Moraga Canyon extends along Moraga Avenue between Highway 13 and Pleasant Valley Road. It begins in Oakland, passes through several blocks of Piedmont, and ends in Oakland. Moraga Avenue is built over and near Cemetery Creek, which is channeled in culverts and comes out just below Coaches Playfield. The canyon supports soccer and baseball fields, a batting cage, a skate park and the city’s corporation yard. It is a steeply graded, wooded residential area enjoying spectacular canyon and bay/city views.

The canyon serves as a vital wildlife corridor, housing a diverse array of species that include foxes, families of deer, wild turkeys and other fowl, woodpeckers, and owls, in addition to more typical dwellers like opossums, raccoons and squirrels. The heavily forested area includes many varieties of trees, including California live oak, wild plum, and acacia.

Blair Park lies at the bottom of the canyon, running along the south side of Moraga Avenue. Early in Piedmont’s history, Blair Park was an amusement park (historical photos: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4). Now it’s a quiet, undeveloped field, zoned by the City of Piedmont as a dog park and open space. It’s bordered by a long line of trees on the north side and the lush Moraga Canyon hillside on the south.

For more images, visit the Moraga Canyon Gallery.