Getting to the top in Pacific Heights
The Lyon Street steps, which connect Cow Hollow to Pacific Heights, are maybe too perfect.
If they weren’t so wide and sunny and privately landscaped, and if they didn’t go from steep to gradual to steep again, maybe the personal trainers and classes wouldn’t have commandeered them.
You can avoid the trainers by going midday, but if you want to walk the steps at a leisurely pace, you’d better hug tight to the center-rail against the steady flow of huffing runners doing lap after lap, constantly passing on the right.
The start is a half block up from the dead end of Green Street, in front of the “Princess Diaries” house. From the bottom you cannot see the top, so you have no idea what you are in for, which is a good thing. Just seeing the top of the first climb is daunting enough because it is a steep climb up two flights of 62 steps each.
Across Vallejo Street the stairs get wider as a gilded sign in the abutment announces “Lyon Street.” Further up, a “Heart of San Francisco” set into a flat flower bed announces the home of Dianne Feinstein.
If the U.S. Senator is in residence, a uniformed security guard will be hanging around on the landing. Also hanging around will be at least one wedding party taking pictures.
From here there are eight flights of 15 steps each to reach the top. From Broadway the view north through a stand of redwoods and eucalyptus and over the Palace of Fine Arts dome is worth contemplating if the sidewalk isn’t too crowded with people on green mats doing crunches with purple balls and barbells.
If it is, keep going up to the peak of Lyon and Pacific Avenue where you can see from the ocean to Mount Diablo; from Tiburon to San Bruno Mountain.
Meredith May and Sam Whiting are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. E-mail: mmay@sfchronicle.com, swhiting@sfchronicle.com. Christopher Haugh is a San Francisco Chronicle reporter. E-mail: sadolphson@sfchronicle.com.