Communing with nature on Mount Sutro
There are many sites with “Sutro” in their names all over the city. For example, there’s the Sutro Baths at Lands End—the relics of a once spectacular indoor swimming pool, the largest in the world of the late 19th century. Across the street, up the hill, on the promontory above the Cliff House, there is Sutro Heights Park, where Adolph Sutro, a gold mining engineer, built his mansion to overlook his baths and the ocean. Now, all that’s left of the magnificent structure is a pair of stone lions and a statue of Venus. And then there’s the “cloud forest” on Mount Sutro, which offers one of the most sensuous and interesting less-traveled paths in the city.
Mount Sutro is an 834-foot-high hill, which, incidentally, supports a 977-foot three-legged steel tower—the Sutro Tower, which is the city’s center pole, literally and figuratively. It transmits all of San Francisco’s essential communications signals, including radio, television, wireless, and mobile. But of all the city’s “Sutros,” perhaps the most magical is to the north, in the Mount Sutro Open Space Preserve, which includes the 100-year-old Mount Sutro Forest. It consists of 80 acres dotted with eucalyptus trees, some of which stand 200 feet tall. It’s a bird watcher’s paradise, with 46 known species, including such characters as the great horned owl, the Pacific slope flycatcher, and the lime-yellow western tanager.
Info
Address Mount Sutro, San Francisco, CA, 94131, www.mntsutro.com | Public Transport Bus: 6 (Parnassus Ave & Stanyan St stop) 43 (1697 7th Ave stop) | Tip At the East entrance to the forest is Cole Valley, with its many delightful cafes and small stores. Most of the businesses are still of the mom-and-pop variety. Stop for brunch at Zazie, a beloved local haunt, at 941 Cole Street.
Several hiking trails wind through the woodland—not terribly long paths but satisfying ones, which are accessible from both Stanyan Street and Edgewood Avenue. The forest is a favorite respite from the arid nature of the city in these drought-full years. On those afternoons when the fog rolls in, the vegetation seems particularly lush and scented.
Often people flock to this geographical center of the city to get lost for a few hours, practice a walking meditation, or just to enjoy the lovely tree canopy overhead.
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