Park's gems are often just short walk away

Golden Gate Park works about the same as Yosemite National Park - 90 percent of the human activity happens in the 10 percent of parkland that is closest to the roadway. People want to visit nature; it is just that they want to make sure they can see their car from it, or without dismounting their bicycles.

"There is so much that this park has to offer that people don't know about, and if you don't know about it, you are missing a lot," says Meagan Levitan, a 45-year-old San Francisco Recreation and Park Commissioner who has been exploring the park for around, say, 45 years. Standing on the steps of McLaren Lodge, Levitan can see the place where she was born, UCSF. She grew up five blocks from the park and lives five blocks from the park now, in the same house. The park is where she learned to ride a bike, and the park is where her daughter, Jacqueline Carlson, 8, rides her bike.

"She plays in the fog at the children's playground just like I used to play in the fog at the children's playground," says Levitan, who is in her sixth year on the commission.

On a recent sunny day, Levitan put her commissioner's badge on the dashboard of her Audi and drove the park from Panhandle to Pacific and back. The goal was to identify a dozen under-noticed attractions, and the rules were to avoid anything that can be seen from either of the two east-west thoroughfares - John F. Kennedy Drive and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive- or the three transverses. You have to get out and walk to these spots, but to prove how easily it can be done, Levitan did it in her real estate agent's suit and heels.

Here is what she recommends, starting from the east end of the park.

1. Horseshoe Courts: The bygone activity of pitching equine footwear cannot be seen from the road, but you can hear it if any of the 16 courts are alive with the clang of horseshoe hitting asphalt or the cling of horseshoe hitting stake.

"That sound is a summer sound," says Levitan as she follows it up the steps from Conservatory Drive East.

Refurbished last fall by the San Francisco Guardsmen, the court is walled in stone with high benches that look down on the pits. You have to bring your own shoes to play. If you don't have them, it is worth the climb just to see the frieze of a horse on the back wall, its midsection gutted by decay. "It's almost Greco-Roman looking," Levitan says.

2. Dahlia Dell: Across from the Horseshoe Courts is a dirt path that runs down through the Fuchsia Dell and alongside two grassy areas where people lie in the sun or play with their dogs.

The path gives onto the Dahlia Dell, a teardrop-shaped plot protected by an iron fence from the parking lot that surrounds it.

The tubers come from around the world in as many colors as countries. Replanted this year, they won't be in their glory until September or October. If you see them now and come back then, you will get the full miracle. At the end closest to the Conservatory of Flowers is a plaque that explains the work of the Dahlia Society of California. They are serious about their mission. A fight over the sign itself many years ago became unusually vitriolic and public, even by the standards of park politics.

3. Disc Golf Course: As a spectator sport, disc golf is way more entertaining than the kind played on an over-watered lawn with clubs in a bag. The disc golfers carry a bag too, containing weighted rubber circles of differing weights to carry different distances. The disc golfer measures out his shot and pulls the correct disc from its sheath. Instead of a hole, there is a wire basket.

The course, opened three years ago, is along JFK Drive, but that is just the first hole. The other 17 take you up into an otherwise ignored grove of eucalyptus on high ground alongside Fulton Street between 25th and 30th avenues. Disc golf is free, unlike that other golf, and you can walk along the course without playing, and though you don't want to get hit by a flying disc, at least you can see them coming.

If you want to get started, there is usually a guy at the first hole, selling discs and offering instruction. One rule: "If you ever say 'Frisbee golf' you get chewed out by the locals," says retired schoolteacher Michael Serra, who has learned his lesson.

4. Angler's Lodge: Most people go directly to the casting pools to practice with their rods. They are missing the best part, which is the entrance to the Angler's Lodge, built during the Great Depression by the Works Progress Administration, which had plenty of time for detail.

At the front door is a dry fly etched in stained glass which is as exquisite as anything at the de Young Museum. Around back, by the pools, is the members' locker room where they sit at a table telling fishing stories. Sometimes they are tying flies, which requires a surgeon's skill. Show an interest and they'll invite you into the meeting room where trophy fish are mounted on the walls, and the last cane rod built by Doug Merrick for the Winston Rod Co., in 1978, is framed behind glass.

You don't have to be dressed by Orvis to be recruited for membership. Even Levitan in her realtor's uniform had an application shoved into her hands.

5. Archery Field: This grassy glade, on 47th Avenue at Fulton Street, is where the City College archery class meets to fling arrows at a bull's-eye in order to earn one unit of college credit.

