SF stairways

It has been almost a year since I moved to Bay Area. In my opinion San Francisco is the prettiest city in America if you know where to look. Most tourists head over to Fisherman's Wharf, Golden gate Bridge, Coit Tower, Lombard Street. Although these sights define San Francisco, they are not the prettiest (except Golden Gate Bridge). There are many hidden gems in the city, such as Lincoln park, Point Lobos, and most and foremost, stairways that are tucked between townhomes on steep hills.
I've seen some of these stairs by chance during my first ever visit to the city in 2001. Since then I have struggled to find some more, but was not successful. I was under the impression that these stairwells are concentrated mostly in the area just south and east of Presidio (which provides the entrance to Golden Hate Bridge from the south). That was a wrong assumption to make, in fact, the hidden stairwells are all over the city. I was looking for them in the wrong place.

San Francisco has many distinct neighborhoods, each with its own character and flavor. Mission District has a bohemian feel to it, North Beach is artistic, Nob Hill is upper class. With that in mind, I decided to look for books in the library to learn more about character of each of the San Francisco's neighborhoods. There I came across a book titled "Stairway Walks in San Francisco" by Adah Bakalinsky. The title immediately caught my attention, as you have guessed, because of my unsuccessful attempts to locate stairways in the city.
I highly recommend this book if you would like to see the inner beauty of the city. By inner beauty I mean gardens tucked between buildings. The author, Adah Bakalinsky has spent a considerable amount of time to split most if not all stairways into a series of walks. Each walk encompasses four to five stairways, and some have as many as eight. Most of these can be done in an hour or so.
Armed with this book I set out to explore different stairways in the city. I only did two of the walks because I spent the other half of the day sampling different food at the SF Street Food Festival in Mission district. For those of you who have never been to this festival, this event features some of the city's vendors that sell street food (think hot dogs, burgers, but food was much better and more ethnic than that).

Although it was foggy in the neighborhoods that i was traversing, I would not say that it was unfortunate. A city shrouded in the fog appears to be more mysterious. True, you will not see Golden gate Bridge or Alcatraz, or even a street ten blocks away, at the least you can appreciate the near surroundings even more.

The first walk was in the neighborhood of Mount Sutro and involved scaling steep stairways that connect streets on different tiers of the hill. Mount Sutro lies in San Francisco's fog belt and, according to wikipedia, is almost always foggy in the summer. There are some wooded patch above chestnut drive that is densely populated with eucalyptus trees. Walking among these trees in the fog is like being in a fairy tale.
Here is the detailed Google Map route: SF Stairway Walk #1 (Sutro)
Many of the stairways on this route afford great views of the neighboring hills and Sunset district (the hills face the ocean side, but I could not see the ocean because of the fog).
The second walk was in Golden Gate Heights.
SF Stairway Walk #2 (Golden Gate Heights).
It was a little foggy, although not as foggy as in the Sutro walk earlier. From Grand View Park I could see Ocean Beach, entire Sunset District, Golden Gate Park and part of Pt Lobos/Lincoln park and Presidio. Bakalinsky's book mentions that on a clear day one can see Golden Gate Bridge in the distance. I will have to come back to see for myself.