Marin Co., CA - Stepping Out

Mesa, AZ has mountains for us to climb - San Francisco has stairways. Equally intriguing, equally challenging, equally rewarding, equally beautiful and the views from each are stunning.

But the views towards them is stunning, too. Here’s a view towards one of the many hills in SF from Alcatraz.

When we were in Mesa, we hiked the mountain, now we’re in San Francisco and we’re climbing the stairways. Now, looking for stairways might seem like a peculiarly stange thing to do as a tourist in a city but, when we got to Bisbee, AZ, we climbed those stairways too. The last time we were here in SF, we had an app that could tell us us what stairways were around us wherever we walked. Just click on the app and, voila, you’d get a map of the stairways in your area - with history of each, length, number of steps and particular traits. However, we erased that app when we left SF in 2012 and it’s not available now. Thus, we’ll climb what we can find and, by the way, there are several web sites for the SF stairs.

We’ve probably seen more sections of the city and gotten a greater appreciation of the city than most tourist who come here and just seek out the sights. For example - we are probably much more aware of how hard people have to work to get groceries into their home, we know where some of the backyard gardens are, how many hills are in San Francisco and the particular parking styles. Cities present themselves to tourists and show their best side, what they want you to see. Seeking out the stairways lead us into other corners of the city that only the locals find. I don’t think we could find this stairway or pathway again, they were so hidden. We actually thought they were private walkways through someone’s garden but the signs at the entry said ‘Public Walkway.’

or this one. Definitely a local’s pathway and not traveled too often. How did we ever find these two? Hmmm, just by the signage.

Funny thing, when you look at the map of San Franciasco, you can see a definite grid pattern. Of course, there are some clues that there are some hills, some high places, some climbs: Alta Plaza Park, Russian Hill, Nob Hill, Corona Heights Park, Pacific Heights, Laurel Heights and I haven’t even included Twin Peaks, the highest hill in the peninsula on this map.

Just like Fort Dodge, Ia, where we lived when we were growing up, where streets go north and south, avenues go east and west. But Iowa is as flat as a pancake so it works. San Francisco is the same kind of grid and leads you to believe that SF is as flat as a pancake too, right? Ha!! I looked at the map and thought it would be a cinch to walk around. Nope, everywhere you look is a hill to climb up or plummet down. At times you can stand at a corner and look all 4 ways and see monster hills to climb in every direction. There are 40 (count them, 40 big ones) hills in the San Francisco peninsula. Urban myth tells that San Francisco’s streets were laid out on paper by a bureaucrat in Washington, D.C., who had never been to San Francisco. Believing San Francisco to be as flat as the nation’s capitol, the urban planner simply dropped a grid onto the map, unaware of these forty tall hills. The result was a city filled with dramatically steep streets. While the story isn’t true, it provides explanation for the city’s incredibly straight and steep streets - and need for stairs and cable cars to climb up and down.

The truth is much more proasaic and it’s all about the money. Jasper O’Farrell, the original civil engineer who proposed most of San Francisco’s modern city plan, wanted curved streets which conformed to the terrain. Pretty and realistic. Real estate developers, however wanted straight streets which made lots smaller, more plentiful, and easier to subdivide and sell. See, it’s all about the money. The more lots you can squeeze in, the more money you can make. Thus, San Francisco ended up with numerous incredibly steep streets, crowded homes and - here's where the good comes - the cable cars and the stairways to deal with them.

Some of San Francisco’s streets were so steep that horse-drawn carriages couldn’t make it up to the top and just imagine plummeting down in a horse-drawn carriage. Whoo-eee, what a carnival ride that would have been. Thus came the need for cable cars to make it up to the top and back down safely. Cables connected to stream powered engines were required. But, sometimes the streets were just so steep that even cable cars couldn't make it up and - thus the steps and stairways that liberally cover the city. All together there are 300 of these stairways which not only provide access to homes that would otherwise not be reachable and also passageways between streets. Some stairways are famous and we took two of these our first day in the city when we were going to and from Coit Tower. Most people know about Lombard Street, the crookedest street in America but lining the street re stairways for pedestrians to use while tourist cars are curving down. However, most of the stairways are in neighborhoods where tourists seldom ramble and these are known and used daily by only the locals - and Gary and I.

And, that’s our goal - climbing as many of these stairs as we can. Some are broad promenades, the kind that make you feel like Rocky when you reach the top. Oops, I guess I have a few steps to climb.

Some hills were so steep that they didn’t even put steps in. Why is that guy leaning so far forward?

So many of the steps were the locals’ workouts.

We were often glad we weren’t coming up these hills into a busy intersection. There is no way to see what’s ahead of you as you crest the hill.

We were sometimes puzzled about how some homes were built - how do you get into this front door?

To us, these steps are intriguing, an unexpected joy to walking about the city. What will we see around the next corner? Hey, Gary, what steps are in this neighborhood? Of course, Sometimes looking up one more hill sometimes became just one more hill to look up and climb. To locals, climbing steps is just a way of life, they add an element of beauty and interest. It's what you do. I’ll have to admit that the grid pattern of many towns is easy to navigate but a bit dull in the execution. One of the cool things about these steps up the hill is that on the other side will be another series of steps down the hill.

Here are my favorite, the Mosaic steps. The neighborhood realized that they had a great view of the city from Grandview Park at the top but only a set of utilitarian steps to climb up to the Park. Inspired by the Santa Teresa steps in Rio de Janeiro, Jessie Audette brought the idea back home and over 300 neighbors contributed their ideas for the tiles. A local tile company supplied the backing. They worked over 2 1/2 years on the project which has over 2000 handmade tiles and 75,000 fragments of tiles, mirrors, and stained glass in the finished piece. There are 163 individual panels, one for each of the steps. Neighbors can point out their own individual tile on the walkway.

And, that’s a bit about the steps and walkways in San Francisco. We loved walking about the city and stumbling upon these unexpected gems, leading us onward. One of the unique attractions in San Francisco.