Posts by Dan Gutierrez

Physicist, Satellite Engineer, Chess Master and Stair Walker.

Walking LA Loop Segment I1


Walking I1: The hardest 10 miles of the LA Loop
(Or the stairs that tried to kill me) by Scott Listfield

[This is our first guest blog! Dan Gutierrez comments are gray in square brackets]

Hi, my name is Scott Listfield and this is the story of how I, a relatively normal guy, walked I1, the stairsiest 10 miles in all of Los Angeles.

[I1 is code for the first half of 20 mile full Segment I of the Los Angeles Loop
Each of the 15 LA Loop segments has a letter code: A, B, C…H, I, J…M, N, O]

Blog author Scott Listfield

But first, a short preamble. I moved to Los Angeles almost 5 years ago and settled in Echo Park. One of the first things I noticed about my new neighborhood were the stairs running up the side of a large hill on the corner of my street. It ignited a strange sort of curiosity in me. I wanted to know where they went.

During the pandemic I began to grow tired of being so indoors all the time, and started taking longer and longer walks on the stairs in my neighborhood. It became my pandemic hobby, allowing me not only to get out of my own head for a little while, but to get to know my new city in a much more personal way. I downloaded a bunch of route maps from the SoCal Stair Climbers website to my phone, and they served as my guide to exploring Los Angeles, one stairway at a time.

Full disclosure: I am not especially athletic and by my general appearance you’d perhaps guess that I had spent most my formative years under fluorescent lighting. Despite these obstacles, over time I eventually worked my way up to some of the longer stair walks, through some of the steepest neighborhoods in Los Angeles. I felt like I was ready to tackle a 10 mile half-segment of the massive 305 mile Los Angeles Loop around LA County, which you can find on this very site. I began with stairs I knew the best – the ones closest to home. Which, as it turned out, are by far the hardest section of the entire loop. I am dumb sometimes. But if I could do it, you can, too.
And so, one vaguely murky day in March 2023, I found myself at the corner of Allesandro Street and Riverside Drive in the shadow of the SR-2 & I-5 interchange.

Allesandro St & Riverside Drive – The start of segment I1

In about 7.5 miles I won’t be feeling super fresh, but right now I’ve got the giddy energy of someone who doesn’t know how in over their head they are. So let’s walk some stairs, shall we?

Via Artis (AKA Elmoran St) stairway

We’re off to a great start with one of my top 10 most disappointing stairways. These were built in conjunction with nearby condos and are one of the few stairs in the area that aren’t almost 100 years old. Not all old things are better than new things but as far as stairs go, give me a century old block of cement over awkwardly tall wooden steps filled in with pebbles which have now partially washed away. But hey, you take what you can get. If you’re finding this blog post in like, 2075, these pictures are from the especially wet winter of 2023. Things aren’t usually this grassy.

Scott wants you to see this van!

Not a stairs thing but make sure you keep an eye out for this sweet van, often parked along this route. It is, in every sense of the word, bitchin’.

Ok, enough with vans. Back to stairs. Below are some good old fashioned steps like the ones silent film stars used to drop heavy machinery down. I don’t think this one in particular was in any movies, but we’ll hit one that is in like 8 million more steps.

The 114 step Peru St Stairway

Spoiler alert: We’re going to be going up a lot of stairs and also sometimes down some stairs (see below). If this isn’t your thing you’ve come to the wrong blog, my friend.

The 146 step NE Landa St Stairway

The 132 up/30 down step Lemoyne St Stairway through Fellowship Park

I’m used to approaching the Fellowship Parkway (above) from the other side, but this is one of the real hidden gems of Echo Park. A small community accessible only by stairs. Would I want to try and deliver a refrigerator to this particular neighborhood? No I would not. But thankfully that’s not my problem to solve. I just get to walk through here, enjoying the babbling brook (right side of 3rd image), on my way from stairs to more stairs.

The 133 step East Ewing St Stairway

Ok, we’ve bottomed out of Echo Park’s weird but cool secret village and are now ready to roll up and down the many hills around Fargo and Baxter Streets – the 5th and 6th steepest streets in the United States, and notably great places for virally crashing Teslas (google that. Or don’t. Up to you). But I’m getting ahead of myself. This here is a stairway which I’m about to climb that has some colorful paint on the hand rails (see the video at the end for more).

The 58 step Ewing St side-stair

I’m probably supposed to say nice things about the stairs on this route but these sidewalk steps on Ewing Street suuuuuuuuuuck. [Climbing the 30% grade on Ewing St proper is no picnic; the side-stairs with sidewalk in-between, were built to make it a little easier to climb this beast, compared to walking up the steeper street!]

 

32%+ grade Fargo St – One of the steepest streets in the US

A quick glance down Fargo Street (5th steepest in America), which used to be home to a long running annual bike hill climb event [that is working to reestablish itself after the city forced the street to be one-way downhill – Here is Dan Gutierrez climbing it on a special hill-bike he designed/built in 2008]. No thanks. Climbing up this thing was plenty for me.

198 Step Cove St Stairway – Left 2023 – Right Frame from 1922 movie – The Pest starring Stan Laurel

The Cove St. steps look appropriately daunting. These were featured, via a stairway gag, in a 1922 Stan Laurel film The Pest, which I’ll admit is not front and center on my Netflix queue. But still. To think over 100 years ago they were filming movies on the exact spot where I’m trying not to cry is pretty cool.

The northwest facing view from the top of the Cove St Stairway

Usually there aren’t so many clouds in this view, but again, this was shot in the weird winter of 2023 when we got a lot of weather. I’m taking a brief moment here to savor the view from the top, and to reattach my calves.

Before walking over to, and heading back down these guys (below).

The 58 step Oak Glen Place Stairway

The now muddy bottom of the Oak Glen Place stairway

Which bottom out in this hot mess (above). Usually the grass/mud situation is not quite so dire, but these are some of the last remaining wooden steps in the area and boy do they feel like old wooden steps when you walk on them. Do you remember the scene in Indiana Jones when he puts his foot through something ancient and almost falls to his death? Definitely don’t think about that scene when you walk on these stairs.

The bottom of the 181 step Loma Vista Place stairway

OK what is this nonsense? It’s not really a stairway. It’s kind of a ramp thing. I’m not sure if it was designed for people or horses or very small horses or like industrial runoff or what. Are there any historians reading this blog that can explain why every other hill in this part of town has a normal looking staircase and this road gets an Evel Knievel ramp? [I suspect this pair of ramps with stairway in the center was originally designed in the 1920s to allow delivery trucks to drive up to drop off large items, and also make walking easier]

The wooden upper steps of the 181 step Loma Vista Place Stairway

So that super cool ramp that I love so much dead ends in a dirt trail, then you get to plow through some Jurassic sized aloe plants which btw are VERY pointy, and then you get some semi-rotten old wooden stairs as your reward. I’m starting to think whoever lived in this neighborhood in 1920 must have done something mean to the local stair building guild. [My guess is that there was originally a dirt path from the top of the concrete steps up to the street above, and the wooden steps were likely added decades later]

The view from the top of the west Donaldson St ramp and 25 step stairway

OK, we’re saying goodbye to this portion of Echo Park, and heading into the land of the giants [Elysian Heights]. Twin sets of stairs often mirror each other, on either side of Echo Park Ave, leading down the two steep hills to where the old red car trolley line used to run. This half stairway/half ramp thing runs down to Donaldson St.

The shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe at the bottom of the 143 step East Donaldson St Stairway

Then we cross Echo Park Ave, walk past a local bus turnaround, and also this nifty looking shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe, and we head back up the opposite side of the Donaldson St. Steps.

The 129 step and lighted Curran St Stairway

Enjoy this relatively normal sized stairway (above) while you can. The big ones are coming.

The 39 step Preston Ave Stairway

Mercifully this route (Preston Ave stairway above) doesn’t take us up and over Baxter Street itself – the 6th steepest street in America – although many of these stairs are built into the same hillside it traverses. Baxter Street recently became somewhat famous for a viral video of a crazy person jumping a Tesla up and over it. A school bus and a limo got stuck at the top. The city had to change portions of it to one way because the driving app Waze was sending poor unsuspecting drivers over it on their way to Dodger Stadium. In earlier years, it featured briefly [car jump in the same place as the Tesla jump] in the Beastie Boys Sabotage video, and probably made appearances in a number of silent films from 100 years ago. All because it looks completely and totally unreal, even as you are plummeting down it. But hey, we’re going to cut up this tiny stairway and avoid it.

The 29 step East Fargo St Stairway

^ And then down this small guy which leads to a short reappearance of Fargo Street, unconnected to the much steeper stretch of Fargo we showed in an earlier photo, on the other side of the hill.

The lighted 231 step Baxter Street Stairway on the hillside across the canyon

^ Literally looming in the distance above are the Baxter Street steps. The longest continual stairway in this area. I’ve walked these stairs many times, but usually I do them in the early stretch of a walk. I’m already 4 miles (and a lot of stairs) into a 10 mile walk which I’m getting increasingly nervous about. I’ll be fine, right? Right?……Right?

The bottom of the 231 step Baxter Street stairway

The Baxter Street steps are broken up into many winding segments where the top looks nearby. This will lull you into a false sense of security. Don’t trust that sensation. It is a lie.

Top of the 231 Baxter Street Steps – Note arrow pointing to HOLLYWOOD Sign and Griffith Observatory

Made it to the top. Gonna take a moment and enjoy that sweet sweet oxygen. On a nice day you can get great views of the Griffith Observatory and the Hollywood sign from the top of the Baxter Street stairs. You know, if you’re not doubled over.

