Grizzly Peak

Grizzly Peak is a mountain above Berkeley, California, on the Berkeley Hills. The peak is located on the boundary between the counties of Alameda and Contra Costa, within the Tilden Regional Park boundaries, and directly behind the Berkeley campus of the University of California.

The peak was named for the grizzly bear from California that populated the local area until the late 1800s. Locally, the last sighting was by a man allegedly killed in the 1860s by a grizzly in Strawberry Canyon under Grizzly Peak. The first local killing of a grizzly by a European occurred in 1772, also along Strawberry Creek just west of what is today the UC Berkeley campus, within what is now Berkeley downtown. Father Juan Crespi reported shooting by Spanish soldiers. In August 1922 the last grizzly in all of California was killed in the foothills of the Sierra east of Fresno.

Grizzly Peak got more available when Grizzly Peak Boulevard was established along the Berkeley Hills ridgeline in 1932. Shortly thereafter, the name was applied to the earlier built ridgeline section of Euclid Avenue to the north. This section, while the original stretch is largely undeveloped, was and remains a residential area of Berkeley. Grizzly Peak Boulevard now stretches northwards from Kenyon Avenue in Kensington, across Berkeley and Oakland to the Skyline Blvd. intersection above Oakland.

Before the development of Grizzly Peak Boulevard, the site of its current intersection with Claremont (before 1892 known as Telegraph Road) and Fish Ranch Road was historically a significant pass through the Berkeley Hills, until the tunnel that preceded today’s Caldecott Tunnel was built through the hills in 1903; an inn and stage stop named the Summit House was located here. Today, Grizzly Peak is a popular place to get a spectacular view of the Golden Gate Bridge and the surrounding Bay Area. It is also popular to see street luge enthusiasts come from Skyline Boulevard and Claremont Avenue in this area and down the canyon into Berkeley.