San Francisco City walks on Labor Day weekend


I had to spend 2 whole days on the Labor Day weekend for my son’s chess tournament, so naturally I had quite a bit of time to kill. Normally during his tournaments, I work on my laptop, watch chess games, watch movies, and talk to other parents. This time I decided that I would take a walking tour of the city I love so much. The first day,  was a typical San Francisco day, cold and cloudy with temperatures in low 60s. When the first game started, I decided to start my walk from Van Ness and California St. crossing to Coit Tower via Lombard and Crooked Street. It was fun, since this was the first time I was not visiting either places as a tourist. Watching other tourists was quite amusing. Since an hour had already passed by the time I strolled to Coit tower, I took a 2 minute break and then started my journey back to the tournament hall. Overall, it was a little over 5 miles based on my NewYu. I made it back just in time to wish my son luck in his second game.

In the afternoon I decided to go down on Van Ness towards the bay. Van Ness Avenue ends in long curvy pier that opens up into the bay. I walked to the Pier Circle and then decided to go on a little hill around Fort Mason. My path  was via Fort Mason Green. I spent some time on the Marina and decided to come back to the tournament hall (Holiday Inn) via Laguna Street to California. This round trip was around 4.3 miles.





The next day the sun came out from behind the clouds. I decided to walk towards the Bay Bridge. Hence, I took California St. east towards the Justin Herman Plaza. On this part of the street I saw some awesome architecture, starting with Grace Cathedral, and on to the Nob Hill Masonic Center, The Fairmont hotel, and some other buildings. Then I went through China town to the financial district, eventually reaching the Ferry Plaza. I spent some time at the plaza and decided to return on the same way back. This walk was around 5.7 miles. In all I had a pleasant long weekend with my NewYu logging over 15 miles.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mt. Diablo State Park

Image
Surprisingly for the first time after summer break we had weather that was in the low 70s on the first Sunday of this fall. We decided to take advantage of good weather and hike up challenging Mt. Diablo Summit. Mt. Diablo height is 3849 feet. The hike starts at 400 ft level. We reached the North entrance of the park at 9.15 am. We checked the map at the ranger station, where the ranger suggested us to take gradual hike route Coulter pine trail instead of usual Mitchell Canyon route.   After stretching a bit, 3 of us started our 7-mile uphill hike. Since the weather was nice and initial slope was mild, we were covering the ground faster. Soon, we took the fire road, a downhill path; causing us to loose whatever height gain we had gained earlier. After a half-mile trail on fire road, we soon reached the back creek tail. This was a very steep uphill hike for next 2.5 miles. Even though this trail is in open, it is a very narrow trail through 5-6 feet tall shrubs.   As we
Read more

Windy Hill Open Space Reserve

Image
Hike Date: 10/23/11 This week we decided to hike Windy Hill Open Space Reserve. We reached there by Highway 280 taking Alpine Road exit to Portola Road. There is a nice parking lot accommodating 30 cars at the trailhead. The day was clear and temperatures in high 60s. The trail starts behind the restrooms. The trailhead is around 600 feet elevation. In 0.1 miles from the entrance we came across a nice and small Sausal Pond.  We took the Ridge Trail along the pond. In 0.6 miles you come across many forks on the trail. The trail does not gain much overall elevation change but goes up and down. We always kept the left and in 1.2 miles we merged into Eagle Trail, which ascends mildly. Eagle Trail goes along the Alpine Road for 0.7 miles along one side and a creek on the other side. At the end of Eagle Trail there is another entrance to the park. At this entrance we crossed the bridge on the creek and got on to Razorback Ridge Trail. This trail ascends very steep in the dense tall Redwo
Read more

Lake Ilsanjo, Annadel State Park

Image
I happened to be in Santa Rosa and had few hours of free time. Hence, I looked around to see where my son and I could hike. Google showed that Annadel State park was nearby. We decided to give the place a vist. The park has many trails and loops. We decided to do combination of loop trail for Lake Ilsanjo. While entering the park we saw a parking lot where lot of cars were parked, and we also parked our car there. The actual entrance of the park was about half mile from there. We realized that most of bicyclists park their cars there and cycle around the park. At the park entrance, we checked out a map and decided our route. We started with Channel trail at the trailhead. This trail goes alongside the road. After we 0.3 miles the trail turns right and starts a gradual ascent. After another 0.7 miles, the path forks, where we decided to take a left on the North Burma trail. On this trail we saw many live oaks, black oaks, and madrones. Around the end of the Burma trail, we saw a big g
Read more