Hike Presidio's Goldsworthy Loop: Photo Opportunities At Tree Fall, Earth Wall, Spire, and the Wood Line
Hiking through the Presidio was always a treat. Hiking the Goldsworthy Loop to see his remarkable installations is doubly a treat!
This is part of a series of family-oriented day trip outings around the San Francisco Bay Area I look forward to enjoying once social distancing isn’t the norm any longer.
My daughters tracing the Wood Line
Social Isolation — Day 6
The weather got a little better today, so I ducked out for a bike ride around Foster City. It was really nice to be away from home for a bit and not worry about supermarket lines and self-isolation. The sun felt good too.
This evening Governor Newsom announced extending the shelter in place order the Bay Area and LA put into effect earlier this week to encompass the entire state. He also mentioned projections that 56% of the state will potentially catch Covid-19. That is a startling statistic. Other numbers I saw for people over 60 have a 50% chance of getting hospitalized if they catch the virus. And schools will probably not resume in-person education this school year. It’s tough right now to remain positive, but I’m trying.
Destination: The Presidio of San Francisco
Tree Fall (Main Post, Presidio)
Earth Wall (Presidio Officers Club / The Arguello)
Spire (Vista Point)
Wood Line (Lover's Lane)
Goldsworthy in the Presidio (Loop on the last page)
Goldsworthy, Artist in residence
Today I imagined hiking through the Presidio.
I love this hike through the Presidio. Growing up in San Francisco, I spent a good deal of time in the Presidio when it was an Army Base. I was in the Boy Scouts, and there were plenty of activities they supported. We even got to camp next to a munitions depot.
To hike the complete loop, it’s roughly a 3.5-mile hike, and the last time we hiked this my Fitbit registered around a 350 foot elevation gain. So there are some moderate hills.
The hike begins on the Main Post where the first two of the sculptures are located, Tree Fall and Earth Wall. Tree Fall is in an old munitions magazine in the middle of the parking lot, and Earth Wall is at the Presidio Officers Club behind the patio for the Arguello restaurant next door. From there you locate the (upper) Ecology trail, taking a small detour near the top to make your way over to the Spire. After that, make your way over to the Mountain Lake trail (which runs along West Pacific Avenue) till you can cross Lovers Lane, the Wood Line runs just beyond Lovers Lane in the grove of trees. Following the Wood Line down, switch back to Lover's Lane and proceed back to the Main Post.
So pack some sandwiches and maybe a picnic blanket, don’t forget to bring some water along, and have a great hike around the Presidio to look at some remarkable artwork. You can find bathrooms at the Presidio Officers Club Museum (free entry) and at Julius Kahn playground.
Tree Fall
Open typically on the weekends when volunteers are available to serve as docents, Tree Fall is located inside a former Powder Magazine at the southeastern side of the Main Post parking area (parade ground). This tiny red-roofed structure is a historic remnant constructed by the army during the civil war is often overlooked.
The artist wasn’t allowed to alter the building in any way, so he built a substructure inside to house the installation. Walking inside and looking up, you find an impossibly large tree branch (a leftover from the Doyle Drive construction where it was removed) hanging from the ceiling, caked in dried mud. As the mud dried, its cracks gave texture to the piece, and it is fun to try to find shape (like a heart). The large branch was brought in through the front door, no alterations to the building took place.
Earth Wall
This was supposed to look like a found object inside an excavation. The artist built the large twig ball and placed it inside a dirt-filled structure. He then rammed the earth down around it in order to give the installation some structure. Once the rammed earth was set, he then excavated the front of the ball to make it look like a found object.
It’s a surprising piece that if fascinating to look at.
Spire
My daughters in front of Spire.
For something so large, this piece is something you won't see until you are almost right next to it. As you come to the top of the Ecology trail, you might find yourself taking a break at Inspiration Point (yep, it’s really called that). There are some benches here, and the view is spectacular over the bay.
Once you are done with Inspiration Point, walk south along Arguello Blvd. till you find the crosswalk to the golf course and Presidio Cafe. Here you will find the trailhead for a dirt path headed northwest. Take this trail for a short distance and keep your eye out for the spire as it begins to peek out.
At 100 feet tall, it’s hard to believe it remains so hidden among its surroundings. Made up of 37 Monterey cypress trunks that were felled and replaced with younger saplings as part of the Presidio’s ecology efforts. Eventually, Spire will be obscured by the trees surrounding it.
Wood Line
Lover's Lane is one of the oldest foot trails in the Presidio. Soldiers would walk down this path to visit loved ones residing in the city from the time the Spanish were stationed here. There are stories that this path extended all the way to Mission Dolores originally.
Between Lover’s Lane and Presidio Blvd you can find the Wood Line, a serpentine structure of eucalyptus logs joined together through a former grove of Monterey cypress planted by the US Army back in the 1800s. The Eucalyptus surrounding the grove eventually overwhelmed the Monterey cypress leaving a void in this grove.
Goldsworthy reclaimed trees removed from the Doyle Drive improvements to create this structure, which will eventually decompose back into its environment.
Artist Andy Goldsworthy
The British artist Andy Goldsworthy is known for creating art inspired by and supplied from nature, art that will decay and return to the earth. He was the artist in residence at the Presidio while creating these four installations.
Spire was created in 2008, Woodline in 2011, Tree Fall in 2013, and Earth Wall in 2014. If you have visited the Cantor Museum in Palo Alto, you may have seen Stone Rover in front of the museum. Or possibly you have been to the de Young and seen Drawn Stone in the courtyard. The artist strives, in his words, “to make connections between what we call nature and what we call man-made.”
Presidio San Francisco
Cody Tolmasoff is an author and publisher for Adventuring.in. He is a recovering programmer and a San Francisco native, raising two daughters, and regularly finding new adventures around the SF Bay Area. This article is an excerpt from an upcoming book, 52 San Francisco Bay Area Weekend Adventures, Day Trips With Your Kids!
Find him on Twitter @codyo, and read his most recent title Adventures in Getting Out on Amazon, filled with advice on successfully getting your family out for day trip adventures.
Originally published on Medium on 19 March 2020