On San Francisco’s western edge, the grid rules. The streets flow east to west in pin-straight lines, while the avenues march north and south. The Richmond gives way to the Sunset, the Sunset to the Parkside, each block following the next in an orderly fashion.
But there are exceptions. And the largest one, I would argue, is the one most worth exploring. Built around a chain of peaks and steep rocky cliffs, Golden Gate Heights is a neighborhood where the rules do not apply — and that’s a wonderful thing. If you’re used to “the avenues,” prepare to be spun around like a top. In Golden Gate Heights, you round a corner and suddenly 12th Avenue becomes 9th Avenue. Lawton Street turns into 16th Avenue, and 14th and 15th Avenue intersect. The winding streets, strange convergences, and hidden stairways make a simple neighborhood walk feel like an island-in-the-sky adventure.
Golden Gate Heights is dense and layered, like the Franciscan chert it is built upon. It is so steep in places that roads are split by retaining walls, which evoke castle ramparts. The layers of concrete, ancient rock, houses, and greenery dampens the relentless hum of traffic on nearby 19th Avenue, down the hill and to the west. A deep calm pervades in Golden Gate Heights, even at midday. It’s a place apart from the rest of San Francisco — dense but not urban, engineered but brimming with nature.
As in many of the city’s steep hilltop neighborhoods, city planners had to weave stairways from street to street. They range from the grandiose Quintara Steps, which split into a double track, to Aerial Way, which crawls over the ridge from east to west, as well as nameless narrow paths that cut between houses.
In Golden Gate Heights, these stairs are the stars and one main reason to spend a whole afternoon wandering the neighborhood. Residents looking to create community connections teamed with artists Aileen Barr and Colette Crutcher to create a climbing mosaic, and in 2005 the 16th Avenue Tiled Steps were born.
The Hidden Garden Steps on Kirkham Street at 16th Avenue got a similar mosaic treatment a decade later. These, not the more famous 16th Avenue Tiled Steps, are my favorite point of entry to Golden Gate Heights. The 148 steps lead up to Lawton and their rich mosaic depicts a garden, with sprouting seeds, snails, fungi, moths, and flowers galore. An actual garden brimming with trees and California native plants runs alongside.
At the top, turn right on Lawton (which quickly becomes 16th Avenue) and walk two blocks south to Moraga Street. There you’ll find the bottom of the 16th Avenue Tiled Steps to continue your stair tour. The now-famous 163 mosaic panels show a dazzling ascent, sea-to-land-to-stars, that draw locals, visitors, and ambitious runners alike, and rise to the base of the aptly named Grandview Park.
At 666 feet tall, Grandview isn’t the highest peak in the city, but from it on a clear day you can see the Farallon Islands, Marin Headlands, Golden Gate Bridge, downtown landmarks, and Sutro Tower. After your climb, benches and downed logs provide places to rest with a book or beverage and soak in 360 degrees of beauty.
A streak of green
Much of western San Francisco sits atop former sand dunes, but Golden Gate Heights is perched on a ridge of 140-million-year-old Franciscan chert, a sedimentary rock, rich red and swirling with layers, made from the shells of marine plankton. (Sea to land to stars, indeed.) The chert juts out all over the neighborhood, bulging below houses and worn smooth underfoot atop Grandview Park. The largest and most jaw-dropping swathe is at Rocky Outcrop, a natural area maintained by SF Recreation and Parks along 14th Avenue just south of Grandview.
Until the 1920s, this ridge was surrounded by dunes and largely undeveloped. But in 1924, Carl Larsen, a Danish immigrant who owned tracts of land in what is now the Sunset donated much of what is now Golden Gate Heights to the city. By the late 1920s, the streets and stairways had been laid out, although it would take another several decades for houses to replace the dunes.
Humans aren’t the only locals who rely on the stairways. These marginal open spaces are crucial stepping stones that connect larger habitats for the rare coastal green hairstreak butterfly.
This small, iridescent insect only ranges about 300 feet from its birthplace. Consequently, even a small area without the green hairstreak’s favorite native plants can isolate populations and reduce their numbers.
In response, the nonprofit Nature in the City established the Green Hairstreak Corridor, eleven smaller open spaces that connect the neighborhood’s three larger parks. The first stop on this flyway is a humble triangle of green north of Grandview Park where Lomita and Aloha avenues intersect. From there it follows stairways and pockets of green south to its terminus at Hawk Hill.
The corridor includes Golden Gate Heights Park, which has the 774-foot Larsen Peak, the neighborhood’s highest point. But higher does not equal better views. Densely blanketed with Monterey pine, the park feels like Grandview’s darker, moodier cousin, and only slivers of the city below shimmer through the trees. This thicket, however, is a haven not only for the green hairstreak but also for birds that overwinter or make the park home year round.
South of the park, the heights still have a few twists and turns to explore. Off Quintara, 12th Avenue heads south for a block until it dead-ends and intersects with 9th Avenue — the second such avenue-to-avenue convergence in the neighborhood that feels as unsettling to a longtime San Franciscan as a warm wind blowing out to sea.
(Explore a bit more, and you’ll find tiny Mendosa Street that curls into a cul-de-sac with twin water tanks at the top.)
From here, you could head east into Forest Hill, but we’ll save that for another adventure. Instead, wander back to Quintara and go west to Funston, then turn left. This takes you to Golden Gate Heights’ southern terminus: Hawk Hill. It’s what SF Rec and Park calls “a magnificent remnant hilltop dune,” a representative of what this windswept section of the city once looked like.
Like the hairstreak, Hawk Hill is threatened. With no natural sources of replenishing sand, it is at risk of erosion and public access is discouraged. As much as we love to explore, it’s better here to leave the panorama for the butterflies. There’s still a magnificent view for you from the end of Funston.
How to get there
Golden Gate Heights is accessible via Muni’s 52 and 66 lines, with the N, L, 28, 43, and 44 running just beyond its borders.
There is free street parking, but beware, thieves prowl for easy smash-and-grab chances in parked cars. Signs around Grandview Park and the 16th Avenue Tiled Steps caution visitors not to leave anything in sight. It’s easiest to park between 19th and 16th Avenues or between 10th and 7th Avenues before the terrain gets too wacky.
To fuel up before your climb, try a hot beverage and a pillowy mochi donut at Home Coffee Roasters on Noriega Street near 19th. To unwind afterwards with a pint, try the Sunset Reservoir Brewing Company, also on Noriega, or ride the L down Taraval Street to Parkside Tavern. West Portal and its cornucopia of choices is also nearby.
Grandview Park, Golden Gate Heights Park, and Hawk Hill do not have public restrooms or drinking fountains, so plan accordingly.
