Bedwell Bayfront Park Just Got Longer. Most Menlo Park Locals Don't Know It Yet.

Most people who walk Bedwell Bayfront Park carry a fixed picture of it: the wide perimeter loop, the salt flats, the steady wind off the bay, the methane vents they've learned to time their stride around. They've done the loop enough times that it has become a known quantity — something to do with visiting relatives, a place to take the dog before 8 a.m.

That picture is out of date.

The South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project completed the Flyway Trail, a new route that extends from the park's eastern edge along active bird ponds and newly restoring tidal marsh. It links Bedwell to the Ravenswood Ponds inside the Ravenswood Unit of the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge, connecting Bayfront Highway and the Meta Bridge to the park's Marsh Road entrance. The addition runs under two miles, but it passes through habitat that didn't exist in its current form three years ago. For a park most residents believe they already know, that matters.

The Ground Beneath the Loop

Most walkers never stop at the interpretive signs. Bedwell Bayfront Park was a functioning sanitary landfill from the late 1950s through 1984. The 160 acres that are now Menlo Park's only city-owned open space on San Francisco Bay were, for decades, the city's primary waste site. City manager Michael A. Bedwell, who served from 1964 to 1990, spent the better part of 20 years working to convert the site into public open space. The park bearing his name opened for use in 1994.

This history explains quirks that otherwise seem arbitrary. The interior hills rise at angles too uniform to be natural — they are engineered landforms over capped fill. The ban on drones is partly about active methane infrastructure and partly about protecting nesting shorebirds whose habitat sits just outside the fence line. The trail surface shifts between packed gravel, unpaved hillside paths, and paved access roads not because of inconsistent maintenance, but because the park was a remediation project before it was a recreational one.

Since 1994, the 160 acres have been held steady as passive open space: hiking, running, bicycling, dog walking, bird watching, kite flying. The trails inside the park have not changed much. What changed is what the park is now connected to.

What the Restoration Built Next Door

The Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge wraps around Bedwell on three sides. The Ravenswood Unit to the east has been the site of active tidal marsh restoration through the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project. Commercial salt ponds are being converted back to functioning tidal marsh, with Save The Bay volunteers planting native species across successive seasons at the Ravenswood Nursery near the park's edge. The work is visible: open bay along the perimeter loop on the west side, active restoration ponds along the Flyway Trail to the north and east, and maturing marsh where the restoration is furthest along.

Different stages of pond restoration attract different birds. Western Snowy Plovers, listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act, nest near the salt-encrusted ponds along this corridor. The Flyway Trail was designed with dedicated viewing areas and interpretive signage precisely because direct access to those areas would disturb nesting habitat. You see the ponds from marked positions on the trail rather than approaching them freely. Park Rangers have led guided walks of under two miles along the Flyway Trail, starting from the Bedwell entrance and following the bird ponds through the Ravenswood Unit.

Spring migration is when the investment in this habitat pays off most visibly. The Pacific Flyway, the migratory corridor the trail is named for, runs directly through the Bay Area. Shorebirds and waterfowl moving north use the restored and restoring ponds as stopover habitat, and the variety at any given point in March or April depends on what stage the adjacent ponds have reached in their restoration cycle. The interior hills green up through winter and hold their color into early spring. A reviewer on AllTrails who visits regularly puts it plainly: winter is when the grasses are green and the skies are interesting. March sits at the end of that window before the summer dry season turns the hills straw-colored. The combination of green hillside terrain on one side and active wetland restoration on the other makes the park read differently in spring than at any other time of year.

How to Actually Use It

The flat 2.3-mile perimeter trail is the default route and runs along the bay edge and salt marsh. Dogs are welcome throughout the park, with one firm requirement: on leash and under full control at all times. Bikes are restricted to paved trails and roads. The interior trails are unpaved, noticeably hilly for a bayfront park, and typically quiet on weekday mornings. AllTrails logs the full park loop at 3.4 miles with 223 feet of elevation gain, averaging one to one and a half hours at a walking pace.

The Flyway Trail is a separate approach rather than an interior addition. From the park entrance at 1600 Marsh Rd, the new trail runs east toward the Ravenswood Ponds. Budget under two miles if you walk out to the viewing areas and return. If you are approaching from the Meta Bridge side off Bayfront Highway, you can walk into the park from the east rather than entering from Marsh Road.

A few logistics that affect planning: the gates open at 7 a.m. daily and are locked at sundown, which in March falls around 5:30 p.m. Two paved parking lots sit toward the back of the park near the main trailheads, with additional parking along the entrance road. The entrance off Marsh Road was reconfigured beginning in winter 2024 to improve visibility and access. If your mental image of the arrival sequence predates that work, it has changed.

After the Walk

The park sits at Menlo Park's eastern edge, separated from downtown by Highway 101. The drive back to El Camino Real takes under ten minutes. Cafe Borrone at 1010 El Camino Real runs weekend brunch through the afternoon and fills its patio by 10 a.m. on Saturday mornings. If you'd rather extend the outing, the Springline development at 1300 El Camino Real puts Andytown Coffee and Che Fico Parco Menlo within the same walkable block, the former for coffee before the walk, the latter for a longer lunch after.

The restored marsh adjacent to the park will continue changing as the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project advances through its next phases. The birds using that corridor already account for it. The trail is worth returning to even if you've done the loop many times.

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