The hills of San Francisco

A city of more than fifty hills

San Francisco has more than fifty hills within its limits, and some neighborhoods are named for the hill they stand on: Nob Hill, Russian Hill, Telegraph Hill, Potrero Hill. The best known are sometimes called the seven hills of San Francisco, a list that usually includes Telegraph Hill, Nob Hill, Russian Hill, Rincon Hill, Twin Peaks and Mount Davidson, which at 928 feet is the highest point in the city. Near the geographic center, southwest of downtown, rises a rugged, less crowded cluster of summits: Twin Peaks, Mount Davidson and Mount Sutro.

The grid of streets was laid over this ground with little regard for it, so many streets run straight up slopes that a road engineer would have avoided. That is why the views are so good, and why walking here takes planning.

How the grades are marked

Every sight in this guide carries one of three marks. Level means the sight and the usual way to it are flat or nearly so. Some climbing means a slope or a hilltop, or a steep walk from the nearest transit, that most visitors manage without trouble. Steep or many steps means steep streets or long flights of stairs, and a real effort on foot; each of these sights has an easier way up, listed with it.

A mark of steep is given only where a source names the grade or the steps. The rest come from where each sight stands, and each sight page describes the approach in more detail.

Three hills and their names

The three hills above downtown and the waterfront each carry a story in their name. Telegraph Hill, 285 feet high, is named for a semaphore put up on its summit in 1849, a pole with arms that signaled to the city below what kind of ship was entering the Golden Gate. Its east face was quarried for rock, and the exposed cliffs can still be seen from the Vallejo Steps and from Broadway; Coit Tower stands at its top.

Russian Hill takes its name from a small Russian cemetery that gold rush settlers found at the top, where crew of visiting Russian ships had been buried; the cemetery is gone but the name remained. Nob Hill was renamed for the railroad barons of the Central Pacific, the Big Four, known as the Nobs, who built mansions on it. The fire of 1906 destroyed them, leaving only the granite walls around the Stanford, Crocker, Huntington and Hopkins houses; the Fairmont Hotel and the Flood Mansion, now the Pacific-Union Club, were gutted and rebuilt.

The steepest streets

The grades here are real. Lombard Street's single crooked block was built in 1922, at the suggestion of a property owner named Carl Henry, to reduce the hill's natural 27 percent grade, which was too steep for most vehicles; see Lombard Street. On the east side of Russian Hill, the half-block of Filbert Street west of Leavenworth reaches a gradient of thirty-one and a half percent and allows only downhill traffic. It is often said to be the steepest street in the city open to cars, but it is not: several blocks are steeper, and this one ties for sixth.

Nob Hill was once called California Hill, after California Street, which climbs its steep eastern face; the California Street cable car still climbs it. Grades like these are hard on anyone walking, and they are harder going down in wet weather or on smooth soles.

The step streets

Where the slopes were too steep for streets, the city built stairways, and some of them are among its loveliest walks. On Telegraph Hill, the Filbert Steps, about 400 wooden steps, run down the east face of the hill below Coit Tower through the Grace Marchant Garden, which a resident began planting in 1949, past houses that can be reached only from the steps, to Levi's Plaza and the Embarcadero. The Greenwich Steps run down beside them, and the Vallejo and Calhoun steps climb other parts of the hill.

The feral parrots of Telegraph Hill are often heard, and seen, from the Filbert Steps. In the southwest of the city, the 16th Avenue Tiled Steps near Grand View Park are a local favorite, faced with tiles. All of these are a pleasure going down and a serious climb going up.

The easy ways up

Most climbs have an easier alternative. The cable cars were built for exactly this: the Powell lines carry you over Nob Hill, and the Powell–Hyde line stops at the top of Lombard Street, so you can walk down the crooked block rather than up it. Muni's 39 Coit bus climbs Telegraph Hill to the tower, and you can walk down the Filbert Steps afterward. Taxis and ride-hailing cars reach the Twin Peaks summit road and the top of Alamo Square; see getting around.

A good rule for any hill walk is to ride up and walk down. Going downhill is easier on the lungs, but it is harder on the knees and the feet, so allow time and take the stairs slowly.

Level San Francisco

A great deal of the city is flat, and a visit can be built almost entirely on level ground. The Embarcadero runs from the Ferry Building to Fisherman's Wharf, and the F-line streetcar runs along it. Market Street, Union Square, the Civic Center and SoMa, with SFMOMA and Yerba Buena Gardens, are level. So are the Marina, Crissy Field and the Palace of Fine Arts on the northern shore, the walkway of the Golden Gate Bridge, and most of Golden Gate Park.

The Mission District lies in a sheltered valley and is mostly level too, apart from Mission Dolores Park, which slopes steeply up from Dolores Street toward Church Street. For a plan that keeps to the flats, see itineraries.

Weather on the hills

The hills also shape the weather. Twin Peaks, Mount Davidson and Mount Sutro form a divide for the summer fog pushed in from the Pacific: their west-facing slopes often get fog and strong winds, while the east-facing slopes, and the eastern neighborhoods beyond them, receive more sun and warmth. The summits and the bridge walkway are among the windiest places in the city. Carry a layer to every high point, whatever the weather at your hotel; see when to come for the seasons.