DTLA Skyline – Looking across Elysian Park – from Park Ave

Here, just for the briefest of moments, we skirt the edge of Elysian Park and take in some really nice views of downtown. It’s tempting to bail at this point and go frolic in the wild flowers, but no. I’ve got 6 more miles of stairs to climb and my legs feel like pool noodles. but I’m committed now. Let’s do this.

The 125 step West Avalon St Stairway

The Avalon St. steps on the west side of Echo Park Ave look pretty daunting, but trust me, they’re cute compared to the Avalon St. steps coming up on the east side. Don’t believe me? No worries. You’ll see them looming ahead of you in a second.  Is it too late to take up a different hobby? Has anybody tried needlepoint?

The 192 step East Avalon St Stairway on the hillside across the canyon

Oh. Hey. Coooool.

There they are, and they look enormous. The Avalon St. steps form a kind of twin towers with the Baxter St. steps just a few blocks up. I’ve walked these stairs a lot – possibly more than any others – but not usually smack in the middle of a 10 mile hike.

I’m having some regrets right now.

Looking down from near the top of the 192 step East Avalon St Stiarway

Part way up the Avalon Street steps. I’m taking a breather. Don’t judge me.

Oof.

Ooooooof.

The 125 step East Delta St Stairway

Ok, folks. At this point in the walk I have just cruised past both the halfway point, and my house, where in an alternate universe I could be comfortably sitting on a couch watching Netflix. [No Netflix or chill for you Scott! ;-)] Instead I’m already just over 5 miles and a whopping 163 flights of stairs [1,630 feet of climbing] into this walk. I’m pretty sure it was at this moment that I began to doubt my ability to finish this thing (and possibly my sanity for even attempting it).

The 31 step West Delta and 37 step Alvarado Median stairways

Thankfully, after the behemoths in the middle of this walk, I’m due for a handful of smaller stairs as I wind my way down towards Glendale Blvd and the hills of Silverlake beyond. These guys (above) are a breeze.

The 101 step Lower Effie St Stairway is across the canyon form Alvarado St

Casting a quick glance down towards Glendale Blvd (above) and the next stairway on my list.

The bottom of the Lower and Upper Effie St Stairways with 182 total steps

^ So according to the Health app on my iPhone, as I reached the top of the two Effie St stairways, I passed 185 flights [1,850 feet] climbed, and I’m starting to cramp up a little bit. My previous record was about 205 flights in one day. Yikes. So I took some time to stretch my legs and felt pretty sure that I’d coast through the rest of this thing.

Ha, just kidding. I was boned. I thought that having walked these stairs dozens of times before would have prepared me for this walk. What it did instead was left me uncomfortably aware of the suffering I had signed myself up for. The towering stairs of Silver Lake’s east side still loomed, and I knew it…

The slowly decomposing 20 wooden steps of the Waterloo St Stairway

But first: ^ Whatever the hell this thing is.

The 181 step Angelus Ave stairway – Left down – Right Up

Welcome to Silver Lake. Here (above) are some stairs to climb down and then go right back up again. Thanks, Silver Lake. Appreciate it.

Sigh…Down we go…And (oof) back up…

Looking down the 88 step south Easterly/Silverwood stairway

And then down some more…
It’s a little hard to tell from the pictures but at this point in my walk I’m also chasing the sunset.  While some of the stairs are lit, most are not, and I’d prefer to get this thing done before sundown. Of course I’m about 7.5 miles in and I’ve climbed two and a half Empire State buildings, so I’m not exactly moving at full speed.

Looking down the 80 step Occidental/Easterly Stairway

Down down down we go into the canyons and crevices of Silverlake. You know what they say about gravity and stair walking: what goes down must come up [Hey! That’s my quote! – sans gravity]. Or something like that.

The 212 total steps of the Silverwood North triple-set of stairways.

And back up we go. This stairway-set starts inauspiciously enough, but don’t worry, there’s two more gigantic stairways lurking after this one. I’ve climbed these stairs enough to know that, which is why I’m crying just a tiny bit right now. (inarticulate gurgling noise) (light swearing)

There’s no feeling quite like getting to the top of a really big stairway and then realizing there’s an equally big stairway across the street.
You just want to slowly rewind time so that the wonderfully naive version of you from 30 seconds ago could exist forever.

Looking down from the top of the 212 step Silverwood North stairway triple-set

If it sounds like I’m starting to hallucinate, it’s probably because at this point in the walk, blood is flowing out of my brain towards whatever situation is going on in my legs.

Admiring the view across “The Terraces” area of Silver Lake

^ Taking a moment to admire the view and to curse the dying of the light.

The 108 step Easterly Fanning stairway – Left: Hummingbird and Butterfly artwork by Miranda Cristofani – Right: Looking back down toward the Swan Stairway across the canyon

^ Left: Under normal circumstances I quite enjoy this hummingbird & butterfly stairway, but my legs are starting to throb, and it looks super tall, and I’ve still got almost 2 miles left to go.
Right: Very nice. Truly lovely. Too bad the sun is disappearing beneath the neighboring hills and I’m cursing the coming blackness of the night.

[At this point in poor Scott’s trek, I need to jump in an explain why this walk was soooo much more of an ordeal for him than it should have been! Here we go.]

The Silver Lake Recreation Center – The “Half-Way” stop for the 2023 LA Loop Segment I1 event

[Just down the hill from the hummingbird & butterfly stairway is the Silver Lake Recreation area. This is where Scott should have stopped at 8.4 miles and over 2,722 stairway up steps, leaving another 2,251 up-steps for I2. The only problem is that Scott went out and walked Segment I1 well before I had decided to put the stop here, instead of doing the literal half-segment distance of walking 10 miles and climbing 3,175 stairway up-steps, which is what Scott did on this walk, and what we did on the 20 mile versions of this walk in past years. It had not occurred to me that anyone would try the hardest half-segment as a solo walk well before we walked this as a group event! Sorry Scott, I didn’t mean for this walk to be so hard for you! Now back to Scott’s ordeal…]

The 84 step Redesdale/Landa Stairway which has interesting geometry

OK, the Redesdale/Landa stairs overlooking the Silver Lake reservoir is one of my favorite set of stairs in all of LA and I’ve never been here at sunset and so even though I’ve had to limp most of the way up this hill to get here, I’m super excited to see the view from the top. [Also one of my favorites – Artsy scanned panorama]

Looking back down at the Silver Lake Reservoir from the top of the 84 step Redesdale/Landa Stairway

^ Haha. The sun sets in the west. This view looks east. And also it’s kind of cloudy so you can’t really see the mountain views that you normally get from up here.

Watching the sun go down facing west from the top of the 84 step Redesdale/Landa Stairway

Guys, I found the sunset. It’s in the other direction. Of course it is.

The 287 step Swan Place stairway triple-set of stairways: 77/110/100 steps respectively in the waning daylight with artwork by accomplished murlaist Evelyn Leigh

^ Left: You might recognize these blue steps from one of the Painted Stairways Tour stair-walks. Ironically, it looks quite lovely in the fading blue of impending nightfall.
Middle: I hope you enjoy how nice these two towering painted Swan Pl stairways look at twilight. I’d like to say I was enjoying their splendor, too, but my legs at this point weren’t working super great and I’ve clearly already lost the race against the setting sun, which feels like there’s a larger metaphor of the futility of mankind’s endeavors in there somewhere, but I’m more focused on trying to get up to the top of a couple hundred more stairs before my legs fall off.
Right: God damn it. [100 more painful/beautiful steps]

Going down the two upper Swan Place Stairways in the dark

^ Left: OK, it’s definitely dark out now, and I might have to flip on the flashlight on my phone to get down these things. They really are lovely though, so if you take anything away from this ridiculous blog post I’m writing about my stair walking misadventures it’s this: you can do it. Just be smarter about it than I was.
Right: Behold the majesty of Silver Lake after dark. (I need some Bengay)

The bottom of the 82 step Effie/Rotary Stairway adorned with great stencil artwork seen at right in the daytime!

^ Good news for you nightwalkers, this stairway has lights! Sort of…

The DTLA Skyline lit up at night

^ The lights come on in downtown LA and I find myself a character in an old noir film: a shadowy figure, limping through the streets at night, possibly with nefarious motives or maybe just a guy who wishes he started this stair walk a little bit earlier in the day.

Left: The 90 step Cicero and Right: 83 step Hamilton/Murray stairways at night

^ Left: Haha, it’s really dark now. There’s a stairway down there somewhere.

^Right: Finishing up the very last stairway of this walk. I’m not going to lie, I way overdid it on this one. But I don’t say this to dissuade you, or to make it seem scarier than it is. Much in the way that (I assume?) people run marathons (I’ve never run one, so I’m guessing here, they seem painful), I wanted to push myself to see if I could do all 10 miles of the densest stretch of stairs in the city. Was I super smart about it? Haha, no. I should have set out earlier to avoid racing the sunset. I should have paced myself better, taken some breaks, sat down once or twice. I could have broken up the route a bit better, perhaps tacked on some of the large stairs at the end onto I2, which is on the whole a much easier stretch. But these are the stairs I have walked the most over the previous few years. I know most of them quite well. I even passed by my house along this route. I took this as a challenge to myself, not only a physical one (which I passed, although just barely), but as a test to know my city and my neighborhood better than I did the day before. There’s nothing quite like crying at the bottom of a stairway as the sun slowly fades beneath the neighboring hills to imprint memories on you. I’ll forever remember these streets and these stairways. The pain of it will fade in time but the memories won’t.

I mean, I hope, right?

