Red dots hover over Sunset boulevard, green dots over Golden Gate Park, Blue dots over the Richmond, and most importantly, yellow dots along the path we will follow in these pictures.  We will walk atop the sand berm, then hop over the Great Highway and walk closer along the sidewalk next to the beach.  For now, we will begin at the furthest, most southernly yellow dot.

This giant sand berm goes for miles (left to right) to separate the beach from the neighborhood streets.  The berm is covered by sea grass, and includes a jogging path and bike path.
 

Here you see the sand berm with its crowning bike and jogging trails, the Great Highway and the ocean on the left and the Sunset neighborhood on the right.
 

Eventually the sand berm ends, and you cross the Great Highway to reach the beach itself.  On the ocean at left you can see Seal Rocks jutting out, with their peaks covered in white.  No, it's not snow, it's seabird droppings.  The large beige building overlooking the rocks is The Cliff House, a semi-fine-dining restaurants affording spectacular views of the rocks and the crashing waves.  You can see the Geat Highway hit Sutro Park, and veer left in order to climb to the Cliff House.  Across the street from the Cliff House, you see the shrub-covered bluffs of Sutro Park, which is where we took the very first picture in this page.
 

Couldn't resist another picture of someone bopping her head to the music in her headphones, transfixed by the view.

Okay, pay attention now.  We have climbed around the shrub-covered bluffs of Sutro Park to reach the entrance to same.  All of the above pictures, all of Ocean Beach, is to our left.  We are at Seal Rocks, you can see them surging from the ocean on the left.side of this picture.  To the right of the rocks, you see a flat parking lot.  Beneath that parking lot are the ruins of the Sutro Bath House, we will see that later.    To the right of the picture, the treeline belongs to Point Lobos, a part of the Presidio National Park, which I highly recommend as a place for peaceful hiking.  There are lots of little unofficial trails under thick, wind-blasted pine trees.  Be careful, though, some of the trails are a bit precarious but if you stay away from them you should be ok.  For now, let us take a left now, to go into Sutro Park.

In the first few pictures, you can see this spot as the top of the "shrub-covered bluffs of Sutro Park".  At the bottom of this picture you can see the silhouette of Seal Rocks.  I could sit at this spot for the whole day, reading a book, snacking on what I brought, and just tripping on the view - and, I have!

The flat parking lot is to the right of this picture.  In the 19th and 20th century, the Sutro Baths were San Francisco's public swimming hole.  Ocean water was heated and pumped to a multi-story greenhouse-looking building, boasting various freezing cold and warm swimming pools with diving boards and slides.  In the 60s the baths were no longer economically viable, and they were going to be demolished and developed as high-rise apartment buildings (boooo!!!).  Luckily, a fire destroyed the site and the apartments  were never built, leaving us the open views and the ruins for hiking.  Be careful, the footing right down there is a bit dicey, but ok in the sanctioned trails.  If you look carefully, you can see a curved tunnel entrance hole that will lead you in darkness to emerge to even wilder areas of Point Lobos.  Above the tunnel entrance there are a couple of half-round esplanades highly recommended for making out at sunset.  Across the mouth of the Golden Gate, you see the hazy mountains of the Marin Headlands, technically a continuation of Point Lobos and the abutting Presidio, all three of them a part of the Golden Gate National Recreational Area.  In the next picture, we will be a few miles further up the coast from here.

We are now a couple of miles further North along the coast from the Sutro Baths.  I cannot begin to tell you how this picture, beautiful as it is, utterly fails to convey the sweeping vista and the ever-changing drama of the crashing waves, flowing tides, and incoming clouds decorated in gold above, creating a cozy, gloomy purple darkness above the Marin Headleands mountains with their own tiny lines of crashing waves.  Gorgeous!  Now, we are also very close to the Golden Gate Bridge.  It can barely be glimpsed between the trees at the end of the trail.  If we just walk over to the gap between the trees, a few yards from here, we can see the bridge with its 700-foot towers, the equivalent of a 70 storey building .  Let's go!

 I'm speechless.  Welcome to San Francisco.

Copyright 1996-2006 Alfredo Jacobo Perez Gomez. All rights reserved. Use entirely at own risk.