Last week the dogs and I had a chance to go to the Bay Area while on a road trip. I was looking forward to checking out some of the public stairways in Berkeley as I had mentioned them and the work of the Berkeley Path Wanderers Association in the book The Gentle Art of Wandering.
After attending to a couple of business items in the morning, we drove to Berkeley to spend a couple of hours climbing stairs. Although I had a Berkley Path Wanderers map (click here if you’re interested in ordering one), I really hadn’t done any preparation. I just drove toward the hills without a clue as to where I was and finally began looking for a place to park the car when we reached a huge old white building, the Claremont Hotel.
I checked the map and noticed that we were not too far from some stairs. Although it was a brisk and unCalifornia-like gray day, we were anxious to get started and walked to the stairways a few blocks away. They turned out to be on the Panoramic Hill just above the University of California football stadium.
We began climbing up Panoramic Hill on the Orchard Lane steps a long field goal away from the Cal football stadium.
We soon reached Mosswood Lane which was path.
We followed the path past houses and through redwood trees. It’s always so cool to find places like this in the middle of a city.
The path eventually reach a road. There we took a left and found another set of steps after a very brief walk.
Going up the Arden steps.
When we reached the road, we could see another set of stairs peeking around the corner.
These steps led to another path, appropriately called the Arden Path.
The path came to an end with a small flight of wooden steps.
We then circled around to descend the Orchard Steps.
The stairways that we had been were clearly quite old and predated the work of the Berkeley Path Wanderers Association. I really wanted to find some paths and stairways that were built by the Association.
While heading down a set of stairs, we met a woman coming up the stairs. I asked her if she was familiar with the Path Wanderers Association. It turned out that she was a member and friend of one of the founders. In fact, she was checking out this particular stairway to see if it needed maintenance.
We talked about their group and she showed us on the map where we could walk on some of the stairways that they had built. She also told me about a brand new book that describes some of their paths and stairways called Berkeley Walks.
Needless to say, we were on our way to see some of the Association’s work.
The first Path Wanderers Association stairway we checked out was Stoddard Path. It even had its own street sign.
Stoddard began as a path between two houses.
And soon became a set of dirt and beam steps.
The path ended at the next road.
The steps built by the Berkeley Path Wanderers make use of stairway right of ways that were part of the initial Berkeley city plan. They were intended to make it easier for residents to reach trolley car stops. By the time the houses were built, people had stopped taking trolleys and the right of ways were ignored and became overgrown.
When there was a serious fire in the area, it became apparent that the ignored right of ways would be good routes for escaping fires and would also provide firefighters better access for putting out the fires. The Path Wanderers Association has been spearheading the efforts to make the overgrown right of ways into usable paths.
We continued our exploration of the neighborhood and soon found many more paths.
With the day coming to an end we had to quit wandering and head back to the car knowing that there was much more to explore. The next day I had to attend to a business item in the Oakland Hills. If you have an unfavorable impression of Oakland, the Oakland Hills will quickly change your mind. The area is beyond upscale, and even better, there were stairways all around us. Once our business was concluded, we took a little time to check some of them out.
Because we still had some traveling to do and I wanted time to check out the Dipsea Stairs in Mill Valley on the Marin County side of the Bay we cut our Oakland Hills stairway wandering short. The Dipsea Stairs are a significant feature of the nation’s oldest cross-country race, the Dipsea Race. The race is seven and half miles long. It begins in the town center of Mill Valley, goes up the Dipsea Steps, passes through redwood forests, and ends in Stinson Beach on the Pacific side of Marin County.
If you’re hoping to find strip malls, fast food restaurants, and dollar stores, you’ll have to go someplace other than Mill Valley. Instead you’ll find a community of very nice homes of all sizes tucked in a grove of enormous redwood trees. The Dipsea Stairs are just as amazing. With three separate flights of stairs totaling over 600 steps (683 or so by my count), they are like climbing to the top of a 50-story building. Imagine doing that at the front-end of a running race.
And when you finally reach the top, you have a network of fire roads and trails to take you through Muir Woods and all of Marin County.
After going up and down the Dipsea Steps, we really did have to leave the Bay Area and continue with our trip. I only wish we had more time in the Bay Area for climbing stairs and exploring neighborhoods. It’s the combination of being outdoors, walking, exploring, and discovering something new that makes climbing stairs such a great wandering activity.
December 11, 2015 at 2:38 pm
Bisbee-esque! What lovely stairways in the Berkeley area! Some day I will have to go.