If handed, the Bay Space Ridge Path would be a part of the Appalachian Path, Pacific Crest Path, Ice Age Path, and eight extra hikes within the federally-protected system.
Bay Space Ridge Path (Picture: Sundry Images / iStock by way of Getty)
Up to date January 29, 2026 12:25PM
On January 28, U.S. Consultant Jared Huffman (D-CA) and U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA) launched a invoice that might designate Northern California’s Bay Space Ridge Path as a Nationwide Scenic Path. If profitable, the designation would additionally assist so as to add about one other 150 miles to the prevailing 400-mile community.
The idea of the Bay Space Ridge Path was first publicly launched within the late 1900s when William Penn Mott, Jr., the Director of the Nationwide Park Service and the East Bay Regional Park and California State Parks launched the idea of uniting the bridges within the Bay Space with one steady path. By 1987, the Nationwide Park Service, the Greenbelt Alliance, and the Golden Gate Nationwide Recreation Space shaped the Bay Space Ridge Path Council to place their goals into motion. Simply two years later, the primary section of the path was devoted. Over the following six years, the council shortly established one other 200 miles of the route, creating the infrastructure for the path that exists at this time.
Right this moment, the Bay Space Ridge Path connects over 145 parks and open areas via San Francisco Bay, Marin, Sonoma, Napa, Berkeley, Oakland, the Peninsula, San Jose and Fremont the place it capabilities as a multi-use path the place hikers, equestrians, and cyclists recreate. The invoice would instruct the Nationwide Park Service to conduct a feasibility research inside a yr to make sure that the path meets the entire needed classifications of a Nationwide Scenic Path, equivalent to being a non-motorized route of greater than 100 miles and together with landforms with regional significance.
Marie Sayles, the Improvement Director of the Bay Space Ridge Path Council informed Backpacker that that is the primary time laws has been launched to designate the Bay Space Ridge Path as a Nationwide Scenic Path, and that the designation would profit the path by offering funding alternatives, partnership growth, path safety, and public consciousness and help.
Sayles mentioned, “The Ridge Path provides one thing really particular—a long-distance climbing expertise that showcases the unbelievable pure magnificence and biodiversity proper within the yard of a significant metropolitan space. Nationwide recognition would honor that significance whereas serving to us full and defend this imaginative and prescient for generations to come back.”
At the moment, simply 11 trails have the Nationwide Scenic Path designation throughout the nation, together with fashionable long-distance routes just like the Appalachian Path, the Pacific Crest Path, and the Continental Divide Path, in addition to lesser recognized routes just like the Potomac Heritage Nationwide Scenic Path, and the Natchez Hint Nationwide Scenic Path.
“The Bay Space Ridge Path Act will assist us perceive methods to finest protect accessibility for exploration of the gorgeous panorama that defines and surrounds our area,” wrote longtime San Francisco Consultant and Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi. “By finding out the Ridge Path’s future, we take an essential step towards recognizing its nationwide significance and guaranteeing that it may be loved for generations to come back.”
