2013-03-24 San Francisco 'Marathon'

Full day hike in San Francisco
Most of it has 0 technical difficulty but a few trails / off track stretches should be considered as difficult.

The purpose was to burn my soles, put my legs to the test… and see as much of San Francisco in one day without using any public transportation.

Starting from the hotel nearby the caltrain station, dropped by a few city landmarks before heading for the Golden Gate Park, the beach up to the Golden Gate Bridge.
This park is so huge, it would take a whole day to walk all the roads and trails there is. The small Strawberry Hill in the middle of the park has some interesting trails (read steep slopes) and overall the park is very enjoyable with a lot of different things.

The trail along the beach is some kind of hiking highway, probably up to 5m wide at places. There is a multitude of very small trails going towards the beach, no one seems to go as the area is mostly crowded with tourists and it's a good thing because those trails are technically difficult and not maintained. At some point I had to crawl to make my way back up to the main trail.

The shoreline on the East of the Golden Gate is not as interesting as the West side. Indeed there are no cliffs and the view is less striking (especially due to the position of the sun during the afternoon). On Baker beach there was a bunch of naked dudes, I made sure not to get too close...

At Pier39 my wallet suddenly became thinner and my backpack fuller with heaps of souvenirs and then my paced slowed down as I was heading for the final destination.

For my first time in San Francisco I guess I could have chosen a shorter trail (considering the blisters the day after) but I'm sure I couldn't have seen as many things.

More pictures here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jbfafpr6xxp0w9c/LkIsb-cTFy