The Thousand Steps is a challenging, yet breathtaking hike up a fairly short, vertical meandering set of rocks that serve as stairs. My friend who introduced me to the trail says that workers used to travel up the stairs every day to go to work. I seriously cringe at that thought! The steps are of varying heights and prove to be a grueling workout for sure!
Parking is ample, about 100 ft from the entrance of the trail, which is marked with a sign and easy to find.
Trees are marked with a small orange paint stripes to keep you on the trail, but you honestly don't need them. The nice thing about the trail is that there are markers notifying you of each 100 steps. (Each 100 steps are written on a step with a marker)
Trust me you need the motivation at about 600 steps!
I am in fairly good shape, run about an 8 min mile pace for 5 miles. I am telling you I was huffing and puffing most of that hike, my heart rate was 180. I definitely recommend taking a bottle of water with you!
To be fair, it's about 500 steps to get to the actual start of The Thousand Steps. And then at the top, about 500 to 1,000 more steps to get to the best views! We are glad we took a left at the top and found the higher viewpoint. It definitely made the climb worth it.
My entire hike was approx. 3 miles.
It took me about 22 minutes to get up The Thousand Steps, another 10 minutes to get to the high view point. You can keep following the trail even further if you want, which we did for about a mile, but then we turned back and it took us about 50 min to get back down.
Going down is harder than going up in my opinion. Just from a complete safety standpoint. My legs were shakey from all the stair steps and if you misstep I imagine it hurts pretty bad to fall 100 ft or more, which is most likely the fate of anyone who trips on the way down. We took our time and slipped a few times, but didn't fall.
Overall, it was a great experience, the steps are brutal, perfect for the person who is looking for a challenging cardio workout. The scenery was awesome and there is a lot of tree cover/shade to keep it cool while you're working hard.
I look forward to coming back and trying to beat my time going up!
(Also, for the few pokemon go fans still out there, cell service all the way up, found a rare pokemon and a pokestop right at the top of The Thousand Steps!) read more