Walk stats and Google Map Image of the dark blue line route that was walked

Here’s the final tally from my iPhone of my day’s walk. Just to give you some perspective, most of the other segments of the loop top out at something like 120-150 floors [1,200 to 1,500 feet of climb]. This one was QUITE a bit more than that. So prepare yourself. Pace yourself. For God’s sake, take a lunch break or something part way through. [The place where Scott ended was the lunch break on the 20 mile version of this walk!] Learn from my mistakes, people. Now get out there and walk some stairs!

[One final bit to add. If you would like to see what Scott walked as a continuous video, I am embedding the hyperlapse video I shot of Segment I. The part he walked is from the start to 19:06 at the 10 mile mark in the video below]

Stairway Terminology

The terms stairway, staircase, stairs, and even steps, are often used interchangeably, but do they all really mean the same thing? And what about flights, landings, steps, treads and risers? What do they mean? Keep reading to find out what they mean, and why you will usually hear me use the term stairway when I describe sets of steps.

Let’s start with basic definitions and illustrative diagrams, so you can learn the lingo. I used the various Merriam-Webster dictionary definitions, in blue text, and added diagrams so you can easily visualize what the terms look like on example stairways. Further down the page, I provide the terms we use in the stair-walking community, in green text, to describe things like stair-streets, and side-stairs.

Dictionary Definitions

Basic Stairway DefinitionsStep – 1:  a rest for the foot in ascending or descending: as one of a series of structures consisting of a riser and a tread

Tread – 2a: the upper horizontal part of a step

Riser –  2: the upright member between two stair treads

Flight – 6a :  a Flights and Landingcontinuous series of stairs from one landing or floor to another

Landing – 3 :  a level part of a staircase (as at the end of a flight of stairs)

Stair (see stairway) – 1 :  a series of steps or flights of steps for passing from one level to another —often used in plural but singular or plural in construction  2 :  a single step of a stairway

Stairway (see stair) – 1:  one or more flights of stairs usually with landings to pass from one level to another

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Donaldson West

The Donaldson West stairway in Silver Lake, rests on the dirt hillside, and has no case or other support structure

You can think of a stairway as only the set of stair-steps (and landings), without a support structure, since a set of stair-steps (and landings) resting on a hillside does not need an added support structure (such as a case or well) to provide structural support, they do just fine with the ground itself as their structural support, as you can see for the stairway to the right. You can imagine that the 2 flights and single landing shown in the diagram above, and to the right, is resting on a hill side. This is just like the upper flights of 231 step Baxter st stairway that climbs from where the Baxter roadway ends at Avon, up to Park, seen at the top of this blog, so it is a stairway and NOT a staircase!
This definition is also analogous (similar) to a walkway, roadway, or even a drive way, which is a way (a place or route), made of stairs and/or landings, typically to climb a hill or to rise above some barrier. A typical outdoor stairway would be one that is built onto a hillside, like the many stairways in Silver Lake, such as Baxter, Earl, or Loma Vista. Stairway is the most general term to use, since staircases or stairwells, are stairways set in, and supported by cases or wells respectively, but many stairways, and certainly most public stair-street stairways, are NOT staircases or stairwells (though a few are). Here is a video showing the beautifully painted Heidelman St stairway with 234 steel reinforced concrete steps resting on the hillside.

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xstair-stringers-3.jpg.pagespeed.ic.09TRd4TIEOStaircase – 1:  the structure containing a stairway  2:  a flight of stairs with the supporting framework, casing, and balusters

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These two staircase definitions, taken together, are similar to that of a bookcase, which is a case or structure containing/supporting bookshelves.  You can think of a staircase as a stairway held by a case, where each tread in a staircase is like a shelf in a bookcase. Staircases are structures that usually exist inside buildings, or are attached to them. A typical wooden two-story home staircase is really just a tall bookcase that is built at an angle, instead of vertical, so that the ‘bookshelves’ are offset, and serve as the steps. Note the brown wooden treads in the diagram above and to the right, there are no separate risers in the staircase, where the case itself, acts as the risers for the treads. Those three structural case elements holding the treads are called stringers. Although most staircases are wooden and indoor, there are a few outdoor woodenb staircases. Here is a video of a staircase on Eldred St, with 196 wooden steps, which is your reward for climbing a 33% grade to get there!

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Long square helical stairwell-cropped

A square helical stairwell on the inside of a tall building

Stairwell
1:  a vertical shaft in which stairs are located

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Stairwells are really a subset of staircases, set in a shaft or building interior, typically with stair flights alternating directions, or wrapping around in a square helix, like the one in the photo at right, to stay within the well. Think of the stairs we walk in multi-story buildings; those are stairwells. So a stairwell is a staircase inside a well (or shaft). Sometimes a stairwell will exist along the outside side of a building, or even along the face of a steep drop, where the structure, usually 4 corner support beams, instead of being in a shaft or well, are free-standing.
Here is a video of a trip down an 81 step stairwell on the California State University at Long Beach (CSULB) campus in the Hall of Science building going down from the 3rd floor to the basement.

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So how are stairways, staircases and stairwells related?
All stairwells are staircases, but not all staircases are stairwells.
All staircases are stairways, but not all stairways are staircases.

This Venn Diagram shows the relationships:

Ven diagram of stairways-staircases-stairwells

Stair-Walking Community Definitions

 

Gaffey-Elberon Panorama-crop

This stair-street in San Pedro connects Gaffey St below, up to Elberon Avenue which goes over the bridge

Stair-Street – A stairway that connects two streets, either up a hill, or up across and then down, to go over a hill or other barrier, like a freeway, or rail line. Stair-streets can be either perpendicular between two parallel streets, or as the continuation of a street to a perpendicular street (think T), or as a stairway continuation of two discontinuous sections of a street.

Academy side stair

This side-stair, where the sidewalk on this steep hill is a stairway, is in El Sereno on Academy Rd

Additionally, another kind of stair-street, called a Side-Stair (in analogy to side-walk) occurs when the sidewalk of a street – typically on a steep-hill – contains partial stair steps or sidewalk’s entire width is a series of stair-steps.  Stair-streets are pedestrian connections where cars cannot travel, or allow pedestrians to climb steep streets on stair-steps. We mark stair-streets (and side-stairs) with circular markers on the Google maps, with color indicating the number of steps.

Maltman walk-street

Maltman Ave walk-street in Silver Lake continues down the steep sidewalk to the lower section of Maltman Ave

Walk-Street – A walkway connection without stairs, though it may have ramps (a few are very steep), usually between the sidewalks of two streets, usually to allow peds to walk past some same-level barrier, like a house, building, or park, that cause the street to have a gap. In the photo to the right, the street does not continue, but the “sidewalk” does go down the hill to the street below as a steep ramp, with no stairs. Walk streets can also go over/under barriers as POCs/PUCs, but with ramps instead of stairs. Thus all POCs/PUCs are either stair-streets or walk-streets, depending on whether or not they have stairs. We mark walk-streets with circular markers on the Google maps, with white, or  light gray color indicating there are no steps. The time-stamped video below shows the Maltman Ave walk-street.

Hollywood and Highland Mall Stairway

The entry stairway at the Hollywood and Highland mall is not a stair-street

Non-Stair-Street Stairways – A stairway that does not connect two streets, either because it is a dead-end stairway, of connects a street and a walkway, or connects two walkways. Such stairways are often at the beach, or in parks, or even shopping malls. They are still useful stairways for stair-walking, but are not stair-streets. I usually refer to these as “stairways” as opposed to “stair-streets”. We mark these stairways with star-shaped markers on the Google maps, with the same colors indicating the number of steps as we use for stair-streets.

Pedestrian Over-Crossing or POC is a pedestrian bridge that crosses over a barrier. When a POC serves as the continuation of a street or sidewalk that was severed by a freeway and/or rail line barrier, to a street on the other side, and climbs/descends stairs to go over the barrier, then it is a stair-street.

Caldwell POC of BL

The Caldwell St, stair-street pedestrian over-crossing of the Blue Line Both bridge support towers are free-standing staircases/stairwells

If the type of POC described above, has ramps instead of stairs, or is level with the bridge, then it is a walk-street. OTOH, many POCs are not Stair-Street or Walk-Streets, because they connect streets to walkways, or walkways to walkways, such as the ones in shopping malls, or parks. Stair/walk-street POCs are often built to serve as ways for peds, usually children, to safely cross over main streets, freeways or rail lines, usually to reach nearby schools. We mark POCs with square markers on the Google maps, with white, or light gray color for no steps, and the same colors indicating the number of steps as we use for the stair-streets. Here is a time-stamped video of the Caldwell St POC shown in the photo above.

Selby PUC under Olympic

The Selby Ave pedestrian under-crossing of Olympic Blvd, which allows school-children to safely cross Olympic via a tunnel with stairways

Pedestrian Under-Crossing or PUC is a pedestrian tunnel that crosses under a barrier. When a PUC serves as the continuation of a street or sidewalk that was severed by a freeway and/or rail line barrier, to a street on the other side, and descends/climbs stairs to go under the barrier, then it is a stair-street. If the type of POC described above, has ramps instead of stairs, or is level with the tunnel, then it is a walk-street. OTOH, many PUCs are not Stair-Street or Walk-Streets, because they connect streets to walkways, or walkways to walkways, such as the ones in shopping malls, or parks. Stair/walk-street PUCs are often built to serve as ways for peds, usually children, to safely cross under main streets, freeways or rail lines, usually to reach nearby schools. We mark PUCs with diamond markers on the Google maps, with white, or light gray color for no steps, and the same colors indicating the number of steps as we use for the stair-streets. Here is a time-stamped video of the Selby Ave PUC shown in the photo above.

Finally, here is the coding we use for our Google maps. Please note that we drop suffixes on Ped Over-Crossings and Ped Under Crossings, and simply use the color to distinguish where they have stairs or not.

