Here’s another stairs-and-paths walk from Charles Fleming’s Secret Stairs East Bay, one that he calls “Claremont: The Uplands” but I will call the Berkeley panhandle. It feature’s Berkeley’s share of the Piedmont block of Franciscan melange. Here’s the route map, showing the locations of the photos.
The terrain consists of steep-sided hills, naturally, which is why there are stairways. On the south they overlook the flat-floored valley of Temescal Creek; on the west is Harwood or Claremont Creek, and on the east is the eroded swale along the Hayward fault, the approximate location of which I’ve marked with the big dashed line.
This time I’ll throw in the geology too, since the panhandle is faded out in my master Oakland geology map.
KJfm is Cretaceous-Jurassic (age) Franciscan melange; the red blobs are notable chert outcrops, and I assume the teeny blue one is serpentinite. The gold is alluvial fan material. The curving black dashed line is the inferred fault at the edge of the Piedmont block with the teeth on the upthrown side. OK!
The gates of The Uplands were designed by John Galen Howard of local chert. Berkeley’s architects at the turn of the last century were enamored of the local rocks.
Eucalyptus Road winds around the rim of a promontory, and down at its tip is a big chert knocker, the one on the map.
But the area is also full of landscaping and building stone. The basalt of this home may have come from the Sibley quarry, but there are other sources of stone like this too.
Some of the nondescript melange crops out at the foot of South Crossways/the head of Roslyn Court; take a look around when you’re there.
A more extensive exposure appears where you enter Roanoke Road. Melange is mostly sandstone or shale that vegetation tends to like, so you don’t see it much.
Now we go way up on the ridge, Berekeley’s counterpart to the highlands of uppermost Broadway Terrace. It’s much smaller, greener, and more exclusive, probably a lot like the Oakland neighborhood looked like before the fire. This structure, Fleming points out, is brick from the brickworks at Port Costa, including the decorative clinker bricks. I love this stuff.
Do look around, not just downward and outward but upward.
The walk leads off the ridge and down to Claremont/Harwood Creek, on its way from Claremont Canyon to join Temescal Creek under the freeway near the BART station.
It’s a privilege to have living water in a neighborhood. Last comes this baroque grotto/pool thing in a front yard that was assembled of serpentine chunks much like Elks Peak.
Remember, all this is in addition to some grand and gracious homes surrounded by luscious landscaping. Those are Fleming’s main focus; my thing about rocks and stuff is a mere ancillary obsession.
Oakland Geology 
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