Indian Rock Park is a public park at 950 Indian Rock Avenue in the city of

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...

, on the slope of the

Berkeley Hills The Berkeley Hills are a range of the Pacific Coast Ranges that overlook the northeast side of the valley that encompasses San Francisco Bay. They were previously called the "Contra Costa Range/Hills" (from the original Spanish ''Sierra de la ...

. It is located in the northeast part of the city, about two blocks north of the Arlington/Marin Circle, and straddles Indian Rock Avenue. The central feature of the park is a large rock outcropping on the west side of Indian Rock Ave. The larger portion of the park, on the opposite side of the street, has several much smaller rock outcroppings, grass fields, and a small barbecue and picnic area. The rock is composed of Northbrae rhyolite.

History

Volcanic in origin, Indian Rock is the largest of a number of similar rhyolite rock formations in the vicinity, including the smaller rocks in the portion of the park on the east side of Indian Rock Ave. For example, only one block farther up the east side of Indian Rock Avenue is the Mortar Rock Park, which has its own complex of granite outcroppings. Many remains of acorn-grinding pits carved into solid rock can be found in all these outcroppings, especially the aptly named Mortar Rock. These pits were made by the local indigenous people, the Huichin band of the Ohlones. The land for Indian Rock Park was donated to the City of Berkeley by Duncan McDuffie, a real estate mogul, Sierra Club president and mountaineer, during Mason McDuffie's development of the Northbrae area. It was dedicated for park purposes in 1917. Indian Rock has long been used as a practice site for serious rock climbing, particularly

bouldering Bouldering is a form of free climbing that is performed on small rock formations or artificial rock walls without the use of ropes or harnesses. While bouldering can be done without any equipment, most climbers use climbing shoes to help se ...

. Members of the Sierra Club began climbing there regularly on weekends at least as early as the 1950s. Richard M. Leonard, the "father of modern rock climbing", and noted environmentalist

David Brower David Ross Brower (; July 1, 1912 – November 5, 2000) was a prominent environmentalist and the founder of many environmental organizations, including the John Muir Institute for Environmental Studies (1997), Friends of the Earth (1969), Earth ...

, founder of Friends of the Earth, learned rock climbing and developed their mountaineering techniques at Indian Rock. Brower used this special knowledge to prepare training manuals during World War II, which proved critical in enabling the 86th Regiment of the U.S. Army to surprise the Germans at Riva Ridge in the North Apennines in Italy, the major action disrupting German lines in southern Europe.

Description

The top of the main outcropping, Indian Rock, has views that encompass sights from

downtown Oakland Downtown Oakland is the central business district of Oakland, California, United States; roughly bounded by both the Oakland Estuary and Interstate 880 on the southwest, Interstate 980 on the northwest, Grand Avenue on the northeast, and Lak ...

and the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

campus to the south; central Berkeley, San Francisco Bay, and

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

to the west; and Marin County and Richmond, California to the northwest and north. All three of the bay's largest bridges can be seen from the rock. Indian Rock Path, a public walkway, connects the park to the intersection of

Solano Avenue Solano Avenue in Berkeley and Albany, California is a two-mile (3.2 km) long east-west street. Solano Avenue is one of the larger shopping districts in the Berkeley area. Businesses along Solano Avenue cover a wide range, including grocery ...

and The Alameda. The main part of Indian Rock itself has two sets of steps leading to its summit that were carved into the rock during the Depression years. Indian Rock Park has been featured in the New York Times on at least two occasions, once each in 2010 and 2018.

References

External links

*
Indian Rock Park, City of Berkeley website
*{{LocalWiki, berkeley, Indian_Rock_Park Parks in Berkeley, California Berkeley Hills Landforms of Alameda County, California Rock formations of California Climbing areas of California Tourist attractions in Berkeley, California