San Francisco's Great Highway From Richard Katz's
Skating Unrinked book, published in paperback by HarperCollinsWest in 1994. Or was it '95? If you are not reading this on a screen, stop reading and head to www.Amazon.com. Thanx. Richard Katz = katz@frogojt.com. email
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Chapter grthiway
Ocean Beach
San Francisco's Great Highway
Some days when the wind is blowing in hard off the Pacific, and the air is cold and damp, it will be nice to remember the few days in the fall when it was balmy and calm in San Francisco, and you headed out to Ocean Beach. On a warm day or a warm night you might see hundreds of people on the beach or strolling on the Esplanade. This is the former site of Playland-At-The-Beach and the Sutro Baths. Before Disneyland, families came here.
When you go out there to skate, remember to bring along a few layers of warm clothes. Just in case.
How to Get There by Car from Highway 101 (the Golden Gate Bridge):
From southbound Highway 101, stay in the right hand lane as you cross the Golden Gate Bridge, and take the Lincoln Boulevard/Highway 1 exit. Lincoln Boulevard winds up and down through the Presidio and part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. At the intersection of Twenty-fifth Avenue, go straight. You are now on El Camino Del Mar -- very scenic. After the road makes a sharp left, you come to the intersection of Point Lobos Avenue. Go right on Point Lobos and start the descent to the beach. The Cliff House is on the right. Cruise down the hill to the Great Highway and park anywhere on the beach side of the street.
What It's Like:
The first mile of this trail at the north end is the wide concrete path that accesses the beach, usually called the Esplanade. Start skating south, starting at the sign "Point Lobos -- Great Highway". The concrete is in poor condition but still okay for skating. The view of the Pacific Ocean is magnificent. Golden Gate Park is on your left.
Where Fulton Street meets the ocean, note the Dutch windmill on your left, and a little farther on, the Murphy windmill. Just past this second windmill is Lincoln Way. Cross the Great Highway at Lincoln, and you will see a well-designed skating trail running north-south on the left side of the road. You can follow it for a little over two miles. Here you lose most of your magnificent view of the Pacific, but you gain a late model asphalt surface with very little pedestrian traffic and only a few bicycles. On particularly nice days there are lots of skaters. The trail is straight with a few interesting ups and downs.
A mile and a half south, and one block east of the trail, on Taraval Street, at the corner of Forty-seventh and Taraval, there is a skate and surf shop called End of the Line Skate Shop (it's at the end of the Muni's L-Taraval streetcar line.) It is open 11 to 7 every day (415-566-7087). This is a real laid back place, maybe a little too laid back, but quite competent and knowledgeable with reasonable rental rates. Rollerskating need not involve you in any grease or bearings or wrenches, or even any concern about such things. A shop like End of the Line can take care of all that. Just ask them to rotate the wheels every few months and check out the bearings. It's an impressive thing to see a skilled mechanic's hand spin a wheel on a skate (or a farm tractor, for that matter,) and say, "Feel that rough spot? Right there;" or "Feels okay to me," or "Cheap bearings."
The asphalt trail ends at Sloat Boulevard. If you continue on south on the concrete sidewalk, you will see some concrete artwork at the Westside Pump Station. The park-like area across the street on your left is the Zoo. (No skating in the Zoo.) If you cross the street to the beach, there are extensive parking lots for viewing the ocean.
When you get back up to the north end of the trail by Fulton Street, take a look at the steep incline up to the Cliff House. If you think you can negotiate that, go up the Esplanade and follow the signs to the Musee Mechanique. The concrete path leads to a spectacular overlook generally known as Seal Rocks. Most days there are surfers out beyond the rocks. The Musee Mechanique tucked under the hotel on your right is a marvelous collection of old contrivances including a Wurlitzer mechanical piano that you can see from the window. An old sign says No Skates, but the person dispensing change to operate the machines is sometimes rolling around on skates himself. In the back are some late model crunch and punch video games.
The Golden Gate National Recreation Area Visitor's Center is just across the terrace from the museum. The Camera Obscura on the south side of the terrace looks like a tourist trap attraction, but it is worth the price of admission. Take the time to read the information plaques here and there around the plaza; they impart some of the flavor of what this area was like not that long ago when Playland at the Beach and the Sutro Baths were still happening.
Places to Eat:
A little over a mile from where you started up by the Cliff House, you can spot the turnaround for the Muni's N-Judah streetcar at Judah and La Playa. After you negotiate the ramp from the trail down to the street, you can skate right into Java Beach, a low key little restaurant dedicated to coffee. Readers of this book will especially appreciate the display of aerial photographs of San Francisco, coauthored by Herb Caen. This place has a very diverse clientele; it used to be a bar known euphemistically as Dick's Coffeeshop.
At the south end of the trail across from the entrance to the Zoo on the south side of Sloat there are a few walkup restaurants, straight out of the 'Fifties. You can skate to them easily.
Public Transportation:
The Great Highway trail is at the end of the line for two San Francisco Municipal Railway streetcar lines. Either the L-Taraval or the N-Judah will take you there. Sometimes in the summer and fall the Muni puts on special open air cars.
The Muni 18 bus runs parallel to the trail on Forty-sixth Avenue, two and a half blocks east of the trail. If you get tired. you can ride it back to where you started near Fulton Street. The Muni drivers aren't supposed to let you ride with skates on, nor are they supposed to let you ride barefoot.
The Muni 5, 23, 31, 38, 48, and 71 lines also go to Ocean Beach.
Ratings:
Path Surface = **** (Esplanade is *)
Public Transit Access = ****
Surroundings = ****
Level of Difficulty = EASY
Overall Rating = ****
Length = three miles, one way
Other trails to check out in the neighborhood:
Golden Gate Park on Sunday
San Francisco's Marina Green
10/10/96
Note from the Author: Haven't put in links to the other chapters yet.
From Richard Katz's Skating Unrinked book, published in paperback by HarperCollinsWest in 1994. Or was it '95? If you are not reading this on a screen, stop reading and head to www.Amazon.com. Thanx. Richard Katz = katz@frogojt.com. email
Back to Richard Katz's Homepage
If you want to go back to the Table of Contents of Skating Unrinked, Back to TOC