This is another of our Park Visitor series: First-person accounts of visits to our San Francisco parks. This photo-essay is by Tony Holiday, a San Francisco hiker and blogger.  It’s adapted from his blog, Stairways are Heaven and published with permission. (Visit his blog for more pictures, and for the second post that details the route out of the forest down the Bengal steps.)

It’s high summer now, and elsewhere in California, fires have started. In our forests, it’s damp, even wet. We were struck by the contrast between the wetness of the forested area, and the dry open space adjacent to it on Mount Davidson. This is the cloud forest effect: The trees harvest the moisture from the fog and keep the forest cool and damp.

DAMP FOREST by Tony Holiday

The #36 Teresita stops at Mount Davidson Park’s main south entrance (Dalewood & Myra) where a steep trail climbs to the openspace part of the park. I love this trail: forested to start out, with a vast view to the east a little way up.

Here’s the south trail head.

And a small offshoot trail…

I climbed out of the forest to the open space.

THE OPEN SPACE AND VIEWS

This is the open space part of the mountain, with views to the east  and south over the city.

It’s a good place to pause for tea and admire the view…

Climbing 22 steps from the open space brings you to the plateau on top of the mountain with the 103-foot cross.

BACK INTO THE COOL LUSH FOREST

Down 22 old wood steps from the north side of the cross…

… there’s a short trail…

…then 12 more stone steps to the next main trail down.

Up here the trails were damp or muddy, including some actual puddles.

Another short stone stairway:

Following the trailing down, enjoying the cool, lush forest…

… and the greenery below the trail…

The trail went winding down…

… and it was just me, the forest, and birdsong.

The forest was peaceful…

… as I followed the narrow and winding path to its end.

Love the ferns here!