Access San FranciscoRide over two hills, then watch the fog come under the bridge.
The ruins of the Sutro Baths below the cliffs, the Marin coast across the water
THE CITY'S WILD EDGE AT THE MOUTH OF THE GATE

Lands End and the Sutro Baths

Windswept cliffs and cypress at the corner where the Golden Gate meets the Pacific, with the ruins of an 1896 bathhouse below, the Cliff House above them and the Legion of Honor in the woods behind.

Photo: Cationta, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Home · Sights · Lands End and the Sutro Baths

No. 1What you are looking at

Lands End and the Sutro Baths

Steep or many steps

  1. 1
    The Coastal TrailThe main path along the cliffs, on the old railbed of the Cliff House railway.
  2. 2
    The Sutro Baths ruinsThe concrete walls and pools of a vast bathhouse of 1896 that burned in 1966.
  3. 3
    The Cliff HouseA neoclassical building on the headland above the ruins, with the old Camera Obscura on its deck.
  4. 4
    Point LobosThe headland above the baths, cut through by tunnels that once brought sea water in.
  5. 5
    Mile Rock BeachA cove below the trail with views out through the Golden Gate to the bridge.
  6. 6
    The Legion of HonorA fine arts museum in a replica of a Paris palace, in Lincoln Park beside the trail.
The cypress-topped cliffs of Lands End at dusk, the Golden Gate beyond
The cypress-topped cliffs of Lands End at dusk, the Golden Gate beyondSharon Mollerus, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
No. 2The sight in full

Reading the place

Why it matters

Lands End is the rocky, windswept northwest corner of San Francisco, where the Golden Gate opens to the Pacific. It is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area: a strip of cliffs, cypress and headlands between the Sutro district and Lincoln Park, with trails that look across the strait to the headlands of the far shore and down on wrecks and surf. Of all the places in the city, it is the one that feels least like a city.

The flooded pools of the Sutro Baths and the beach beside them
The flooded pools of the Sutro Baths and the beach beside themDietmar Rabich, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

It also holds some of San Francisco's most atmospheric ruins, the remains of the Sutro Baths, and it has been a place of pleasure outings for San Franciscans since the 1860s.

A resort at the end of the land

The concrete walls of the Sutro Baths ruins, the cliff-top building beyond
The concrete walls of the Sutro Baths ruins, the cliff-top building beyondJoe Mabel, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

The Yelamu Ohlone lived here before the Spanish came in 1776. After the Gold Rush, entrepreneurs built the first Cliff House on the headland as a resort for the wealthy, and by the 1860s a stagecoach ran out from downtown every Sunday along the new Point Lobos toll road. In the 1880s the millionaire Adolph Sutro, later mayor of the city, built a steam railway from downtown to bring ordinary people out to the ocean; the main trail through Lands End today follows its old railbed.

Graffiti on a ruined wall at the Sutro Baths, the pools behind it
Graffiti on a ruined wall at the Sutro Baths, the pools behind itJoe Mabel, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Sutro's great project was the baths. The Sutro Baths opened on March 14, 1896, as the world's largest indoor swimming pool establishment, a glass palace of saltwater pools filled by the tides through tunnels cut in the headland. In 1897 a Black man, John Harris, sued Sutro after being refused entry because of his race and won, a landmark case against segregation in public facilities. But the baths were expensive to run. They became part skating rink; a new owner closed the pools in the 1950s and ran an aerial tram from the Cliff House to Point Lobos from 1955 to 1966 to draw visitors; the baths were sold for apartments in 1964, and burned down in 1966 while being demolished; the fire was found to be arson.

What you see

Trails climbing the green hillside above the Sutro Baths to the cypress trees
Trails climbing the green hillside above the Sutro Baths to the cypress treesJoe Mabel, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

From the parking area above Point Lobos a path drops to the ruins: the concrete outlines of the old pools, now filled with rainwater and seawater, broken walls, blocked stairs and a tunnel through the rock with a deep crevice in its middle. Waves break over the seaward edge. Above, on the headland, stands the Cliff House, rebuilt several times since 1863, with the old Camera Obscura on its deck projecting a live image of the ocean onto a table in a darkened room. Offshore stand Seal Rocks, the stacks that every generation of visitors to the Cliff House has looked out on.

North of the ruins, the Coastal Trail runs along the cliffs through cypress and scrub, with the Golden Gate Bridge appearing between the trees. A spur leads down to Mile Rock Point and Mile Rock Beach, and at low tide you can see the remains of some of the many ships that ran aground on this shore. At the southern end of the trail a memorial to the cruiser USS San Francisco remembers the cruiser and its crew.

The Legion of Honor

A lone cypress on the cliff edge at Lands End, the Marin headlands across the strait
A lone cypress on the cliff edge at Lands End, the Marin headlands across the straitSharon Mollerus, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

In Lincoln Park, just inland from the trail, stands the Legion of Honor, one of the city's two fine arts museums along with the de Young. Its building is a full-scale replica of the French Pavilion at the 1915 exposition, itself a three-quarter-scale version of the Palais de la Légion d'Honneur in Paris. Alma de Bretteville Spreckels gave it to the city as a memorial to California soldiers killed in the First World War, and it opened on Armistice Day, November 11, 1924. The land it stands on was once the city's Golden Gate Cemetery, which held some 29,000 graves before it was closed.

How to visit

A dirt trail through the scrub and trees at Lands End
A dirt trail through the scrub and trees at Lands EndMx. Granger, Wikimedia Commons, CC0

Start at the Lands End Lookout visitor center, which opened in 2012 above the baths, or at the Legion of Honor. The Coastal Trail is step-free and wheelchair-accessible as far as the Mile Rock Overlook, and open to bikes as far as the Eagles Point steps; beyond, the trail and the paths down to the ruins and the beach involve steep stairs and uneven ground. See the hills. Walking the Coastal Trail from the ruins to Eagles Point and back takes about an hour, longer with the Legion.

Waves breaking on the rocks below the Lands End Lookout, the sea glittering
Waves breaking on the rocks below the Lands End Lookout, the sea glitteringLiangJTG, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

This is the foggiest, windiest corner of the city, so bring a warm layer even in summer. Stay on the marked trails: the cliffs are unstable and the surf here is powerful, so keep off the rocks at the water's edge and out of the sea. Muni buses reach the Legion and the Cliff House area; see getting around. Golden Gate Park and Ocean Beach begin just to the south.

Myths and facts

Visitors on a clifftop path above the ocean, the coast stretching south
Visitors on a clifftop path above the ocean, the coast stretching southChristopher Michel from San Francisco, USA, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

The Sutro Baths did not fall into ruin slowly: they were being demolished for apartments when they burned in 1966, and the developers then abandoned the site. The Cliff House you see is not the original; in 1896 Sutro replaced the first building with a seven-story Victorian chateau, nicknamed the Gingerbread Palace, which survived the 1906 earthquake only to burn to the ground in September 1907; the present building is a later, plainer replacement. The story that the first Cliff House was built from a wrecked ship's lumber in 1858 has no historical evidence behind it. And the tunnels in Point Lobos are not caves but the channels that carried the ocean into the pools.

No. 3Where to go next

Nearby