willaldrich.com

I first heard about the trails on Mt Sutro from the SF Urban Riders mailing list. I finally got out there today to ride it for the first time and it’s great fun. Nothing too technical, but a perfect conditioning ride when you don’t want to drive anywhere and you’ve only got an hour. From my house in the Mission, this whole loop was 7 miles and 1200 feet of climbing. 1.6 miles of it were on the trails.

There’s a handy map available from natureinthecity.org, which I’ve excerpted here:

My route was Fairy Gates Trail -> North Ridge Trail (to the Rotary Native Plant Garden) -> South Ridge -> Historic Trail -> Woodland Canyon Trail -> Fairy Gates and back out to the road. I tried to tack on Belgrave trail but chickened out after it seemed to deadend. The map suggests it continues down a steep techy section to Belgrave Ave, and I’ll have to explore that on the next outing.

I also look forward to doubling back and doing some of the trails in reverse. Some of the switchbacky stuff on North Ridge in particular would be really fun to descend from the Rotary Native Plant Garden. Also, I’d love to try the more primitive section of Woodland Canyon trail down to Edgewood Ave.

Riding this stuff makes me motivated to get out and help take care these trails on one of the upcoming Mt. Sutro Stewards volunteer days. What an unbelievable amenity! Take a look at this video from one of their volunteer days:

Here’s a photo of a section of the Historic Trail on Mt. Sutro’s west face. It’s clearly gotten some TLC from the stewards. Thanks much and I hope to see you out there soon.