Ben Pease is a man after my own heart, rambling through all the corners of SF — hidden or not — on foot. He gave his talk on March 17, 2011.
He discovered the pleasures of urban explorations at an early age, and soon came to cartography, and in helping to produce maps for others, began working on his own project to map the walking paths of San Francisco.
Taking inspiration from other mapmakers, both foreign and from the past (he showed one particularly beautiful map of San Francisco, made by Chevalier, faithful but wonderfully illustrated), and getting clarity on many a trail from older maps, he experimented to create a map of the right scale, and created a wonderful map of the city (and a little bit beyond through San Bruno mountain and part of the margin headlands).
He lead us in pictures through some of his favorite places: Lands End, the Embarcadero (viewing the bay from atop a pier), his own home patch in the Richmond District (with the smallest trail on the map), Candlestick Point, McClaren Park (with its springs and remnants of older owners), San Bruno Mountain (and a newly discovered path from the late 1800s), the Marin Headlands, Twin Peaks, and more.
If you have a favorite place, feel free to share it in the comments below. If not, check out The Walker’s Map of San Francisco, and look to find it!
SF Natural History Series 
Urbia Adventure League scouts out hidden local landscapes for exploring families in San Francisco. http://www.urbikids.com
One of my favorite places to ramble is the rocky chert outcrop of Corona Heights, high above the Randall Museum, where you will be rewarded with a rocky perch and a sweeping view of the city as well as the south and east bays.
Closer inspection rewards super sleuths with a geological rarity called a ‘slickenside’, delightful native plants and creatures in the grasslands and hillsides.
A lasting connection you can take with you as you travel about in SF is knowledge of our local hilly topography and the ability to find and identify this hilltop from many unexpected places.
Urbia Adventure League scouts out hidden local landscapes for exploring families in San Francisco. http://www.urbikids.com
One of my favorite places to ramble is the rocky chert outcrop of Corona Heights, high above the Randall Museum, where you will be rewarded with a rocky perch and a sweeping view of the city as well as the south and east bays.
Closer inspection rewards super sleuths with a geological rarity called a ‘slickenside’, delightful native plants and creatures in the grasslands and hillsides.
A lasting connection you can take with you as you travel about in SF is knowledge of our local hilly topography and the ability to find and identify this hilltop from many unexpected places.
It’s a great spot Barb, I was just there the other day.
I love all the little rocky outcrops of San Francisco actually. there’s a few tucked away unremarked upon, that are always nice to stumble across.
Up on Corona Heights one is often corralled by fences guarding steep dropoffs and chert outcrops. One of my favorite discoveries while checking my map is down at the bottom of one of those dropoffs — the east end of Peixiotto Playground has a lovely view up a smooth, red wall of chert, shaved off almost perfectly at one of the myriad layers, maybe 100-150 feet long and 30 feet tall. Fun as it is to see chert formations “on end” such as on Twin Peaks, it’s neat to see the answer to “what if you peeled away the layers rather than cut into them?”. The new trail at the west end of the playground is an interesting though somewhat hastily-built connection back up to Corona Heights, opened last summer.
Stay tuned for the opening of the Stanyan Historic Trail on June 4th, 2011, into Interior Greenbelt. More info, and how to come out and volunteer with Sutro Stewards on May 7th and June 4th, at http://www.sutrostewards.com.
Ben, that is a rare facet (pun intended) of local geology! The face of chert that you discovered is a stop on our Urbia Adventure at Corona Heights. http://www.urbikids.com
It is aptly called a “slickensides”
http://geology.about.com/od/geoprocesses/ig/slickensides/
Thanks for the post, Ben.
Funny, but I was actually looking down that chert cliff last week, watching a raven harass a falcon in the trees on the western slope.