Thoughts on the Great Spirit
Path
"Stand at the crossroads and look; ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls." Jeremiah 6:16
Directions: Highway 101 to Marsh Road, go east across
Bayfront Expressway to two parking areas. If the gate at the second parking
area is open, you may also drive inside and park.
Grade: Easy.
Distance: Your choice. Up to several miles.
Special Conditions:
On a recent Sunday afternoon we pondered the choices: Do we walk in the hills or at the bayfront, through the redwoods or over the grassy hills? Or maybe should we walk around San Carlos and stop on Laurel Street for a coffee drink?
We quickly decided that the bayfront trails would be especially nice for a brisk late winter walk, and so we decided to take another look at Bayfront Park at the end of Marsh Road in Menlo Park.
Those of you who lived on the central Peninsula before the early '80s may remember the location as the Marsh Road dumpsite. This was our landfill dump before the San Carlos Transfer Station was built.
Now the site is a fine place to stretch your legs, catch the bay breeze, and enjoy 360-degree views from San Francisco to Mount Hamilton. The park contains several miles of asphalt and hard surface bike and hiking trails. Of special interest is the three-quarter-mile Sculpture Trail.
Designed by S.C. Dunlap in collaboration with funding from the City of Menlo Park, "The Great Spirit Path" leads through 53 rock clusters--each made of raw, unhewn stone--inspired by Indian pictographs. Ms. Dunlap arranged the pictographs in poetic form, starting with "Evening" and ending with "To the Great Spirit Everywhere." Her poetic message was meant "to illustrate a reverence for the evolutionary methods of both man and nature in combination with a message of hope."
Pick up a copy of "The Great Spirit Path Sculpture Guide" at the trailhead, and follow along, matching the illustrations in the guide to each stone cluster. The rock clusters were installed between 1981 and 1985, using rocks quarried from a location near Sonoma and a meadow near Stanford Linear Accelerator. A total of 892 rocks was used, weighing more than 503 tons. It is reported to be the largest sculpture of its kind in the world.
Although the clusters have suffered some vandalism (numbers 31 and 32 have been marred by graffiti, and others have had smaller rocks removed or relocated), you will enjoy matching the illustrations to the pictograph images.
On the north side of the park, we found two technological reminders of what this area used to be.
The decommissioned sewage treatment plant was replaced in 1992 by the Flow Equalizer facility, which now pumps sewage to the treatment facility located at the far end of Redwood Shores at the far end of Redwood Shores at the entrance to Steinberger Slough. The operating Gas Recovery facility is busy generating electricity from methane gas formed from the bacteriological decomposition of municipal refuse from the former dump through an underground network of pipes. The City of Menlo Park sells the electricity to Pacific Gas and Electric Company.
On the east side of the park is a sign designating the habitat of burrowing owls. This owl normally makes its home in the burrows of ground squirrels, but squirrels are rare here, so artificial tunnels leading to nesting boxes have been created to help their re-population process. The owl is active during the day, so watch for its standing by the front door of its dirt mound home.
As you hike through Bayfront Park, you will see additional rock clusters placed along the trailside. While these are not labeled as a pictograph part of the sculpture path, they seem to be placed with a purpose--perhaps for you and I to study and name.
Written by Tom Davids