk Hill. Discover how she draws parallels between her immigration story and the birds’ journey along the Pacific flyway.

The partners of One Tam—the community initiative of the Tamalpais Lands Collaborative—launched a three-phased, three-year scientific research project to study the mountain's bats.

The Conservancy stands directly against all forms of hatred, bigotry, or oppression as anathema to our American ideals, as well as to the values of our national parks as places of welcome and inclusion.

Up to 99 percussionists, arrayed across Lands End, pound out rhythms that mix with crashing surf and the songs of birds. This is John Luther Adams’ Inuksuit, performed in a partnership of SFJAZZ and the Parks Conservancy. 

San Francisco has been celebrating the of the Summer of Love, an epochal moment of free love, artistic expression, and antiwar protests. But, in 1967, what was happening on the Presidio—a venerable Army post with gates only blocks from the heart of Haight-Ashbury?