Destination: Land's End, San Francisco
Visit Sutro Park, Explore the Sutro Baths, and Hike Land's End Trail
This is part of a series of family-oriented day trip outings around the San Francisco Bay Area I look forward to enjoying with my kids once social distancing and shelter in place isn’t the norm any longer.
Photo by Peter Gonzalez on Unsplash
Social Isolation — Day 26
After being stuck in the house for the last few days, I took the kids out today on a 4-mile hike, walking from our house. I’m not too far from some open space and waterways, and it was nice to get out and stretch our legs a bit.
A recurring topic on the news is what post-shelter-in-place looks like once we flatten out the curve. Ideally, if we can get infection rates down, have fast, reliable testing widely available, and do good contact tracing on patients who test positive, we might be able to return to some sense of normalcy.
Stanford is conducting a study to see if the Coronavirus might have come into California earlier than thoughts, back in the Fall of 2019. Aside from the swift action of our local and state governments, we might also already have some heard immunity going on here.
Testing to see if you have antibodies and are immune to the virus now because of a previous infection will become an interesting new currency for workers soon as they don’t have to worry about becoming reinfected. They would only have to follow the safety guidelines as to not accidentally pick up the virus and spread it to others.
Destination: Land’s End, San Francisco
Visit Sutro Heights Park
Explore the Sutro Baths
Hike Land’s End
Growing up in San Francisco, I’ve heard many stories about the things Adolf Sutro accomplished. The one thing that didn’t become clear until I was much older was the sheer scale of the things Sutro accomplished in such a short amount of time.
Over the course of the last decade of his life, Adolf Sutro purchased 12% of San Francisco land, became mayor, purchased Sutro Heights on a whim and created a world-renowned garden and built a home, purchased the Cliff House, rebuilt the Cliff House, created the Sutro Baths, build a cliff-side railway to bring patrons to his baths, built an estate where Sutro Tower is now, and so much more. It’s interesting to explore the relics of his efforts and share his story.
If you’d like a bit more in-depth information on this area, check out my book Golden Gate Park: West for a more detailed day trip in this area.
Visit Sutro Heights Park
Sutro Heights Parapet by Cody Tolmasoff
This was one of my most favorite destinations as a kid. Driving along the windswept ocean, up the curvy hill past the Cliff House, up the steep hill to turn on 48th avenue by the Seal Rock Inn on a Sunday morning, smelling breakfast being made at their little restaurant, parking the car along the park frontage, Sutro Heights Park was a wonderful oasis in the city. Detached in so many ways from its surroundings, a well-manicured pocket of green space to run around in, protected from the wind, hidden treasures around the park to rediscover on each visit; this was a spot to not only stretch our legs but also our imagination.
Even though Sutro’s extraordinary gardens are long gone, you can find remnants of the exceptional estate this once was. Walking around on the flat raised mound of dirt, you could still find tiles from the greenhouse that once stood there. You can play in the well house that once offered visitors a water fountain to refresh themselves, you could find statues hidden in the shrubbery if you knew where to look, you could sit on the lions protecting the main entrance at 48th & Point Lobos, you could climb to the parapet overlooking the Cliff House and ocean below.
I still love a good walk around Sutro Park, sharing long forgotten times with loved ones, telling stories of the amazing things a man in the late 1800s accomplished.
Explore the Sutro Baths
Photo by Thiago Santos on Unsplash
The Sutro Baths started out in 1896 as a massive indoor saltwater swimming pool. Fed from nearby ocean water, this was a massive engineering feat for the day. The facilities included 6 saltwater pools of varying temperatures (along with a series of slides and swings), a museum filled with historical curiosities (many from the former Woodward Gardens), a 2700 seat amphitheater, and club rooms that could take another 1100, and 517 private dressing rooms (along with rental swimsuits). Later on, they replaced part of the large pool with a tropical beach, which was followed by an ice skating rink.
The Sutro heirs tried for years to sell the property, and various family members stepped in to run it with mild success. Overall, the endeavor lost money even though it was a San Francisco landmark.
By 1964 it was sold to some real estate developers who were in the process of demolishing the building in 1966 when it mysteriously caught fire. All that was left is mostly what you see today. The developers claimed the insurance money and left town soon afterward. The Golden Gate National Recreation Area eventually purchased the land along with the Cliff House and Land’s End.
Hike Land’s End
Land's End Hike by Cody Tolmasoff
There are two trails you can take here, the lower Coastal trail, and the upper El Camino Del Mar. The Coastal trail follows most of what was the Ferries and Cliff House railway (except for the parts lost to landslide). The upper El Camino Del Mar was a scenic drive built prior to WWII and was closed during the war to civilians. In the 1950s the city invested money to improve the newly reopened road, only to have it succumb to landslide soon after it was finished.
My preferred route is to walk from the Land’s End Parking lot out along the coastal trail to the Palace of Legion of Honor Museum, then return along the El Camino del Mar. There are a few hills, as the hike had to be adjusted to work around landslide areas. The trail is stable, but venturing out into off-limits areas is a bad idea. Every year, some rescue story is on the news about someone who ignored the signs and barriers and found themselves stuck. Mile Rock Beach (accessible by a stairway from the Coastal Trail) is cool to visit, but it’s a big hike up and down.
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 8 April 2020