Lake Merritt and Lakeside Park (Oakland)

Trip Leader: Lyla Arum, lyla.arum@gmail.com, Hilary Powers, hilary@salamanderfeltworks.com, Peggy Rehm, peggydrehm@gmail.com
Date: Wednesday, December 27
Description: Come walk off the aftereffects of holiday feasting while enjoying the peak of the winter season at Lake Merritt! Birds at their most numerous, everybody here and nobody gone yet....
Trip Size: No maximum
Directions: Meet at the end of the Sailboat House parking lot nearest the big dome cage. We will bird around there, then either walk down the lake toward El Embarcadero or go up the paved path toward Children’s Fairyland and loop back through the garden, after which we will cover what we missed. The down-the-lake path is all paved, with gentle slopes up from the cage to the road and back down on the other side of the bird paddock. If we go up toward the garden first, it's another gentle, paved rise toward the other end of Bellevue. Coming from El Embarcadero, we're apt to cut across the lawn, but can stick with paved paths if anyone in the group is using a walker or wheelchair.
Regardless of the route, the park offers benches at frequent intervals.

Public transit: Take the 12, N, or NL bus to Grand and Perkins and walk into the park on Perkins. Driving: The Sailboat House lot near the dome cage (at 568 Bellevue) is the best spot to park, but there’s plenty of parking along Bellevue between the boathouse and the Nature Center. Enter via Bellevue near Children’s Fairyland; the $2 “two hour” pass is probably OK even though the trip is about 3 hours, as the dashboard cards don’t have a start time on them.
Google Map
Registration will open at 1 pm on Tuesday, November 21 and it will close at 11pm on Monday, December 25.