San Francisco's hilltop parks

San Francisco's high ground divides into two kinds of place: bare summits where the wind gets at you and the whole bay is visible, and wooded ones where the trees were planted in the 1880s and the view is gone. Knowing which is which before you set off decides whether you get a panorama or a shaded walk, and the distinction rarely appears on the signs. Elevations, prominence, access roads and the state of each summit are recorded here for the hills that carry public parkland.

Places in this collection

  • Buena Vista Park — The oldest of the city's hill parks is heavily wooded, so it trades the full panorama for shade, and the paths give city views in gaps betw…
  • Kite Hill — A small grassy crown above 19th and Yukon Street, planted with low vegetation that keeps the sightline to downtown clear from the top. It i…
  • Corona Heights Park — The climb runs from a base around 300 feet to roughly 500 at the rocky top, so about 200 feet of ascent in total, some of it on steps that…
  • Tank Hill — About two acres of open, unforested rock above Cole Valley, taking in downtown, Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge and across to Oakland. It…
  • Mount Davidson — At 938 feet this is the highest ground in San Francisco, west of Glen Park in the southern half of the city. The summit is tree-covered, wh…
  • Billy Goat Hill — Four acres on the edge of Glen Park, small enough to walk in twenty minutes, with the downtown skyline and the bay laid out to the north an…
  • Bernal Heights Park — A bare hilltop under a 50-foot microwave tower, with a paved pedestrian street to the top, dirt trails off it, and an unfenced off-leash do…
  • Mount Sutro — The summit is wooded rather than open: around 80 percent of the cover is eucalyptus planted in the late 19th century, and the older trees n…
  • Twin Peaks — Two summits, Eureka and Noe, rising to 922 feet near the geographical centre of the city, the second highest ground in San Francisco after…

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