October 26, 2026
My longtime friend Saeed is in town for a conference, and mentioned to me yesterday that he has picked up rock climbing. While I haven’t been in a few months, when I was living in Pittsburgh, I had a gym a short bike ride from my house, and I had gotten into the habit of going daily. I had started weak, unable to finish more than one or two short bouldering runs in a day, but over the course of the months that I had gone regularly, I worked up to some difficult climbs. I had pride in my control of fear and weight distribution on the wall.
When Saeed mentioned that his gym was in the Presidio, I immediately decided to join him for a climb. I had already planned to visit that park next, and this was a great excuse to get out there.
I e-biked through the early morning mist on slow streets. I missed my turn a few times, since it was not a familiar area, and my head was turned up to the houses. There is a moment, biking down Arguello Boulevard, when the forest parts to a magnificent view of the bridge. I parked my bike, and stared.
Tunnel tops is a newer landscape located inside the Presidio. In 2022, it was created to stitch together the Crissy Field marsh, and the historic base to the south of the highway, that had previously separated the coastline from the rest of the park. While I was there on a Monday morning, people were walking through the gardens, cheerfully admiring the view. Children in the playground to the north of the Tunnel Tops were laughing and squealing as they did their own climbing.
A few months break from the wall had made me weak again.
