Noe Peak

While tourist buses often cluster at the north peak parking lot, the surrounding trails reveal how San Francisco's hills looked before grazing and development. Resembling the terrain of the Marin Headlands, the slopes foster a resilient mix of coyote brush, lizard tail, pearly everlasting, and lupine. These native pockets provide habitat for brush rabbits, coyotes, and brush-nesting white-crowned sparrows, while butterflies dodge the fierce ridge gusts by skimming low from plant to plant.