Mount Tamalpais State Park recently upgraded a 0.6-mile trail section to allow bike access, turning a once-stressful road segment into a safer, more seamless experience.
The Easy Grade Trail is a small but game‑changing link in the larger Bay Area Ridge Trail project, which was recently named among National Geographic‘s “100 hikes of a lifetime.” The segment improves a once‑stressful road route on Mount Tam and opens up opportunities to streamline trail connectivity throughout the area.
Here’s a closer look.
Easy Grade Trail: A tiny link with huge impact
Dedicated in June 2026, the Easy Grade Trail upgrade came after two decades of work on a change-in-use project, allowing cyclists to take a safer, more direct route instead of the narrow and winding 1.5-mile section of Pantoll Road toward Mountain Theater.
This short segment also supports an 11-mile parallel multi-use route through Marin Municipal Water District land, called the Mount Tamalpais Watershed Parallel Ridge Trail. The new connection allows all trail users to safely navigate the area without having to share the road with cars on Ridgecrest Blvd.
The improvements were only possible after a restoration project at Azalea Hill was completed last year, repurposing the old Liberty Gulch ranch road into another new trail.
Safe to say, if you haven’t made it up to Mount Tam in a while, now’s a good time to plan a visit and explore all the new trail connections between Pantoll Road and the Mountain Theater.
The bigger Bay Area Ridge Trail project
Easy Grade is just one piece in the puzzle of the long-running Bay Area Ridge Trail project, which aims to create a continuous car-free path following the ridgelines around San Francisco and San Pablo Bays.
The project has been in the works for decades and is now about 70% complete, with 400 miles of the 550-mile route already usable. One of the most recent finished sections is the new 14.1-mile trail route through Rancho Cañada del Oro Open Space Preserve & Calero County Park.
National Geographic recently named the Bay Area Ridge Trail one of its “100 Hikes of a Lifetime,” even in its unfinished state. Each short connector represents years of partnership, funding puzzles, and detailed planning, all aimed at turning a patchwork of regional open spaces into one continuous adventure.