Ped Facility Taxonomy

Note: Not everyone agrees that POCs/PUCs with stairways, connecting two streets, or continuing a street, are stair-streets, however, these are the definitions we use for SoCal Stair Climbers maps, routes and events. Additionally, Bob Inman of Guide to the Stairways of Los Angeles sets a lower limit of 10 steps for considering a stairway to be a stair-street for his maps, and Doug Beyerlein of Friends of Public Stairs sets the lower limit at 100 steps for a stairway to be considered a stair-street in his maps. I don’t set a lower limit, but I do mark those with less than 10 steps with a different color on my Google maps.

 

 

Seattle: Queen Anne Loop

Genesis of the Route

Though I have taken business trips to Seattle in the past, I was recently able to spend a day walking Seattle stairways for the first time as part of a work trip on the 12th of October, 2016. I didn’t have too much time to plan a stair-walk before I flew to Seattle, so I did the most efficient thing I could think of, starting with the Seattle All Stairs Google Map with over 650 stairways identified. In looking at the map, I noticed that the Queen Anne region has a high density series of stairways in a natural loop, that looked to be about 15 miles long if connected in a zig-zag through route, characteristic of stair-walks:

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Queen Anne Region Excerpt of the Seattle All Stairs Google Map

This is a perfect distance for a day walk for me with a lunch break; enough distance to get a good workout, but not so long that I would be too sore to fly back to LAX the next morning. I had at first thought that I might be able to be lazy, and simply combine the three, 4 mile or so, red line routes together, to make a longer route. However, that would have entailed having about as many stairways climbed as descended, and that goes against my normal habit of climbing as many stairways as I can, so I decided to build my own route from the base set of stairways.  Thankfully Susan Ott and Dave Ralph, who built the Seattle All Stairs map, put photos and step counts in the markers for all of the stairways, so I copied those markers into a Google map of my own, and changed the marker shapes and colors to match the conventions I use in my own route maps, as a stairway layer. Then knowing that the stairways tend to climb radially toward the center of the Queen Anne hill, and thanks to Doug Beyerlein, there is a safe pay parking lot by Roy and 3rd Ave N which I was able to use as my start/finish location, I was able to draw a route on a separate layer, that circulated counterclockwise in a 15+ mile loop. The originally drawn loop had close to 100 stairways (the actual total is 108 stairways including the ones I added, and other where multiple stairways were lumped together on the Seattle All stairs map), all the way around Queen Anne, as can be seen in this Queen Anne 15 Mile Loop Google Map. Here is an augmented still-image version of this map, with mileage flags numbered, the start identified, and including stairway/elevation stats:

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Augmented Google route map with mileage flags numbered and stats legend.

For my Los Angeles stair-walking friends, please note the super-high density of stairs, an average of 6 per mile, meaning that on average you don’t even have to walk 2/10ths of the mile to reach the next stairway! We don’t have anything like that in LA County, and even Silver Lake at best has a density of between 2 and 3 stairways per mile. You will also notice that the route is not a perfect through walk, since there are a small number of turnarounds, of necessity to keep the route shorter and the stairways mostly taken in the up direction.  The photos below are but a small sampling of the hundreds I shot along the route, view-able in this publicly available Queen Anne Loop Facebook album.

The Morning Stairways

I drove early in the AM from my hotel by Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, having breakfast along the way, to the public parking structure on 3rd Ave N, between Mercer and Roy, that’s a short distance north of the Space Needle. The drive was uneventful, and I was raring to go on a stair-walk. The Queen Anne Loop didn’t disappoint! From the corner of Roy and 3rd, located at the southernmost point on the route, and to the east of center, I started my Runkeeper route track, and began my trek northward up the hill to the first stairway pair on 3rd Ave, climbing 120 conventional concrete steps, with great views of the Space Needle. Here’s a photo pair I shot the day before, in good afternoon light.

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Left: The bottom 3rd Ave N stairway pair            Right: View of the Space needle from the top

For the most part, the stairways in the early portion of the route were similar to the first, concrete with one or two hand rails. All were useful pedestrian transportation routes allowing direct access to steep hillside/hilltop narrow streets, not directly reachable by car. The region is primarily a large bedroom community of narrow/hilly grid streets, and stairways when the hills become too steep for road links. Also noteworthy are the super-tall radio towers, like the one use by KING-FM, which can be seen in this photo of another stairway on 3rd Ave N, located above the stairway-pair in the previous photo.

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The 784 feet high KING-FM Radio Tower above the upper 3rd Ave N stairway

Continuing westward, one of the stairways, 1st Ave W, at just over a mile into the route, had an interesting configuration, with a low left and high right side sidewalk because of a cross slope. The stairway leading from this dead-end street to the street above had a common upper stairway, and a second stairway to bring the left lower sidewalk up to the lever of the upper right side sidewalk. Here is a photo I shot of this 87 step, stairway pair in the dim and hazy morning light.

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Stairway pair on 1st Ave W. Note the low left side and high right side sidewalks.

After another pleasant mile of zig-zagging westward up stairways and down streets, I arrived at Kerry Park, a wonderful observation point for viewing downtown Seattle, the Space Needle, the waterfront, and Mt Rainier. This is my friend Lotus Lou’s favorite observation spot in all of Seattle, and having visited this lovely park, I can see why she feels this way! The lighting in the early part of the day was less than optimal.

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Kerry Park – Note the long morning shadows.

Here is a shot from Kerry Park, where I was standing so that the foliage to my left obscures the low angle sun from washing out the entire scene with glare. There is some glare, but not enough to obscure the fantastic view!  You can even see a bird above Mt Rainier. If this were Portland, I’d have to say that nature “put a bird on it”! 😉

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The view of downtown Seattle, the Space Needle, and Mt Rainier from Kerry Park

Continuing past the two mile mark and more stairs up-roads down, walking through quiet older residential neighborhoods, I rounded the bend at the west side of the region to head northward. On the next upward climb, I reached a very tall and long concrete retaining wall, the Wilcox Wall, that has a rather ornate pair of substantial 72 step stairways connecting the upper and lower parallel 8th Ave/8th Place roadways that it separates. It is impressive engineering, nestles in the tree covered slopes of the region.

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The Wilcox Wall – Note the symmetric pair of 72 step stairways leading up from either side.

We don’t have any stairways along a massive retaining wall like this in Los Angeles County, so it really stood out to me as a first time visitor of Seattle stairways. I climbed then descended the right stairway in this photo (one of those turnarounds I mentioned earlier), then later on descended the left stairway shortly after the three mile mark in the route. After another mile of stairway climbing northward, and descending through quiet residential neighborhoods, I descended through a 12th & Howe Park, and noticed a stairway to the right of, and behind a sandbox, descending down a hillside (upper image). I was curious to see where it went, so I walked over to the top of it, and then observed that it leads down to a long metal children’s slide, resting on the hillside, with a stairway leading from bottom to the top (lower image). This design is new to me. Check it out:

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12th & Howe Park – Top: Sandbox, with stairway at rear.  Bottom: Slide below on hillside

I saw this same design in at least one other park along the route. On the subject of new designs, many times throughout the route,  I also noticed another design feature that I had not seen previously, and that is the use of raised perpendicular vertical bars on steep sidewalks and walkways. I presume they exist to both improve foot traction, and act to prevent water from flowing in the direction of walking, instead channeling the frequent rainwater off to the sides of the sidewalk. Sometimes the bars only extend halfway across the sidewalk. Maybe one of my Seattle friends can tell me the reasons for these features. Here is a pair of morning photos of raised concrete bars:

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Left: Full-width raised concrete bars                    Right: Half-width raised concrete bars

After more up stairs and down hills on residential streets, and loving the the fact that I don’t even have to walk 2/10ths of a mile between stairways, and after passing the 5 mile mark, I have come to the end of the blue colored line 1st segment of the loop at 15th Ave W and W Boston St. After a short walk north on 15th, I reached an interesting progression of 5 stairways, totaling 256 up-steps on Wheeler St. The first stairway was at the end of a dead-end section of Wheeler, and I was greeted by a wooden bear statue! I couldn’t tell if it was placed on the stump or carved from the original tree, though I suspect the former!

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The lower Wheeler St stairway and the bear!

Beyond the lower stairway after crossing a median walkway, I came upon a brand new stairway with a “Bridging the Gap” placard on the third step riser. Bridging the Gap is the name of legislation that provided funding for transportation projects in Seattle, including pedestrian facilities like this new stairway. From the Seattle All Stairs map, it would appear that this new 24 step concrete stairway replaced a smaller worn wooden stairway.

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Beyond this stairway is a series of 4 stairways, complete with moss on the step risers – something we just don’t see in Los Angeles, since our climate is much drier – that took me up to the foot of Soundview Terrace, a wonderful narrow park with nice vistas, much like Kerry Park. Here are the 4 stairways in a composite image arranged in traversal order:

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The four middle Wheeler St stairways

And next is an image of the upper Wheeler stairway passing through Soundview Terrace, with picnic benches to the left, and a children’s playground to the right of the stairs leading to the east and top side of 11th Ave West, as can be seen in this composite image:
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I took the opportunity to look back down from where I came, and caught a nice vista of the hills beyond the rail yard to the west. The handrails of the stairs leading to the top of Soundview Terrace are at the bottom and slightly left of center in this image:

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Looking back to the west, from the top of Soundview Terrace

At this point in the walk, I was really enjoying the almost constant stairways and great vistas from the hilltops. It was an ideal morning for a stair-walk, cool and reasonably clear, with no rain (more on that later on).

