What better way to start a new year than a new hike!
In this case, a new urban hiking area that opened recently at the Snapdragon Stadium site.
Five years after voters approved a measure to allow San Diego State University to redevelop the old Qualcomm Stadium location, a park behind Snapdragon Stadium has opened for hikers, walkers and anyone looking for a place to enjoy the outdoors.
The River Park had a soft opening in early December. An official grand opening is scheduled for this spring. But local families and residents have already discovered it and are enjoying the park.
The sprawling 34-acre park features a children’s playground with bathrooms nearby, basketball courts, a fitness area, picnic tables, benches and grass fields that can be used for soccer, rugby, frisbee or just picnics and lounging in the sun. The elevated trolley tracks provide shade over the playgrounds and courts, but the grass fields have no trees and no shade.
For hikers and walkers, the attraction is a 2-mile paved loop that includes a section of the Ben and Nikki Clay San Diego River Trail. Mileage markers are located every quarter mile along the loop. There are also informative signs about Kumeyaay heritage, birds of the San Diego River and the history of local agriculture and family farms.
The trail is multi-use so watch out for bicyclists, roller skaters and children on scooters.
In addition to the paved path, there are short dirt trails that pass flowers and gardens. There is no steep incline for any of the paths so it’s smooth hiking.
Highlights: This is an urban hike so there are no waterfalls or dramatic vistas. But because you’re in an urban area, it’s incredibly easy to get to and to navigate.
Visitors can drive to the site by taking Friars Road to Snapdragon and turning south on what used to be Stadium Road and is now identified on Google as River Park Road. The road runs parallel to Thrive Park at Snapdragon Stadium. The road leads you to a parking area, with angled spots that are marked as pay-by-phone spaces.
You can also take a trolley to the park. Just take the Green line trolley to the Stadium station and the River Park is right beneath the trolley tracks.
There’s also the Fenton Parkway trolley stop nearby but access to the park from there was blocked last week by construction fencing.
Although he was raised in the urban jungles of New York, Luis loves to hike and enjoy the outdoors. He has hiked in the Grand Canyon, Sedona, Zion National Park and the Oregon Coast among many other locations. If you have any hikes you’d like to recommend, let us know at luism@timesofsandiego.com.
