At Baker Park's dedication, when the pedestrian bridge across the Gordon River first opened, the city of Naples' community services director Dana Souza described a route where you could "walk, run and bike safely all the way from downtown to Golden Gate Parkway," through a stretch of preserved mangrove forest along the way. That route still runs exactly as he described it. What he didn't say, because it wasn't the point of that day, is that the road forming Grey Oaks' western boundary is one of only three official access points to the entire Gordon River Greenway, alongside the entrance behind the Naples Zoo parking lot and the terminus at Baker Park itself, according to the trail database TrailLink.
That distinction changes how you should think about Baker Park. Most people drive there. For a Grey Oaks address, driving is optional. Golden Gate Parkway isn't just the street you cross to leave the neighborhood. It's a trailhead, with parking, that puts you on a paved path running straight to the river.
What's Waiting at the Other End
Baker Park opened in October 2019 on 15 acres along the Gordon River, and it was built to be more than a lawn with a bench. The park includes a 1.3-mile loop trail, a kayak launch on the river itself, a splash pad for cooling off, multiple playgrounds, and a 34-foot landscaped knoll you reach by a spiral path, with views back toward downtown Naples. There's a Sunrise Terrace at the water's edge and the Eva Sugden-Gomez Center, a building available for private event rental if you want the space for something more organized than a walk. The Naples Dog Park sits directly across the street at 100 Riverside Circle, so the loop works whether you're bringing a leash or a kayak paddle.
None of this requires the trail. You can drive straight to Baker Park and use all of it. But if you're starting from Grey Oaks, the same destination is reachable on foot or by bike, and the walk there is arguably the more interesting part.
The Wildlife Between Here and There
The Greenway itself is a 2.5-mile paved corridor, part boardwalk over wetland, winding through what's variously measured as a 126 to 140-acre preserved habitat depending on which agency is doing the counting. It's wide enough for two-way bike traffic, lit, and open daily until 10 p.m. The point of walking it instead of driving past it is what you see along the way. Alligators, bobcats, and otters turn up regularly, and birdwatchers report herons, egrets, anhingas, woodpeckers, ibis, and bald eagles working the same stretch of river.
If you do the full loop, out to the zoo parking area and back to Baker Park, riders logging the mileage on TrailLink put the round trip at roughly five miles. That's a meaningful stretch of preserved Florida sitting between a country club gate and a public kayak launch, and almost none of it requires getting in a car.
The Airport Just Extended It
This year, the Naples Airport Authority funded a project that pushes the corridor further than that standard route. Its board authorized an extension connecting the Greenway's prior terminus near the Collier Mosquito Control District to the airport's own public Observation Deck, with Baker Park identified as a connection point. The same project removed exotic vegetation, restored pathways, and rejuvenated a pond near North Road, timed to be finished around Earth Day.
None of that changes what Grey Oaks looks like from Golden Gate Parkway. What it changes is how far the trail behind the neighborhood actually goes now, and it happened without anyone along that road paying for it.
The Race That Used the Out-and-Back Course
On the first day of spring 2026, the city of Naples ran the inaugural Spring Into Sunset 5K, an out-and-back course starting in Baker Park, crossing the Gordon River, and finishing as the sky went orange over the water at a 6 p.m. start time built specifically for the sunset. The race's Vendor Village stayed open to the public from 5 to 8 p.m., regardless of whether you'd registered to run, and the lineup read like a cross-section of North Naples businesses rather than a generic food-truck rally:
- Tacos & Tequila Cantina
- Travelin' Tom's Coffee Truck
- New Balance Naples
- Porsche Naples
- Toe Beanz Sourdough
- Nothing Bundt Cake
- Juicelation Naples
- Rita's Italian Ice
- 52 Strong
Packet pickup happened two ways: at the New Balance Naples store on Tamiami Trail North, and the night before at Compass Hotel by Margaritaville, where poolside live music from Ralph Curtis ran through the evening. None of these businesses are new additions to Naples. What's new is that the city built a public event calendar around the exact stretch of trail that starts at Grey Oaks' own boundary road, treating the corridor as a destination in its own right instead of a connector between two other places.
The Practical Version
If you live along Golden Gate Parkway, the walk to Baker Park is not a metaphor for anything. It's a paved trail with a parking area on your street, running 2.5 miles through wetland where you're reasonably likely to see a bald eagle, ending at a kayak launch, a splash pad, and a dog park across the street from each other. The city's own community services director described that exact route the year the bridge went in, and the Naples Airport Authority just extended it further in 2026. The next time someone asks where to take out-of-town guests for an easy morning outside, the honest answer starts at the road that already borders the neighborhood.
If you're weighing whether that walk beats the drive, or want the fastest gate to reach the Golden Gate Parkway trailhead from inside Grey Oaks, West of 41 keeps that kind of detail on hand.
