This absurdly beautiful Bay Area hike will help you take a break from coronavirus

SF Gate | Grant Marek

A marker at the San Francisco Bay Discovery site points North. The Sweeney Ride hike includes some steep climbs and remarkable views on the way to the San Francisco Bay Discovery Site. The site is where the Portola expedition discovered San Francisco Bay. Photo Credit: Douglas Zimmerman/SF Gate

I can feel my chest tightening.

Every time I scroll through Twitter. Every time I check my email. Every time any public official gets in front of a camera.

The coronavirus news cycle is all consuming and inescapable.

Until, well, you escape it. I do so by stepping foot on the Sweeney Ridge trailhead, one of the few activities still getting the thumbs up from medical experts and the Bay Area’s new shelter in place orders — provided COVID-19 precautions are followed (i.e. you still can't leave your county as of May 20, and need to ensure you're social distancing).

"You will still be able to walk your dog or go on a hike alone or with someone you live with, or even another person as long as you keep six feet between you," San Francisco Director of Public Health Dr. Grant Colfax said on Monday.

I see six people during a two and a half hour hike, none of them get closer than six feet, one of them whizzes by on a bike, all of them say a comforting “hello” and — for the first time in a month — I (and my chest) feel some relief.

A sign marks the start of the trail. The Sweeney Ridge hike includes some steep climbs and remarkable views on the way to the San Francisco Bay Discovery Site. The site is where the Portola expedition discovered San Francisco Bay. Photo Credit: Douglas Zimmerman/SF Gate

With each inclined step I take (and there are a lot of them — it’s almost entirely inclined on the way up), I feel a little bit lighter. The cool breeze on this foggy Friday tickles the nape of my neck, the sun peeks out from behind the fog every so often to wash me with Vitamin D and deep, fulfilling breaths are suddenly easier to come by in a world where every day feels like it lasts a week now.

Sweeney Ridge is an absurdly beautiful Bay Area hike — one side slopes down to the Bay, the other to the Pacific Ocean from a 1,200ft high summit that offers views of the Farallon Islands, Mount Tam, Point Reyes, Mount Diablo, the Montara Mountains, and San Pedro Point on a clear day.

But what makes it particularly special is how steeped in history it is. It’s home to the ridge from which European explorers first laid eyes on the San Francisco Bay on November 4, 1769. The event was memorialized in 1947 with descendants of the explorers on the Portola Expedition gathering to officially designate the Discovery Site, then a permanent marker was added in 1975 (made to look like it was actually from 1769), and a second marker was added in 1983. Then, in 1987, it became part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and permanent literature was added at the summit that contemplates the problematic history of a “Discovery Site” when 1) people were already living there and 2) we’ve come to re-consider the legacy of colonialism.

The whole thing is absolutely fascinating, and to stand on the same ridge seeing what the expedition saw 251 years ago is a chilling feeling.

The hike is full of special moments. There were a half dozen hawks I watched take turns nose diving into the tree line for a good stretch, there are decommissioned Nike Missile sites (most of the buildings have been torn down to the studs), and then there are those two aforementioned markers.

The first is a giant boulder with one flat face, on which the phrase “From this ridge the Portola Expedition discovered San Francisco Bay | November 4, 1769” has been meticulously engraved. It’s absolutely gorgeous and really contributes to the whole “chilling” thing. The other marker is dedicated to Carl Patrick McCarthy, who brought 11,863 visitors to the Discovery Site between 1966 and his death in 1981. Atop a craggy rectangular rock with the McCarthy dedication is a large magical black cylinder. If you’re tall enough and can see the top of it, there’s an arrow that points due north, and then if you make your way around it, the cylinder shows you what you can see from that angle — from Mount Hamilton and Mount Diablo to Point Reyes and the Farallon Islands.

It isn’t clear enough to see almost half of them today, which is actually great. Because it gives me a reason to come back.

Note: Please follow shelter in place orders from your county. Current orders currently say traveling to a county park or open space to hike is permitted provided you practice social distancing. “Spending time outside improves mood and wellbeing, and is particularly beneficial to children,” reads San Francisco’s Public Health Order.

How to get there: The parking lot behind the Shelldance Orchid Gardens in Pacifica just off the Pacific Coast Highway is giant and has plenty of room for social distance parking. You can access the Mori Ridge Trailhead which will lead you to Sweeney Ridge. It’s a 4.6 mile roundtrip hike from there to the Portola Discovery Site and back, which took me about 2 hours. You can extend the hike well beyond that — here's a trail map.