Before and After Lunch

After the Wheeler St climb, I descended a small stairway, then after passing the 6 mile mark, climbed another with over 100 steps on Raye St, then descended Armour St, and walked along 15th Ave west and found a stairway going slightly back and up toward some apartments. So I climbed it, and discovered that it connected upward to an alley that runs between 14th and 15th. It does appear to be a private stairway, but would still make a good addition to a stair-walk. Here are three shots of the stairway in sequence as I climbed it from bottom to top. The 4th image is taken facing the top entrance to the stairway, looking back the way I came.

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Bottom flight             Middle flight               Upper flights                               Top entrance

After this find, I did another mile of up/down stairway traverses and came upon an interesting raised sidewalk what was served by 5 stairways leading up from street level on 10th Place West. This photo shows 3 of the 5 stairways I walked in alternating sequence at the top, and on the bottom shows the view from the elevated sidewalk, closer to the second stairway, which is left of center in the top photo of the pair (note the silver car).

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Top: 3 of the 5 stairways leading from the street to the elevated sidewalk serving homes     Bottom: The view from the elevated sidewalk, closer to the 2nd stairway in the sequence

After this traverse, I walked through a neighborhood of curvy streets, making a stairway traverse that cut across the set of curved streets, leading down to Dravus St, and on that descending street I found a side-stair (a side-stair is a set of stairways built into or alongside a sidewalk, allowing easier climbing of a steep hill) alongside St Margaret’s Church, with 18 broad and shallow concrete and tile steps. This stairway is not on the Seattle All Stairs map, and here is what it looks like from the bottom:

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Dravus St Side-Stair with 18 tile and concrete steps

Shortly after descending the Dravus stairway, and passing the 8 mile mark, I climbed a couple more stairways on Ruffner, then descended the Jesse Ave stairway to Emerson and took it on a SE diagonal, passing 8th Ave West, I noticed an elevated sidewalk, and about a third of the way into the block, I came upon a 25 step stairway leading up to the raised sidewalk, that is not on the Seattle All Stairs Map. Further down the block, there are 7 steps leading back down to the street level. Here is a photo of the two stairways:

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Left 25 steps – Emerson raised sidewalk access stairway pair – Right 7 steps

While finding this new stairway was entertaining, I also discovered two stairway connections from the raised sidewalk on Emerson to the parallel alley to the south. The first had 28 steps, and the second had 14 steps, and here are respective photos of them:

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L: lower flight – Emerson raised sidewalk to parallel alley west – 28 steps – R: upper flight

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Emerson raised sidewalk to parallel alley east – 14 steps (note the diagonal entrance)

After this fun exercise in finding new stairways, I walked further SE on Emerson until it ended into Bertona St, then I crossed over into the Seattle Pacific University campus, climbed a 114 step campus stairway, and took a relaxing/replenishing lunch break at the student commons cafeteria. Seattle Pacific University is at the northern end of the Queen Anne region, so at this point in the walk, I have gone more than half-way around the hill, traversed 74 of 108 total stairways, with 2,577 of 4,121 up-steps completed. After lunch on my way out of the campus, I climbed a rather interesting stairway configuration that climbs out of a multi-level parking lot on a hillside, that made for a good photo op, both from the bottom and the top as you can see in these two photos:

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Looking up the Seattle Pacific University parking lot stairway

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Looking down the parking lot stairway, and the view of the campus and surrounding hills

Unfortunately for me, the next stairway was closed for upgrades, so I decided to add another stairway at Florentina and 1st, that was not on my planned route, and it turned out to be quite amusing, since the school served by the stairway has a playful mural of land and marine life on a pair of retaining walls as can be seen in this three photo composite:

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The mural at Florentina & 1st. The animal eyes look stoned! It must be all that legal weed!

The artwork above is by prolific Seattle muralist, Ryan “Henry” Ward.

Continuing eastward I climbed two more stairways, the second of which was a nice long shaded wooden stairway in Mayfair park, then a bit further northeast just past the 11 mile mark, I reach my first approach toward Lake Union (though I could not see the water), and a view of the truss/arch design Aurora Bridge that crosses over an inlet of the lake:

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A panorama shot of the Truss/Arch Aurora Bridge that crosses over Lake Union

There was another stairway on Fulton, just to the right of the above panorama image, that makes the southward bend to follow the shore of Lake Union, in a SE direction. This means I am now heading toward the large stairways to come in the last part of the walk.

The Home Stretch

The last 5 miles of the walk builds up to a series of long westward climbs along Galer St, then descending to the finish. Before reaching those climbs, the route heads southward, first in the hills, then along the waterfront, to reach Galer St. After climbing the Fulton stairway, the route heads south to the upper segment of divided Raye St, which took me down a stairway to the lower segment of Raye that ends at Aurora. At this point Raye St becomes a stairway pair with a middle walkway, that serves as a pedestrian under-crossing of Aurora, which is a fast, barrier divided highway, without pedestrian crossings.
Though not on my originally drawn route, I was curious to see what the under-crossing  looked like and was rewarded with a nice mural celebrating the Queen Anne region:

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The underside of Aurora St at Raye St, with a nice mural celebrating the Queen Anne region

After taking a panorama of the mural, I came back up to the west side of Aurora and headed south, until I reached the next pedestrian under-crossing, at Dexter Way. This stairway under-crossing did not disappoint. It also had a interesting mural that was difficult to photograph in the varied lighting, bright, glare and shade. So what follows are my best attempts to capture the stairs and murals with my cell phone camera:

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Top right – Descending stairway with mural              Top left – Ascending stairs with mural        Bottom – Panorama of under-crossing mural of Mt Rainier and countryside

After the under-crossing, I continued south on Aurora to Crockett St, taking a small stairway downward, then at the top of a larger one at 8th Ave N down to Westlake Ave, taking in the first good view of Lake Union I would have on the walk:

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First view of Lake Union from 8th Ave N, on Crockett St prior to descending the stairway

I was really looking forward to seeing the Lake Union waterfront, and soon I would be there, but first I had to descent, then climb the lower Crockett stairway seen in the photo above, then head further south on 8th Ave N to Newton St, taking the stairway down to Westlake Ave, where I caught another nice view of Lake Union, half-way down the stairs:

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Upper – Newton St Stairway      Lower – View of Lake Union from half-way down the stairway

After waiting for a safe gap in the fast traffic, I crossed Westlake Ave, and continued south on the wide waterfront walkway, adjacent to a bicycle path:

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The wide Lake Union waterfront walkway and adjacent bicycle path

And after a few tenths of a mile of southward travel on this walkway, the bicycle path splits around a concrete post that is the one of the supports for a rather spectacular cable stayed suspension bridge for pedestrians, with stairs, that is the beginning of Galer St:

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Galer St Pedestrian Bridge as seen from the north. Note the background construction cranes.

This pedestrian bridge is really rather spectacular, and this image taken from the south shows all of the cable stays and stairway entrance to the crossing level:

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Panorama of the Galer St cable-stayed suspension bridge as seen from the south

Above that, and to the left is a series of terrace stairways taking one up to Dexter street. This next photo composite gives a better view of the terrace stairways, which when combined with the lower stairway gives a total of 105 up-steps for this pedestrian over-crossing. The third image in the composite shows the view of the bridge walkway, looking east toward Lake Union. In the middle image you can see the same radio towers that were a prominent feature in the early part of the walk. The tall tower in the center is the 784 feet high KING-FM tower seen in an earlier image in this blog.

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Left – Western view                    Middle – terrace stairways           Right – East & Lake Union

After climbing about most of the way up the terrace stairways, there is a great view of the Galer St Ped-Bridge, the ocean-side stairway, and Lake Union:
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From the bottom of this pedestrian bridge, the next 1.5 miles of the route route climbs and descends a whopping 882 up-steps and 205 down-steps respectively on 12 stairways. For my LA friends, as a comparison point, if we doubled the distance and stairways of this route, it would  have 1,764 up-steps and 410 down-steps on 24 stairways in 3 miles of walking.  3 miles is the same distance as the Tomato Pie Loop, which climbs only 733 steps and goes down 603 steps on 14 stairways in the Franklin Hills region of Los Angeles.  So hopefully you now an idea of the relative toughness of this segment of the route. Here are some highlight photos from the 12 stairway segment taking me to mile 13 of the route:

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The 179 Up-Step Galer St Pedestrian Over-Crossing of Aurora Ave N.

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Left – 80 step lower Garfield St, upper flights                     Right – 60 step Howe St East

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Last major climb of the day: 182 step upper Galer St in L-R sequence from bottom to top

At the top of upper Galer St, the last major climb of the day, I passed the 13 mile mark and decided to go just a bit further west to check out the KING-FM tower, up-close and personal! Here is a composite shot of the tower as seen from right in front of it, as well as the full tower as a two-image composite, so there is some geometric image distortion:

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784 ft, KING-FM Tower: Left – looking up from the front            Right – Two photo composite

After I left the tower, I walked a series of 4 down-stairways, a rest my legs really appreciated, as I had already climbed over 4,100 up-steps to this point in the walk. The territory was much like the beginning, residential with narrow streets, some not having sidewalks. There was one essential difference, the storm clouds were coalescing, so the sky was quickly transitioning from blue to gray, and the temperature was also dropping.
By the time I finished the downhill, which took me back to Aurora for the final time, the area to the south was already clouded over, and after the final climb up the 46 step Prospect stairway east, the sky looked more like rain by the minute. Here is a shot of the graying sky taken after the last climb but before the final descending stairway, giving a view of the Experience Music Project (EMP) modern art museum, and the Space Needle:
14707916_10209578523771301_9157396881045811377_oBy now I had already passed the 15 mile mark and was close to the end. After a few more blocks of easy residential walking, I descended the final stairway of the day, and was but a short downhill traverse from the parking structure where I started. Here is a shot of the final two stairways, the last up-stairway followed by the last down-stairway:

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Left – 46 up-step Prospect East                                Right – 22 down-step 4th Ave N

When I reached the end, I was relieved that no rain had yet fallen, so I could still take photos, and my last one is a customary post walk selfie, this time in front of a restaurant:
14712583_10209578546811877_8057370855473021867_oThat was the end of a fantastic stair-walking day. I have never before climbed 108 stairways, and even more remarkably in a scant 15.6 miles of walking, though the 4,121 total up steps in that distance was a bit lower than the toughest up/steps per mile route I do in Silver Lake: 264 up-steps/mile on the Queen Anne Loop vs 336 up-steps per mile on the Mean 19. The weather was perfect, and the route worked out even better than I had hoped when composing it. Next time I travel to Seattle, I will be torn between wanting to do this route again, and exploring other areas of the City. That’s not a bad place to be! If any of you from Seattle do this route, please let me know how you liked it, how it might be improved, and how it might compare to other similar distance, or even longer routes in other regions of Seattle!

