22 December 2017

SoCal Stair Climbers has its own web domain!

We are now https://socalstairclimbers.com

We used to be https://socalstairclimbers.wordpress.com, and this address will still map to the new domain, but for how long I do not know…

I will be updating the weblinks slowly over time to the new domain in all of my FB pages, groups, photo albums, and events.

– Dan Gutierrez –

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10 November 2017

The Long Beach Loop

Think of the Long Beach Loop as a mini-me version of the LA Loop. It has only 4 segments, of 15 miles each, for a total of 60 miles, covering all the stair streets and many other fun stairways in Long Beach. The loop also visits the majority – over 60 – public parks throughout the City, as well as visiting many pleasant and quiet neighborhoods. Also included is the many stairs and sights of Cal State Long Beach, as well as the park rich area near the Colorado Lagoon, and scenic Naples Island and its wheel of stair-streets. The route also visits the great stairways and views of  Signal Hill, and thoroughly explores the bluffs and downtown waterfront areas of Long Beach. This route is my way of showing you Long Beach from the walking perspective!
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25 May 2017

Evening Stair-Walk Loops!

A new page of 4 to 6 mile stair-walks, designed for evening events, has been added to the website.

Like many of you, I like to do walks after work, but shorter than the 10 to 20 mile efforts we undertake on our weekend events. I’m talking walks in the 4 to 6 mile range, so they take between an hour and 20 minutes to 2 hours and 15 minutes at a 3 mph average speed. I also want to encourage more weekly walks like Tomato Pie, and the Rustic Canyon Evening Loop, so I have published a series of 4 to 6 mile walks, starting in the South Bay, which is along my commute route. I will rotate through these walks on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday evenings as my work schedule allows, and run them as events, probably starting somewhere between 5 and 6 pm. So if you want to join me, and maybe take ownership of a route, so that it becomes a weekly walk, let’s do it!

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August 10th, 2016

The Los Angeles Loop

I recently created a 310 mile loop that traverses the lion’s share of the public stairways in LA County, starting on Naples Island in Long Beach, doing a counterclockwise path over 15, 20 to 21+ mile segments. The route heads out along the coast, west around PV, then north past Santa Monica, turning inland to visit the Westside, then the Hollywood Hills. It then continues into Silver Lake and Echo Park, passing through DTLA, then winds through the northeastern parts of the county, including Montecito Heights, Mt Washington, Eagle Rock, South Pasadena, Highland Park, and City Terrace. From City Terrace, it heads southward to Watts, then from Watts back to Naples. The route visits 479 stair-streets, and 162 stairways that are not stair-streets, for a total of 641 total stairways, most taken in the up direction, so that there are 28,007 up steps, and 10,750 down steps, or 72.3% up, and 27.7% down. I will be leading segment walks, about 2 a month starting in later September of 2016, finishing in the May 2017 time frame. The LA Loop has it’s own page, and is on the menu frame at the left side of this website.

– Dan Gutierrez –

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March 24th 2016

Here are some words about how we run all our group stair-walks:

1) We are all stair-walking friends, and we strive to help keep each other safe, so please look out for everyone else. If on a narrow street, with no sidewalk, a car is approaching from the rear, please call out “car back”, or “car front” if it is coming from the front, and repeat it down the line so everyone gets the message. So even though it is tempting to “tune out” and just follow and talk to your friends, please be aware of your surroundings and when you are coming to road crossings. This is were urban hiking differs from mountain or park hikes, you have to be mindful of road traffic. And please treat each other with respect. Think of us as a stair-walking family, rather than a collection of strangers.

2) Follow, as in stay behind the leader (me), and stay in front of the sweep. What’s a sweep? They are the person who will be at the rear, to make sure no one gets lost, and help people who are struggling, to find a route back or transit if necessary. Please do as the leader and sweep ask, as they are looking out for your safety. If the walk is very small, say 10 or less, we sometimes don’t use a sweep, but that is the exception.

3) Please follow the requests of the leader and sweep, who are volunteering their time to make your walk better. It’s also a good idea to circulate at stops so you are not always at the front, giving others a chance to be there, and similar for the back, unless of course you are struggling.

4) Road crossings at traffic lights. Sometimes the group will be too big to get everyone through on one traffic light cycle, so if you are asked to wait for the next green light by the leader or sweep, don’t worry, we will not leave you behind, even though we will move forward to leave room for the rest of you to have space when you get across. Even if it takes more than two light cycles, it’s ok, we will wait. What we don’t want is people bunching in the street; as this exposes you to conflicts with turning drivers.

5) Road crossings with no traffic lights. We will cross as a group. So a couple of adults, it might be me and and the sweep, or another experienced walker, will stand and persuade traffic to stop (known as ‘corking’), then the when we say “Go!”, the group will cross, and please don’t saunter, do it quickly, but don’t rush. If I ‘cork’ traffic and tell you to go, know that I will catch up to the front after we finish the crossing, and resume the lead.

6) Please don’t spread out on narrow streets with no sidewalks, because you will totally shut down local traffic, and that’s not our goal, to have residents call the police. Instead, we want to be good neighbors or at least good visitors, so the locals will see us as friendly and cooperative. So please walk two wide or single file on some very narrow streets.

7) Why all these rules? I know this sounds like a lot of rules, but it’s actually pretty easy to do, just follow our lead. Some of my more experienced stair-walking friends, and walk leaders, will be with us on our walks and they know the routine. We have walked many thousands of miles, throughout all of LA County by this method, and it works.

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– Dan Gutierrez –

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December 19th, 2015

We have added significant new information to the website. Now you can find all the public stair-streets, walk-streets, stair-ways, walkways, over and under crossings (that we know of) in the part of LA County south of the San Gabriel Mountains, in a series of Letter coded groups of 10 zip codes, as can be seen in the zip code zone key map below. A huge thanks to Bob Inman for sharing his data with me, so that these comprehensive maps could be developed. We aim to keep them current by adding new facilities that are brought to our attention.

You can go directly to this page by clicking on this link: “Stairway Locations by Zip Code“, which is also on the left frame of this group.  Now you can see all the stairways, albeit in groups of 10 zip code zones. Check out the ones where you live, you might be surprised that there are stairways, walkways and crossings you didn’t know about. And if you know of stairs not on the maps, or see errors, please follow the directions at the bottom of the locations by zip code page to send us the info!

– Dan Gutierrez –

December 19th, 2015