Sausalito Public Stairs
Hike Review
Cassie, I walked from the New Town part of Sausalito to the Morning Sun Trail, then back down to our car in a nice little loop. We then parked our car in the Old Town part of Sausalito and walked a loop to the Southern Waterfront and back. We had to do this hike in two parts as street parking in Sausalito is limited to two hours.
Our main goal was to find and walk as many public stairs as we could find, and I think we found a decent amount of them. There are more, of course, and we’ll just have to come back for the rest another day.
We walked mostly stairs and sidewalks, but in the streets of Sausalito farther away from the water, we found that streets were narrow without sidewalks. In these cases, we hugged the side of the road as much as we could as we thought that our walking was quite dangerous, especially with speeding cars and blind corners.
We found that the stairs near New Town were worn and poorly maintained, while the stairs near Old Town were new, clean, and well-maintained. The ones higher up in elevation afforded beautiful views of the bay, including Angel Island.
On our first hike, when we got to the Morning Sun Trail above Sausalito, our plan was to hike a mini loop to the peak at the end of the Sundial Road. And I saw a trail that linked the Bobcat Trail, so we headed north. Unfortunately, the small trail that linked the Bobcat Trail to Sundial Road was overrun with poison oak bushes, so we abandoned that trail and headed back the way we came. And when we got to the top of the Morning Sun Trail, we realized that we were running out of time to get back to our car, so we headed back without hiking the Sundial Road.
On our second hike, we were much more relaxed and enjoyed a nice, yummy drink at the Golden Gate Market before walking up stairs. And when we got to the waterfront, we shared a small bit of ice cream and enjoyed the view. When we finished this hike, we headed back to the Golden Gate Market for their deli sandwiches, which were way better than I thought they had any right to be.
Parking is tough in Sausalito, but we found that just a block or two away from the water meant a lot of open street parking spots.
Public bathrooms were available in parks. The restroom in the Golden Gate Market is only for customers, but it is clean and nicely stocked.
What I Learned
At first, I was annoyed by the short 2-hour parking limit as I thought the hike would take at least 3 hours, but once we figured out we could just split the hike into two parts, it wasn’t so bad. It also meant that I got to visit the wonderful Golden Gate Market twice, so it was a blessing in disguise.
What Happened?
4.7 miles, 2 hrs 6 mins, 1133 ft of ascent
2.4 miles, 1 hr 58 mins, 604 ft of ascent
A few months ago, I found out that like certain neighborhoods in San Francisco and Berkeley, there were these public stairways in Sausalito. And since I enjoyed walking the stairs in Berkeley decades ago, I thought it’d be nice to explore the ones in Sausalito with Cassie. So we did.
We started out by parking near Bonita and Bee Street near New Town. We then made a bee line (using as many public stairs as we could) up to the Morning Sun Trail. During this portion of the hike, we started to notice how nice the homes were in Sausalito and we started to talk about how nice it’d be to live in some of these beautiful homes, even if the streets were narrow.
When we got to the Morning Sun Trail, and then Alta Trail, I was absolutely sweating like a pig as the day had warmed up and I found the hike difficult with all the elevation gain. However, by peaking over to the other side of Marin, the sea breeze hit us and I was instantly cooled down. Enjoying the breeze and the gentle downhill grade, we hiked over to the Bobcat Trail, only to find that the connecting trail was full of poison oak. We attempted to bravely walk on, but after maybe 30 feet of avoiding the irritating leaves on both sides of the claustrophobic trail, we gave up and headed back. And when we got back to the top of the Morning Sun Trail, we realized that we had less than 40 minutes to get back to the car, so we headed down, though by making a loop and utilizing Santa Rosa Avenue to get us back to our car.
We then drove our car to Old Town and parked near Golden Gate Market, where we awarded ourselves a yummy drink. We then hiked up many more stairs and started noticing that the stairs were named (with signage). And around this point was when we started talking about which of these beautiful homes were our favorite and which we would like to build or live in someday.
When we got to the waterfront, we visited Sausalito Books by the Bay, where we only had 10 minutes before closing. And while speed-browsing the store, Cassie found that they sold locally made ice cream, which we instantly bought and enjoyed. And afterwards, we headed back to Golden Gate Market (while walking up two more stairs we hadn’t walked before) for some delicious sandwiches—and then home.