– Dan Gutierrez –

PS: It rained two and one half hours after I finished the walk.
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Central San Francisco Mosaic Loop

Bay Area Stairways: mini-vacation/route scouting

Over the last half year or so, I have been interested in visiting the stairways of the Berkeley Hills below Lake Anza, and the stairways in central and northeast areas of San Francisco. This past weekend, June 3rd through 7th, 2016, I had my chance to take a mini-vacation and walk three of four challenging routes I had planned, one in the Berkeley Hills, and then two in central San Francisco, on three consecutive days.  I set out to enjoy the high density (proximity) of stairs, much higher than in Silver Lake, obtain step counts (something the locals have apparently not done and not placed online), and have great workouts. What follows is a description of my explorations, this time, the Mosaic Loop.

Central San Francisco Mosaic Loop

Mosaic Loop Google Map

The full set of walk photos of the features on the above map, can be found on Facebook, in this publicly accessible Mosaic Loop photo album. And here is the link to the Mosaic Loop Google Map of Central San Francisco, seen in the photo above.

As you can see from the map above, The mosaic loop has a high stairway density, of approximately 6 stairways per mile, over the 7 mile route. The weather was cold, damp, cloudy and windy, when I started at 8am. I was already more than a bit sore from the long stair-walk I completed in Berkeley the day before, which is why I chose to do this relatively short, for me at any rate, 7 mile walk. I spent the first few miles of the walk, walking in a low level cloud, which condensed on the pine trees, causing the branches to rain on me as I walked under them, so I wore my windbreaker for the lion’s share of the trip. The walk started at the foot of the Hidden Garden Steps, the continuation of 16th Street south, as a stairway up hill from Kirkland St. As an aside, San Francisco does a nice job of embedding street names into the sidewalk concrete, as this photo near the start, shows:

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The route begins with a gorgeous view straight up the Hidden Garden Steps, the newer and slightly smaller of the two large mosaic stairways in this area. The stairway has a kink in the middle so one cannot see all of it at the same time, so I took shots of the lower and upper flights and put them together so you can see the entirety of this wonderful art:
Hiden Garden Steps

There is a lot to view on this stairway, so take your time and ogle the artwork. If you start early in the morning you will have this stairway to yourself, later in the day it becomes very touristy and crowded, as you can see in some of my photos in the facebook album linked at the top of this blog. This comment also applies to the next stairway, the Stairway to Heaven Mosaic, just up the street on Moraga at 16th, the second stairway of the tour. Because this is such a long stairway, with 163 steps, I made another composite showing the entire stairway and the upper flights:

Stairway to Heaven Mosaic

Again, this stairway is better for viewing in the early morning, and like the Hidden Garden Steps, there is a much to see at both the large and small scales. Take your time and drink it all in with your eyes, you’ll be glad for the rest, as there is much stair-climbing ahead! As another aside, the much smaller, but also much wider mosaic ‘Ocean Steps’, at the Redondo Beach Pier, was inspired by this mosaic. Here is a photo for comparison:
Ocean Steps

From the top of the stairway to heaven, we head east on 15th and climb up and over a retaining wall on a stairway, then continuing eastward, reach the first of a pair of stairways that climb to and then descend from the top of aptly named Grand View Park, which has a 360 degree view of the City. Here is a panorama I shot from the top of the western Grand View Park stairway, facing westward, showing the western San Francisco flat-lands and clouds over the Pacific ocean:

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From Grand View Park the route zig-zags up and down a series of 8 stairways on the ridge connecting to Golden Gate Heights Park at about 1.4 miles into the walk. Here is a photo of the two largest climbs, Mount Lane and West Aerial Way, on this segment. Do note that I was ascending into clouds, and the tree branches along these climbs were condensing the cloud-water into a light rain that fell on me as I climbed these stairways. You can see the darker, wet steps higher up on Aerial Way from the “tree rain”:
Mount Lane and Western Aerial Way

I wasn’t walking as fast as I usually do, both from taking a lot of photos, and because I was definitely feeling the walk I had done yesterday in the Berkeley Hills! When I reached Golden Gate Park, where Funston and 12th Streets converge into Rockridge Dr, I noticed a stairway leading into the park. It turns out there are two stairways, that conveniently connect to the a walkway that loops back to Rockridge Dr, so I added them to the route. The park also has water. Here is the first of the two stairways:

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From the park the route descends via a couple of stairways to the corner of Quintara and 15th Ave., The stairway on Quintara is impressive, with a split at the bottom, climbing 136 steps up to the top of the hill at 14th Ave. Here is a photo of the stairway:

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At the landing where the two lower stairways meet, I was greeted by a friendly orange tabby who just wanted some love!
Friendly Orange Tabby

After my cat petting episode, I continued on to the top of Quintara and then down the other side, passing the 2 mile mark, connecting to a walkway, and reaching a segment of residential streets with a number of small to medium sized stairways that increase pedestrian connectivity in the neighborhood. Here is a photo of the largest member of this set of stairways, the continuation of Alton Ave as 90 stair-steps:

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After this neighborhood trek, the route takes you down to the Forest Hill Rail station, where street cars of yesteryear emerged out of a tunnel and traveled down Laguna Honda Blvd. This is similar to how Los Angeles Red Cars exited the Belmont Tunnel onto Glendale Blvd.  Across the street from the station is an entrance facade to the now defunct Laguna Honda Hospital, with gorgeous historical mural artwork. Here are some photos of the Twin Peaks Tunnel commemorative murals, and the stairway leading up to the Hospital:
Laguna Honda - Hospital-Stairway-Murals

The route crosses the street and heads through the arch and up the two stairways to the Hospital building. The stairway leads to a statue of Florence Nightingale, commemorated as the founder of professional nursing:
Florence Nightingale Statue.png

Turning around to look at the hospital, here is a panorama shot of the main entrance:
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The building really is a beautiful example of Spanish Revival architecture, and spreads out over a large campus directly behind the main building in a series of parallel large buildings of similar design. Here is a shot from just past the far right corner of the above photo, looking leftward one of the parallel building ends, complete with circular towers:

Circular Towers at Laguna Honda Hospital

From here that walk calms down and becomes a residential stroll through tract homes, traversing one walk-street between houses, and proceeds down Portola Street past a long row of multi-story houses, passing the 4 mile mark, before climbing a stairway leading up to the one pedestrian over-crossing of the route, seen here after crossing over to the north side of Portola, where the stairway is across, and to the right, partially obscured by a tree:

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After descending a pedestrian ramp-street, and some more residential walking, we come to the picturesque bookend stairways on Pacheco Street. Here is a shot looking across to the longer northern Path St stairway from the southern stairs of Pacheco, the 5 mile mark is about half way between the two large planters in the scene ahead:
Path St Stairway
After climbing the Path St stairs, we venture back into hilly neighborhoods with a mixture of smaller and larger multi-set stairways, as the route winds back toward Grand View Park. Here are two of the large single set stairways on this traverse, Oriole and East Aerial:

Oriole and East Aerial

Note the inlaid street and path name in the concrete on the left image above, and that the 6 mile mark of the route is at the top of the Oriole stairway.

Continuing onward toward Grand View Park, the route descends two large stairways, before heading west toward the park on Moraga St, on the east side. The view from here is nice in that you can see the East Moraga stairway, and the continuation up into the park that was descended early in the walk:
East Moraga 2

The inscription on the large retaining wall reads: MORAGA ST, GOLDEN GATE HEIGHTS.
From the top of the first two stairways in this set, we head to the right northward, avoiding the upper stairway we descended earlier in the day, heading back toward the start, passing the 7 mile mark before the first (short, 20 down-steps) of the final two stairways. The final stairway is on 15th street, and has a whopping 193 steps, with fantastic views of the norther parts of central San Francisco, and here are a few photos of that descent:
15th St StairwayViiew north from 15th St stairway descent

The lower composite photo is the view from about 100 steps down from the top of the 15th St stairway. That’s St Annes Roman Catholic Church to the right, with the twin towers and large circular stained glass window, which looked fantastic, architecturally speaking, in the bright afternoon sun! This view was a nice concluding visual treat to go with many others on this route. I like this walk so much, I would fly up to SF, walk it and then fly back to LA as a day trip; think of this as the Air to Stair event. The few photos I sampled for this blog do not come close to capturing the full beauty and great views on this walk, please check out the photo album at the link at the top just below the Google route map photo!

