Lands End is a park inside of San Francisco’s Golden Gate National Recreation Area, with paths leading along the coastline. The Golden Gate Bridge sits picturesque in the distance and the Marin Headlands are just a straight away. Within the park the USS San Francisco Memorial along with numerous hiking trails that run the lines of the former Ferries and Cliff House Railway. Some smaller routes can be taken all the way to the shore, but they are quite steep with posted advisory to those wanting to venture down.
Long before any modes of transportation made their way to Lands End, the Yelamu Ohlone tribe lived there, seasonally. The Spanish settlement of San Francisco in 1776 ended life at Lands End for the Yelamu. More than 100 years later, the creation of Sutro Baths and the Cliff House were a welcomed respite from bustling life downtown, and once again Lands End was a destination.
The Cliff house was a resort for the wealthy and with that came a new road called Point Lobos Avenue (which you turn on to make your way to the main parking area now). The roadway was useful for horse and buggy, and eventually the steam train from downtown out to Lands End. While the Cliff House may have been for the wealthy, the reasonable rate of .5 cents per passenger ensured all classes could make their way out west on the weekend. The southern portion of Lands End lookout has views of what used to be Sutro Baths (now ruins), with the Cliff House perched above, just further south.
Credit: Image by, Alison Taggart-Barone for Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy source
Early mornings, just after the sun rises is our favorite time to wander the paths of Lands End. You cannot beat the views and history the area is steeped in.
Lands End Trailhead Parking
600 Point Lobos Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94121
