WORDS:
Sarah Barrell
Bay, city, mist-backed bridge… Twin Peaks’ panorama is perfection, albeit fairly hard won, preceded by a lung-busting hike up from the Castro just as the morning’s sun starts to burn off the fog and fry the hillsides. The climb up San Francisco’s second-tallest peak follows a trail where successive hairpin bends open out to reveal a string of excuses to stop, breathe, and take in The View: ocean, skyscrapers, harum-scarum switchback streets. Then it’s off again, following the sure-footed lead of Val Hendrickson, a guide at Urban Hiker San Francisco.
This local outfit’s mission: to make an aerobically challenging playground out of the peaks, woods and stairways that populate patches of San Francisco’s undulating urban map, uncovering historical titbits en route. It’s steep. At points, I’m forced to grab handfuls of scrub — which rejoice in such Wild West names as lizard tail and coyote brush. At the top, we stop for a couple of obligatory summit photos and a breather, then I nod to Val and we’re off again, scrambling over the guardrail onto Twin Peaks Boulevard — named for the pair of adjacent hills it traverses — jaywalking swiftly across then dropping into woods flanking a fenced-off reservoir.