– Dan Gutierrez –

===========================================================================

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Berkeley Hills Southeast Loop

June 13th, 2016

Bay Area Stairways: mini-vacation/route scouting

Over the last half year or so, I have been interested in visiting the stairways of the Berkeley Hills below Lake Anza, and the stairways in central and northeast areas of San Francisco. This past weekend, June 3rd through 7th, 2016, I had my chance to take a mini-vacation and walk three of four challenging routes I had planned, one in the Berkeley Hills, and then two in central San Francisco, on three consecutive days.  I set out to enjoy the high density (proximity) of stairs, much higher than in Silver Lake, obtain step counts (something the locals have apparently not done and not placed online), and have great workouts. What follows is a description of my explorations, starting with Berkeley.

Berkeley Hills Southeast Loop – June 4th, 2016

Berkeley Southeast Loop downloaded from FB

The full set of walk photos of the features on the above map, can be found on Facebook, in this publicly accessible Berkeley Stair Tour photo album. And here is the link to the Berkeley Hills Southeast Stair Tour Google Map, seen in the photo above.

As you can see from the map and legend, this is not an easy walk. The route starts at Marin Fountain Circle, at lower elevation (house with flag symbol at the left side of the map), and works it way up and over the top of the ridge traversed by Grizzly Peak Blvd, to Lake Anza, and then back snaking its way in a very convoluted path, up and down a number of large stairways, with three crossing points and on up/down, and another down/up of stairways along the route. The morning I walked it, was cool, almost cold and overcast, making for relatively low water consumption. so here is how the walk progressed. The start at the circle was peaceful at shortly after 7am. Below is a photo of the circle taken the afternoon before, in better lighting conditions. Marin Avenue (which we descend at the end of the route) is behind the circle rising steeply upward, and the fountain walk is to the right.
Fountain

The area is wetter and vegetation more lush than we have in southern California, so there are plenty of pines, firs and coast redwoods along the route, making it part urban hike, part forest walk, as you will see in later photos. The first 20 stairways, in the early miles had relatively low step counts, in the 10 to 50 step range, and essentially all have street signs naming them as either a walk, path or steps. A few had plaques giving the history of the route. Here is the plaque for the La Loma Steps in red brick, along with a shot of the lower flight, plaque to the left, and brown street sign to the right.

La Loma Steps with Plaque

Here is another stairway, on Virginia St, with plaque that explains the curved roads and stairways of the area near the plaque, all of which are visited on this route!
Scenic Street Improvements

After this 3.5 mile jaunt in the lower hills, we made our way to the Berkeley Rose Garden, a natural hillside formed into an amphitheater covered in rose bushes. The early morning overcast sky photo does not do it justice. Do notice that it is an ideal stair-walking location, with a long stairway with 74 steps in the background leading down to the amphitheater, with a series of shorter stairways leading up through the rose terraces, including the one I climbed in the foreground.
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Beyond the amphitheater, to the left in the above photo is a nice set of restrooms, open early in the morning, and water. Here is a panorama shot of the restrooms and water, notice how nicely they blend in with the foliage, showing a stairway on the left that serves as our exit from the rose garden and back to the stair-walk route. When I run this walk as a group event, we will use the Rose Garden as our first restroom/water/snack stop.
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Beyond the Rose Garden I climbed up and down a couple of smaller stair-streets to reach the first of many larger climbs for the day, on the 184 step Tamalpias stairway, which climbs through a park, but is very much a concrete stair-street like the ones we know in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles, except, you cross a wooden footbridge to reach the bottom of the stairway. Note the well crafted, curved lower flight of the stairway in the photo below to the left, and the long set of upper flights on the slightly blurry right side.Tamalpais stairway - 184 steps

From the top of the stairway, the route climbs five, 100+ step stairways, for a total of 774 steps in just a few tenths of a mile, to reach to top of the ridge separating the Berkeley Hills where we started, from the parkland at Lake Anza. Then the route descends back toward Berkeley descending three stairways, and 343 down-steps, before climbing the largest single stairway on the tour, the 233 step, Norgate Path. Here are shots of typical stairways of this area, first the Covert Path stairway set (lower left, upper right), with not always so evenly spaced and sometimes tilted, wooden block steps that are common in this part of the Berkeley Hills causing more energy expenditure than smooth regular concrete steps (camera focus/shake creates blur, but is ‘good enough’):
Lower and Upper Covert Paths

Yes, those two stairways together, one right after the other is a 338 step stairway set. And the Norgate path with 233 steps is also quite a tough climb on wooden steps. This next photo sequence shows the bottom of the stairway in the lower photo, then 4 shots along the long climb up the foliage rich hillside, reaching the 6 mile mark in the walk just past the top of the stairway.
Norgate Path - 233 up steps
I was definitely feeling the effort of the last 1000+ steps of climbing as I walked along a few streets to reach the start of another 8 stair-climbs, nearly 800 up-steps, and 1.5 miles of distance, prior to the mile and a half of pathway trek to the lunch stop. However, before I reached the first of those 8 climbs, three things happened. First, I found that Glendale/La Loma Park has a functioning water fountain, helpful for any future events on this route!

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Second, I walked right into an unexpected 18 step side-stair (stair-steps built into the sidewalk) on Glendale, then crossed the street to get a better look at it – see photo below:

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Third, I turned around after shooting the side-stair, and immediately noticed deer walking up the street into a vegetated area. I shot video, and a few photos; this one is the best:

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Then to the left of the deer, I began the 800 up steps starting with the Upper La Loma Path, which is not so much a stairway as it is a grassy hillside with some 150+ wooden blocks shoved into it, as I hope you can see in this photo below:
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Along the way, we met some friendly cats; a talkative little lion on the left and a very playful gray and white purr-ball on the right.

Little Lion and Gray-White Purr-ball

I also found some gaps in the trees to take a few photos of the San Francisco Bay, this one showing the Golden Gate Bridge towers rising out of the fog, just left of center:
13316869_10208540404538969_8040425889819118934_o
The last path of the eight I climbed to the the ridge-top, had an interesting entry marker, a wooden post, more like a trail marker, with “Atlas Path” written vertically, rather than the ubiquitous street poles marking the other paths, lower down the hill.13320335_10208540408939079_2160213249300219327_o

At the top of the Altas Path stairway, one has already traversed 45 stairways, which come much faster than they do in Silver lake, so you have less recovery time/distance between stairways, making for a more difficult kind of walk, and the uneven nature of the wooden steps adds an extra dimension of difficulty to the route.  After crossing the ridge, I walked for over a mile on the Selby Trail, that first paralleled a golf course, then crossed a road to head toward Lake Anza. It was amazingly beautiful, like being in an isolated coastal forest of mixed deciduous/coniferous trees, as can be seen in the series of 4 photos below:

Selby Path 1

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And then after about 3/4 of a mile on the Selby Trail, I happened upon a small stairway with 6 large steps connecting the trial down from a parking lot to the continuation toward Lake Anza. Here are two photos, the first of the stairs as I approached them from above and another after I descended them, looking back at them.

13320413_10208540427419541_6258791859944631370_o - Copy13391404_10208540428459567_3844720471423077052_o - Copy
After another quarter mile or so I reached the fork between the Selby Trail and the Lake Anza Trail, a very welcome sight to my tired legs, since I knew the lunch stop was near. Here are two photos of the sign and the trail fork, the right side leading to the lake and its recreation area, with restrooms, water and a snack bar with very pricey food.
13391642_10208540429739599_5792532791174385166_o - Copy13392099_10208540430659622_4729946019166735174_o

Following the right fork to the patio area brings me to my lunch stop at 8 and 3/4 miles. Here is a tired lunchtime selfie with my sandwiches and Camelback hydration pack, which is also tired and slumped in a chair. Yes, that is a woman growing out of the back of my head; I had to have her surgically removed by Lake Anza rec center staff! 😉

13320407_10208540431139634_1046491528089523606_o[Note to self: though tired, look behind you to avoid accidentally photobombing yourself!]

After an hour of lunch and some recuperation, I continued on the Selby Trail to the point where it connects back up on a side trail up to Wildcat Canyon Road, which is to the left and above the scene in this photo:

13323557_10208540441379890_7558721918721476182_o

From Wildcat Canyon Road, heading back 1/4 mile toward Lake Anza, but above it, I shot this panorama where part of the lake is visible below the red arrow in the image:

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Continuing on for another few tenths of a mile, at about the 9.5 mile point in the walk, I reached the Fred Herbert Path, a triple set of stairways climbing a total of 271 wooden steps, the bottom of which is in the photo below.

13316947_10208540447540044_169255035251615966_o

In the upper reaches of both sides of the ridge traversed by Grizzly Peak Blvd, stairways are almost always wood, and the roads have no sidewalks, with concrete stairways and sidewalks being preferred on the lower slopes. I was feeling OK, but not real strong after lunch, and so I started climbing again, and for the next half mile to reach Crescent Park, a small park surrounded by residences at the 10 mile mark in the walk. Here is a panorama of the park with grassy field and playground equipment.
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At the far northeastern end of the park, near the center of this panorama, was a verified functional drinking fountain, as can be seen in this pair of photos:

So this park can serve as a water stop for a future event on this route. From the park, I climbed up and down a series of mostly large stairways and noticed some figurines along the Lower El Mirador stairway, which I captured in the photo pair below. The writing on the figurine says:

“A dog makes a family a home. May angels watch over your pet.”

A dog make s a family a homeRight after descending the stairway with the figurines, I walked east on Euclid, a divided road, to the next up-stairway on Redwood Terrace and noticed that a group of walkers was climbing up the hill on the opposite side of the street. I was too far away to shot to them, so i do not know what group this is:
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I continued the zig-zag of up and down large stairways, until just past the 12 mile mark, when I happened upon Remillard Park, noticing a bonus stairway, to the left in the first photo below, to add to the route, as well as two climbers who reached the top of a large rock with a vertical face, shortly before I reached them at the far western end of the park, as can be seen in the second of the two photos below.
13391365_10208540487541044_7989349964548607802_o13350510_10208540488621071_77432008480647631_o

From the park, more climbing and descending  on large stairways, 2 up, one down than another up, I descended a few blocks down Marin Ave, and turned right heading eastward on to Euclid Ave, reaching the final up-stairway of the day, and none too soon, as I was pretty tired from all the climbing on uneven steps on so many large stairways along the route. This is the Billie Jean Walk, with 143 up steps.