"People come for different reasons," says the instructor, Diane Nagura, "either because of the Zen-like feeling of archery or the fine-tuning of the sport itself." Nagura brings fruit punch. When class is in session, spectators are welcome but you have to bring your own chair. When there is no class, anyone can use the bales of hay but you have to bring your own bows and arrows and target.

6. Park Chalet Garden Restaurant: All the tourists are in the famous Beach Chalet, waiting hours for a table overlooking the ocean. The locals will look at the ocean later. When they want to eat or drink, they go to this small annex behind the chalet, where there is no wait. There are outdoor tables and Adirondack Chairs protected from the wind by the chalet in front. There is a bar inside with taps representing Presidio India Pale Ale, Riptide Red and Fleishhacker Stout, all made in the chalet brewery upstairs.

7. Millwright's Cottage: Behind the Murphy Windmill, off Bernice Rodgers Way, is a brick two-story home with the windows boarded up. Built in 1903 as the residence of the windmill caretaker, it will be refurbished by year's end to become a cafe. The windmill itself was taken off-site to be refurbished in time for its centennial. Five years later, the mill is still missing, so be patient.

8. Shakespeare Garden: Nestled just off to the side of the overcrowded California Academy of Sciences is a garden so exclusive that for a plant to live here it has to be mentioned in one of Shakespeare's plays. There is a wrought-iron archway at one end, and at the other is an altar with a bust of the Bard, flanked by bronze plaques containing passages from his works. Two of the plaques are blank, indicating either they were stolen and haven't been replaced, or the selection committee is still reviewing text. The bronze bust of Shakespeare, a copy of the cast made in 1814 in Stratford-Upon-Avon, is kept behind a locked cabinet. If you want to see it, you will have to book the garden for a wedding or garden party.

9. Robert Emmet Sculpture: This bronzed man has his back turned to the Academy of Sciences, as if indifferent to the lines of people. Looking across the Music Concourse toward the de Young Museum is Irish patriot Robert Emmet, "Executed in Dublin Sept. 20, 1803." If you stand in his shoes you can see two sphinxes bleached white in front of the de Young. These are the last proud remnants of the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894.

10. Pioneer Log Cabin: This is the place to book your Shakespeare party, and it is worth feigning that you need to make a reservation just to walk into this old cabin built in 1911 of rough redwood logs, outside and inside. Originally the headquarters for the Association of Pioneer Women of California, it is now staffed by the park's permit division. Dedicated employees work here in the cold, on the shady side of Stow Lake.

11. National AIDS Memorial Grove: From the Main Portal, on Bowling Green Drive, a pathway spirals down and down through a thick canopy of oak and redwoods to give onto a mosaic in the bright sunlight.

"Here is a boy I grew up with," says Levitan while looking down at a name engraved on the place where she happens to be standing.

12. Sharon Building: This sandstone structure looks like it was lifted by tornado from the Stanford Quad and landed here in 1888. Levitan likes to walk through just to feel like she is back in college again. If the students of the Sharon Arts Studio are at their stations, you can quietly look in on people painting and spinning pots. If they aren't, you can look through the window and see all their supplies and easels. The porch wraps around to an overhead view of the Carousel and the children's playground, both restored and reopened in 2007.

13. Kezar Pavilion: Stand on the hardwood floor or sit on one of the wooden benches in the stands and you can hear the roar of all the St. Ignatius vs. Sacred Heart basketball games played here. Designed by Willis Polk, the court is sunlit by day and too dim under the lights. Capacity is 4,000 and it looks a lot smaller than that. You can watch pro and college players glide up and down the court on summer nights during the San Francisco Bay Area Pro-Am Basketball League. Admission is free.

Once inside you can wander up the ramp, down the steps and into the old dressing room. Frankie Albert, Y.A. Tittle, John Brodie, George Mira, all the great 49ers quarterbacks sat at these wooden cubbies and then walked down a long dark tunnel into Kezar Stadium to get whiskey bottles tossed at them.

14. McLaren Lodge: Park headquarters isn't on Levitan's map, but it is the place to pick up one, for free. Even on weekends when it's closed, you can get your bearings from the framed park map by the doorway. It describes a "Walking Route," both 2 and 3 miles, donated by Naturalizer Shoe Company on Oct. 16, 1981.

"The best news of all," Levitan says, "this is all here still. Nothing changes." {sbox}

E-mail Sam Whiting at swhiting@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page Q - 16 of the San Francisco Chronicle