A Trip Up (S)Nob Hill

GPS has revolutionized our travel to the extent many of us don’t leave home without a planned route. Even when I know the possible routes, I check Apple Maps and their current estimation of arrival to determine which way to go. A couple minutes saved is a couple minutes earned at my age.

GPS has one major flaw I discovered the hard way – it doesn’t give you any indication of elevation!

Jan and I recently took a trip to Northern California and started with two days in San Francisco. We stayed in the Financial District, just a block from China Town. We had a dinner reservation a few blocks away but had a couple of hours to kill. I looked at the Apple Map and realized Nob Hill was not far away, easy walking distance up Sacramento Street. I knew this was the neighborhood of the San Franciscan old money upper crust and figured there would be interesting buildings on “(S)Nob Hill. I was probably not the first aging juvenile to come up with that nickname.

What Apple Maps wasn’t telling me was the route chosen was straight UP!

We departed into the heart of Chinatown, which was very interesting in itself. Sacramento Street was a little steep, but Nob Hill seemed just a few blocks on my phone.

It wasn’t long until we were huffing and puffing. Stopping at each cross street to catch a breath, fend off a wifely rebellion to turn back, keeping our eye on the prize. Just a little further…

Each cross street was like a little oasis, a momentary flatness before the hill climb began again. I’ve included a picture of Jan looking up Sacramento Street, about halfway, to give a sense of our challenge. I didn’t include the picture taken right after this one, which came in response to her question of “how much farther?” I answered, “just a little further…” I didn’t want to scare any husbands who might be reading with an vivid illustration of “The Look”.

We finally reached Mason Street, which seemed a busier thoroughfare, only to see Sacramento Street continuing upward. Jan spied a lady walking two dogs and crossed to ask how much farther to Nob Hill. The lady assured us we were on Nob Hill, and anything further upward was a waste of time. Her words were like music.

She pointed out the Fairmont and InterContinental Hotels as well as the Grace Cathedral. She also pointed out an impressive apartment complex she said the original owner had built to house his mistress. The lady had lived on Nob Hill since 1967, and we determined she was nice and not a snob at all.

We had planned to go through the Cable Car Museum that had been recommended by friends, but the dinner hour was drawing near. We paused too long at the cross-street oases on the way up. We went over and looked at the cathedral, which was ornate, almost a prerequisite for those types of structures. The Lord likes a few extra artistic flourishes when venturing above local church level. The entrance was particularly impressive, as the door had amazingly intricate carved scenes in each panel.

In retrospect, I think naming Nob a hill was entirely misleading. Nob Hill goes upward forever and the party never ends as far as we could tell. Even short of the actual top, the view was amazing. You could see San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge from our landing spot.

In my native Texas, there is a gentle rise maybe 20 feet above the neighboring flatlands that earned the nearby town the name "Hill, Tx". We Texans would have named what we encountered in San Francisco properly as Nob Mountain. Next trip I’ll take a topo map to supplement GPS.