Monday, July 13, 2009

Two New Walks Planned, One Truly a Hidden Walk, and One More of a Stairway Walk

I'm looking forward to going on a hidden walk with, of course, Altschuler's wonderful Hidden Walks in the East Bay & Marin book as a guide. This time I'd like to try the walk in Sausalito, described as a combination of paved and unpaved steps up through quiet neighborhoods away from the tourist areas, culminating in fantastic views of the ocean and San Francisco and to an amazing hidden beach-no worries, though, because it's a public place!

The other walk I'd like to take is a staircase walk in San Francisco to Telegraph Hill where the wild parrots can be seen. Obviously, with the One Book Sacramento reading of The Soloist I've been setting up fall programming at GAL -like everyone else-with something in mind to appeal to many different age groups-namely, a viewing of the amazing film The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill at the branch. I personally loved the film, but I've been wanting to take the staircase climb to Telegraph Hill to see these birds in real life for quite some time.

So that's my plan-2 walks, one "hidden" and one "staircase." I guess my main concern is that summer may not be the best time to walk in the Bay Area-my past experience has been that the fall and early winter have been better because there's less fog. But we'll see-I may not be able to wait until fall!

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Climbing Stairways in San Francisco


A few years back my older daughter Erin and I took a stairway walk, using as our guide Stairway Walks in San Francisco by Adah Bakalinsky with Marian Gregoire. We had a great time climbing multiple staircases and pathways that were hidden between charming houses far from busy streets. While stopping to rest, we often could see the bay between trees and shrubbery and would hear birds chirping instead of noisy traffic.







Two Hidden Walks Near Charles Lee Tilden Regional Park and Highland Place in Berkeley

Over a year ago I took an amazing walk with family members on hidden paths that swerved in and out and in-between beautiful houses tucked away in the hills of Berkelely. My guide on this walk is the incomparable hidden walker's book, Hidden Walks in the East Bay & Marin: Pathways, Essays, & Yesteryear, by Stephen Altschuler. What's amazing about this book and about this walk is that by following Altschuler's directions, you quickly leave paved roads to descend railroad tie paths that take turns into narrow, protected walkways that sometimes appear undisturbed for decades-and yet these paths are for public use because they've been established years ago between private properties. On this walk we discovered beautiful old homes, parks completely surrounded by backyard fences that appear hidden from adjacent streets, fabulous views of canyons and Grizzly Peak, and a surprisingly private, yet public, park by which one enters by way of a hidden walkway and exists by looking for the manhole cover Alstchuler describes. (That was difficult to find!)

On another walk described in the book my daughter Erin and her then fiance (now my son-in-law Thomas) accompanied the family on an amazing trek through wooded dirt pathways between houses and up and down walkways connecting hilly streets full of Bernard Maybeck designed homes. At one point when we got drenched with rain, we dashed for cover over to a Tibetan Buddhist center where, also described as a place to visit on the walk, we took off our muddy, wet shoes in the entry way in order to go into the quiet, peaceful retreat. We were welcomed despite our dishelved appearance-probably something that would happen only in Berkeley!