South end of Marshall’s Beach

As I hiked along the California Coastal Trail, skirting the Presidio in San Francisco, I found an awful lot of stairs. There were plenty of steps accessing the old concrete structures like Battery Chamberlin, not to mention those on the trail leading down to Marshall’s Beach. I’ve always been fascinated by staircases ever since I was very young; growing up in a single-story “ranch” house, I dreamed of one day living in an old Victorian with front porch steps and many flights of stairs, all leading to a mysterious attic. That’s a dream I may never actually realize… but I still feel drawn to stairs wherever I find them.

These stairs remind me of my visit to Teotihuacan in the 1960s

Looking toward the Presidio