The Corte Madera Creek Path Through Greenbrae Is Actually Two Trails

The first time you try to walk the entire creek path in one straight shot, from the ferry side in Larkspur out to wherever it seems to end near Ross, you hit a stretch of waterfront homes on South Eliseo Drive and the trail just stops. No detour signs. No trail map warning you. The pavement simply becomes a residential street, and you either turn back or you keep walking down someone's block until the path picks up again a few minutes later.

Most people who have lived in Greenbrae for more than a year already know this. New residents, weekend visitors, and every trail app that draws a single green line from Larkspur to Ross do not. What locals treat as one familiar loop is, on the ground, two separate trails connected by an ordinary street. Understanding where one ends and the other begins changes how you actually plan a walk, a ride, or a Saturday morning with the dog.

Where the Path Actually Starts

The eastern half begins at Remillard Park, right on Sir Francis Drake Boulevard in Larkspur. It is a bayside spot with its own small ecosystem: a central pond that draws ducks and turtles, open water where windsurfers work the wind, and a rotation of ferries docking nearby. If you are coming from San Francisco without a car, this is also where the Larkspur Ferry Terminal option makes sense. Ride over, grab lunch or Sunday brunch near the terminal, then start the walk from there instead of driving in.

From Remillard Park, the trail heads west and slides under the tangle of ramps where Highway 101 crosses overhead. A short boardwalk section carries you out over the creek itself here, and this particular stretch is part of something larger: the San Francisco Bay Trail, a multi-decade regional project aiming to eventually ring the entire bay with a connected multi-use path. Most walkers have no idea they are on a piece of a 500-mile plan while they are watching ducks paddle underneath them.

Past the underpass, Mount Tamalpais comes into full view and the trail opens onto Niven Park, a grassy stretch with picnic tables and benches that functions as an informal rest stop. This is also where the eastern segment quietly runs out of room. The waterfront homes lining South Eliseo Drive block any further westward path, so the trail simply ends there.

The Half Mile That Isn't Marked as a Trail

This is the part that trips people up. To pick the walk back up on the other side, you follow South Eliseo Drive itself, either biking the street (Marin County Parks and cycling guides describe it as low-stress) or walking its sidewalk. It is not glamorous. It is not marked with the same signage as the park sections. But it is the only way to connect the two halves without doubling back to a car.

Here is what that split actually looks like when you lay it out:

The Western Half Ends in a Different County Feel

Once you rejoin the trail at its junction with the Bon Air Road Sidepath, the character shifts. This stretch runs directly past Hal Brown Park at Creekside, Greenbrae's own 26-acre anchor space at 250 Bon Air Road. The park reopened in February 2011 after a full renovation and carries the name of Harold C. Brown Jr., a former Marin County supervisor. Beyond the playground built for younger kids, it has a petanque court, an amphitheater, a health and wellness grove planted with medicinal species, and an overlook where you can see straight across Creekside Marsh to Mount Tamalpais. The free parking lot here tends to fill by mid-morning on weekends, so early is better if you are driving in rather than walking from home.

From Hal Brown Park, the path narrows as it crosses into Kentfield, hugging a tighter corridor between the creek and its wetlands. It switches to the creek's southern side, threads behind a run of buildings and homes, and ends, without much ceremony, in a parking lot behind a bike shop in Ross.

Dogs are welcome on leash along both segments, but they are asked to stay out of the wetland areas near Creekside Marsh entirely. It is a working restoration site, not just scenery.

Why Early Fall Is the Marsh's Best Season

The weather pattern around Hal Brown Park and the creek corridor makes spring and fall the two windows locals actually prefer. Summer brings morning fog off the bay that usually burns off by noon, and the surrounding hills turn gold rather than green. Spring floods the margins with wildflowers. Fall sits in between: cooler air, clearer light, and a marsh that is easiest to actually watch rather than just walk past.

That marsh is not static. Marin County Parks runs habitat restoration work at Creekside Marsh in partnership with the One Tam program, the same collaborative effort responsible for a lot of the trail and preserve maintenance across Mount Tamalpais lands. It is part of why the wetland sections are off-limits to dogs and why the marsh looks a little different season to season rather than staying frozen as a static backdrop. Herons, egrets, and other waterfowl use this stretch regularly, and birds of prey show up often enough that regular walkers start to recognize which ones circle back.

How Residents Actually Walk It

If you are new to the neighborhood, or you have lived here for years and never bothered to connect the pieces, the practical version looks like this:

1. Park at Remillard Park in Larkspur, or take the ferry in if you are coming from the city.
2. Walk or bike west past the pond and under 101, watching for the boardwalk section over the creek.
3. Rest at Niven Park, then pick up South Eliseo Drive on foot or by bike to bridge the gap.
4. Rejoin the trail at the Bon Air Road Sidepath and continue past Hal Brown Park at Creekside.
5. Follow the path as it narrows into Kentfield and ends in Ross, or turn around and retrace your steps if you parked back at Remillard.

End to end, the combined route runs a little over three and a half miles, flat enough for almost anyone, and it is the kind of walk that rewards knowing the seams rather than assuming it is one continuous ribbon.

That gap on South Eliseo Drive is not a flaw in the trail system. It is a piece of local knowledge, the kind that separates someone who has actually walked this creek from someone reading a map. If you already live here, you probably learned it the same way most people do, by hitting the dead end once and figuring out the workaround yourself.

If you are thinking about where in Greenbrae you would actually want to be for a walk like this, close to the Bon Air Sidepath, near Hal Brown Park, or tucked closer to the Larkspur side, Home in Marin knows these blocks well enough to talk through it properly. Reach out anytime for a conversation about the neighborhood, no pressure attached.