Billie Jean Walk

It was such a relief to reach the top, knowing that the final 4 stairways were all taken in the down direction! I was definitely feeling all the climbing I had done, and was concerned that I might be too blasted from this effort to do the Mosaic Loop in San Francisco the next day; more on that in a future blog post. As I continued toward the first of the remaining 4 stairways, I happened upon a pleasant woman gardening in the parkway in front of her home, with her feline protector surveying the area. She told me that her cat would chase away any dog that came near her.

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As I approached in the street above her, so as to not walk directly at the cat, the cat took about three steps back and up the sidewalk, then proceeded to hiss at me as I walked away.  Apparently I rate somewhere near dog, in the this cat’s estimation! That silly scene put a smile on my face, and I proceeded to glide down the last 4 stairways, ending up at the base of the Lower Easter Way stairway, as can be seen in the photo below.

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That’s it, no more stairways! Now all I have to do is walk a few blocks down super-steep Marin Avenue to reach the Fountain Circle where I started. The walk down Marin was uneventful, and I was soon where I started, and took a post walk selfie, with the section of Marin Avenue I just descended in the background behind the fountain.

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My eyes look tired after 14.25 miles of walking, climbing 3,882 feet, on 49 up-stairways totaling 3,971 up-steps, and 24 down-stairways totaling 1,608 down-steps.  I am very happy to have scouted and mapped this route, which I will want to run as a road-trip stair-walking event in the future! If you like challenging stair-walks, then you’ll love this route.

In my next two blog posts I will cover the two San Francisco loops I completed on the following two days.

– Dan Gutierrez –

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Zone Zip Codes Table

Zone Map Zip Codes
This table shows the zip codes contained in each letter coded zone map.

Zone Map Zip Codes
A 90274
A 90275
A 90277
A 90505
A 90710
A 90717
A 90731
A 90732
A 90744
B 90755
B 90802
B 90803
B 90804
B 90806
B 90807
B 90810
B 90813
B 90814
B 90815
C 90220
C 90248
C 90254
C 90278
C 90501
C 90502
C 90503
C 90504
C 90745
C 90746
D 90701
D 90703
D 90706
D 90712
D 90713
D 90715
D 90716
D 90723
D 90805
D 90808
E 90059
E 90061
E 90222
E 90245
E 90247
E 90249
E 90250
E 90260
E 90262
E 90266
F 90044
F 90045
F 90047
F 90094
F 90293
F 90301
F 90302
F 90303
F 90304
F 90305
G 90001
G 90002
G 90003
G 90201
G 90240
G 90241
G 90242
G 90255
G 90280
G 90650
H 90601
H 90602
H 90603
H 90604
H 90605
H 90606
H 90631
H 90638
H 90660
H 90670
I 90049
I 90066
I 90272
I 90291
I 90292
I 90401
I 90402
I 90403
I 90404
I 90405
J 90024
J 90025
J 90034
J 90064
J 90067
J 90077
J 90210
J 90212
J 90230
J 90232
K 90004
K 90005
K 90010
K 90020
K 90028
K 90036
K 90038
K 90046
K 90068
K 90069
L 90008
L 90016
L 90018
L 90019
L 90035
L 90043
L 90048
L 90056
L 90062
L 90211
M 90012
M 90013
M 90017
M 90026
M 90027
M 90029
M 90039
M 90057
M 90071
N 90006
N 90007
N 90011
N 90014
N 90015
N 90021
N 90037
N 90058
N 90089
N 90270
O 90031
O 90032
O 90041
O 90042
O 90065
O 91030
O 91105
O 91204
O 91205
O 91803
P 90022
P 90023
P 90033
P 90040
P 90063
P 90201
P 90640
P 91754
P 91755
P 91770
Q 91316
Q 91335
Q 91356
Q 91401
Q 91403
Q 91405
Q 91406
Q 91411
Q 91423
Q 91436
R 91352
R 91505
R 91521
R 91601
R 91602
R 91604
R 91605
R 91606
R 91607
R 91608
S 91201
S 91202
S 91203
S 91206
S 91207
S 91208
S 91501
S 91502
S 91504
S 91506
T 91101
T 91103
T 91104
T 91106
T 91107
T 91108
T 91775
T 91776
T 91801
U 91601
U 91744
U 91745
U 91746
U 91748
U 91765
U 91789
U 91792
V 91006
V 91007
V 91010
V 91016
V 91018
V 91024
V 91731
V 91732
V 91733
V 91780
W 91702
W 91706
W 91722
W 91723
W 91724
W 91740
W 91741
W 91790
W 91791
X 91711
X 91750
X 91766
X 91767
X 91768
X 91773
Y 90263
Y 90265
Y 90290
Y 91301
Y 91302
Y 91303
Y 91307
Y 91361
Y 91364
Y 91367
Z 91304
Z 91306
Z 91311
Z 91324
Z 91325
Z 91326
Z 91343
Z 91344
Z 91345
Z 91402
AA 91001
AA 91011
AA 91020
AA 91023
AA 91040
AA 91042
AA 91214
AA 91331
AA 91340
AA 91342

Reverse Lookup [zip code to zone]

Reverse Lookup
If you know a zip code, you can find the corresponding zone map.

Zip Code Zone Map
90001 G
90002 G
90003 G
90004 K
90005 K
90006 N
90007 N
90008 L
90010 K
90011 N
90012 M
90013 M
90014 N
90015 N
90016 L
90017 M
90018 L
90019 L
90020 K
90021 N
90022 P
90023 P
90024 J
90025 J
90026 M
90027 M
90028 K
90029 M
90031 O
90032 O
90033 P
90034 J
90035 L
90036 K
90037 N
90038 K
90039 M
90040 P
90041 O
90042 O
90043 L
90044 F
90045 F
90046 K
90047 F
90048 L
90049 I
90056 L
90057 M
90058 N
90059 E
90061 E
90062 L
90063 P
90064 J
90065 O
90066 I
90067 J
90068 K
90069 K
90071 M
90077 J
90089 N
90094 F
90201 G
90201 P
90210 J
90211 L
90212 J
90220 C
90222 E
90230 J
90232 J
90240 G
90241 G
90242 G
90245 E
90247 E
90248 C
90249 E
90250 E
90254 C
90255 G
90260 E
90262 E
90263 Y
90265 Y
90266 E
90270 N
90272 I
90274 A
90275 A
90277 A
90278 C
90280 G
90290 Y
90291 I
90292 I
90293 F
90301 F
90302 F
90303 F
90304 F
90305 F
90401 I
90402 I
90403 I
90404 I
90405 I
90501 C
90502 C
90503 C
90504 C
90505 A
90601 H
90602 H
90603 H
90604 H
90605 H
90606 H
90631 H
90638 H
90640 P
90650 G
90660 H
90670 H
90701 D
90703 D
90706 D
90710 A
90712 D
90713 D
90715 D
90716 D
90717 A
90723 D
90731 A
90732 A
90744 A
90745 C
90746 C
90755 B
90802 B
90803 B
90804 B
90805 D
90806 B
90807 B
90808 D
90810 B
90813 B
90814 B
90815 B
91001 AA
91006 V
91007 V
91010 V
91011 AA
91016 V
91018 V
91020 AA
91023 AA
91024 V
91030 O
91040 AA
91042 AA
91101 T
91103 T
91104 T
91105 O
91106 T
91107 T
91108 T
91201 S
91202 S
91203 S
91204 O
91205 O
91206 S
91207 S
91208 S
91214 AA
91301 Y
91302 Y
91303 Y
91304 Z
91306 Z
91307 Y
91311 Z
91316 Q
91324 Z
91325 Z
91326 Z
91331 AA
91335 Q
91340 AA
91342 AA
91343 Z
91344 Z
91345 Z
91352 R
91356 Q
91361 Y
91364 Y
91367 Y
91401 Q
91402 Z
91403 Q
91405 Q
91406 Q
91411 Q
91423 Q
91436 Q
91501 S
91502 S
91504 S
91505 R
91506 S
91521 R
91601 R
91602 R
91604 R
91605 R
91606 R
91607 R
91608 R
91702 W
91706 W
91711 X
91722 W
91723 W
91724 W
91731 V
91732 V
91733 V
91740 W
91741 W
91744 U
91745 U
91746 U
91748 U
91750 X
91754 P
91755 P
91765 U
91766 X
91767 X
91768 X
91770 P
91773 X
91775 T
91776 T
91780 V
91789 U
91790 W
91791 W
91792 U
91801 T
91803 O

Welcome to SoCal Stair Climbers!

SoCal Stair Climbers FB Cover Photo

SoCal Stair Climbers has grown enough that the facebook group just can’t hold all the information we plan to make available to the stair-walking community. Therefore we have built a website which hosts links, on the left side of the page, to route maps and descriptions, stairway information, including locations and images, a calendar of events, as well as a blog and guest articles. Also included is painted stairways tour information.

Strairway Markings Sample

The website is mostly complete. If you have thoughts on this endeavor, or things you’d like to see on the website, please let us know in the comments. We will do our best to make this website a resource for the entire stair-walking community, whether you are regular on the walks lead by Bob Inman, Dan Koeppel, Charles Fleming, and myself, or the many meetup walks throughout southern California.

– Dan Gutierrez –