Upcoming dates:
March 6th, 8th, 20th, 21st, 28th.
Roams over the winter months are somewhat weather dependent, and these may get rescheduled depending on the forecast. The Meetup page and the Instagram page will have the latest news if there are any changes to the plan.
All weekend roams start at 1:30, lasting around three hours, and Friday ones at 3:00, generally taking two hours. All roams are loops unless otherwise stated; I also flag any longer or especially hilly routes – as below.
On Friday 6th, Twin Peaks from the west – a new route we are trying out, which will cover the Laguna Honda Trails, Midtown Terrace, the woods around the Sutro Tower, and Twin Peaks.
If that sounds like a lot of climbing in two hours – it is! Also a lot of off-roading, so we will hope it doesn’t rain too much before the day itself.
We will start from Forest Hill Station – look for us behind the station in the grassy area!
Over the years, Roaming Zen has only ventured beyond city limits twice, both times to visit San Bruno Mountain. For this roam, to celebrate the advent of daylight savings time on the 8th, we will head out to South San Francisco to walk a lovely portion of the Bay Trail around Oyster Point.
This is an area I love riding my bike around; we won’t be able to roam the whole stretch, but we will do some of the best parts. Apart from the tranquility of the path alongside the water and sky, we will also glimpse some of the extensive development in the area, which includes public spaces and amenities, and take an unexpected path near the airport.
This is a one-way roam! We will meet adjacent to the South San Francisco Caltrain station and end at the San Bruno Caltrain station. It is a little longer than the average roam, but almost entirely flat (the bridge over the 101 is about as high as we get). Bathrooms are few and far between, so plan accordingly.
We will meet at 1:15 – please note the slightly earlier start time. I will be catching the 12:55 down from 4th St, which will get us into South SF at 1:10. Take the subway from the platform towards Airport Boulvard, and you will come up at Karyl Matsumoto Plaza (pictured below) at the intersection with Grand Ave, and adjacent to Wildflour Bakery.
Hopefully we can catch the 4:57 or 5:27 north from San Bruno – if you prefer to return by BART, it is a quarter mile or so on from Caltrain.
To the west of the Mission District, and to the south of Mission Dolores Park, to give it its full name, are some historic neighbourhoods, originally called Horner’s Addition. We will wander mindfully through some of the smaller streets and alleys between the gorgeous old houses – and see why they did not burn in 1906. Along the way we will also come across the remains of the old San Jose Rail tracks that skirted the hills in the area. Maybe we will even figure where the old race track used to be.
We will meet at the Noe Valley Town Square on 24th St at 3:00pm on the 20th for this one.
I started Roaming Zen in 2016, right after I had left residential practice at San Francisco Zen Center. I had been enjoying exploring the city – running, hiking and cycling – for many years, and also appreciated opportunities to meditate outside; combining the two was a natural extension to this. I had a small mailing list that I sent an invite out to, and about a dozen people showed up to support my venture.
The Lobos Creek Trail was a draw for me after its restoration, so that was the focus for the first roam, in March 2016. Some 260 roams later, we will retrace the route that we took then, on the 21st (though we will start a couple of blocks away from the original meeting point: in Mountain Lake Park, at the 8th Ave entrance).
This roam will include the sand ladder (the ladder of “lake and ladder” up from Baker Beach, which some of the participants in the first go around found quite tough, so please be prepared for that – as well as a short stretch of the beach itself, some other dirt sections and a little more climbing.
Lastly for March, on the 28th, a route that we tried as a Friday roam last year, but which felt a bit rushed over two hours. With the full weekend length available to us, we will also visit a couple more spots that I didn’t get to include.
On this roam we explore some of the gardens and open spaces of the Dogpatch. This area may not be transforming as fast as its neighbour, Mission Bay, but there are still improvements being made: there are now proper bathrooms at Crane Cove, and Esprit Park has completed its makeover (sans bathrooms, unfortunately). At the same time, its rich history still pervades the neighbourhood.
There are other green spaces which are more or less spruced up, including the original Tunnel Top park, and the early stages of the Pier 70 renovations to check out.
This is a more or less flat roam with only a couple of uphill blocks, and mostly on pavement. We will meet by Dogpatch Paddle in Crane Cove Park – at the end of the same building as the YMCA.
Bring water, snacks, and layers for whatever the weather is doing. Punctuality is always appreciated.
These roams are offered by donation. They are one way I am able to afford to live in San Francisco.
‘Shundo David Haye has probably walked through more parts of San Francisco than you have.’ I’ll take that endorsement – it came from this nice article in the SF Chronicle at the beginning of the pandemic
Camille, who I have known through Zen Center for more than twenty years, had a lovely piece on Roaming Zen published in the Bold Italic.
Corona Heights – the first picture I used to promote Roaming Zen.
Views to the Farallones from this little-known park.
If you need some prompts as to the benefits of roaming, here are a trio of articles from the Guardian:
Two-hour ‘dose’ of nature significantly boosts health – study
Woodland sounds help relaxation more than meditation apps – study
Blue spaces: why time spent near water is the secret of happiness
All of which is achievable without leaving the city limits!
And this from the New Yorker:
A small but growing collection of studies suggests that spending time in green spaces—gardens, parks, forests—can rejuvenate the mental resources that man-made environments deplete. Psychologists have learned that attention is a limited resource that continually drains throughout the day. A crowded intersection—rife with pedestrians, cars, and billboards—bats our attention around. In contrast, walking past a pond in a park allows our mind to drift casually from one sensory experience to another, from wrinkling water to rustling reeds.
Or, to put a name to it, Attention Restoration Theory.
The genesis for Roaming Zen was perhaps my shuso practice period at Tassajara in 2012, where I noticed that I derived as much energy from being on the trails or up the road, among the trees and by the creek, as I did from the hours in the zendo. It was also crystalised by a visit to Tassajara with a group from Young Urban Zen a year or two later: after the days of work, a group of us set off for a hike along the Horse Pasture trail, and at one stage, hearing all the talk of people’s pre-occupations and mundane affairs, someone in the group asked if we could all hike in silence for a while and properly take in the surroundings. Afterwards, the agreed verdict was that the silence had transformed the hike.
And so, having tried versions of it at City Center, Green Gulch and Tassajara, one of my favourite things to do these days is to gather a small group of people, and lead them around a chosen route, cultivating mindful presence through walking and sitting quietly in the midst of city life.
There are so many little corners of San Francisco that lend themselves to the activity, surrounded by beauty, views, and sometimes quiet. We have visited forests, hills and canyons, creeks and beaches, staircases and alleys, lakes and hidden parks; we have listened to birds and waves, watched butterflies, bees and coyotes, smelled flowers and ocean spray. We have looked over all sides of San Francisco and to the mountains beyond.
I like to give credit to OpenStreetMap, for featuring much more detail in paths and trails than I ever get from Apple Maps or Google Maps – I would not have found some of these routes without it – and FoundSF/OpenSF History for filling me in on what used to be in the places we visit.
Shundo David Haye - Zen Priest 