Lands End, 三藩Lands End, San Francisco

October is San Francisco’s real summer: the fog takes a few weeks off, and the city remembers it lives on an ocean. One evening we went out to Lands End to watch the sun go down.

The first stop is a window nobody gets seated at anymore. Louis’, the diner above the rocks, opened in 1937 and closed in 2020, three generations of the same family later. The Cliff House next door, the bigger act, went dark a few months after it.

The plaza#

The ruins#

Down the stairs, the concrete outlines in the cove are what is left of Sutro Baths: seven pools under a glass roof in 1896, burned down in 1966. The ocean has been taking the site back ever since.

The trail#

The Coastal Trail runs north from the baths through cypress that the wind has combed flat. Coves open up below, Marin sits across the water, and at one bend the Golden Gate shows up between the trees, red as ever.

The cliff#

An hour before sunset, people start collecting along the edge, each staking out a patch of dust. Below them, Seal Rocks: the sea lions moved to Pier 39 decades ago, but nobody has updated the name.

After#

The sun went down behind Seal Rocks, and the sky kept working for another half hour: orange, then pink, then one thin stripe of light lying on the horizon.

The whole show is free, which in this city counts as a small miracle.