San Diego's Most Punishing Climb Is About to Get a $990,000 Makeover
Somewhere between the second and third wave of burning in your thighs, somewhere around the point where the San Diego skyline first pierces the horizon and the Pacific winks into view, regular hikers of the South Fortuna Mountain trail tend to stop talking and just breathe. The wooden staircase at the heart of that climb — a structure locals have long called the "Stairway to Heaven" — has been the defining physical test of one of Southern California's most celebrated urban parks. Now, after decades of heavy boots, punishing summer heat, and relentless coastal erosion, that staircase is finally getting the overhaul it has needed for years, backed by nearly a million dollars in grant money.
The $990,102 grant was approved by the San Diego River Conservancy's governing board to reconstruct the deteriorating South Fortuna staircase, known by hikers as the "Stairway to Heaven." The money flows to the Mission Trails Regional Park Foundation, the nonprofit that has long served as the park's financial and operational backbone. It marks one of the most significant single infrastructure investments in the park's recent history and signals a serious, long-term commitment to keeping one of the country's great urban trail systems in fighting shape.
The Park Behind the Trail
To understand why this project matters, it helps to understand the scale of what Mission Trails Regional Park actually is. The 7,220 acres of Mission Trails Regional Park make it not only the largest city park in San Diego, but the largest in California and sixth largest in the country. That's not a typo — a park larger than many small cities sits in the eastern reaches of San Diego, offering a rare collision of rugged backcountry and metropolitan convenience.
At Mission Trails, visitors can hike 65 miles of trails that hug wild canyons and climb to mountaintops. The San Diego River flows through the park. The park has 60 miles of hiking, mountain bike and equestrian trails, a rock climbing area, and the Kumeyaay Lake Campground with 46 camp sites adjacent to a small lake. For San Diego residents, it is essentially a wilderness area at the edge of a major city — the kind of place that keeps people sane through the long warm months when every weekend demands a physical reckoning with a ridge or a summit.
For more experienced hikers looking for a challenging adventure, the park offers a five-peak challenge, which climbs all five peaks: Cowles Mountain (the highest point in San Diego), Pyles Peak, Kwaay Paay Peak, South Fortuna, and North Fortuna. The Fortuna range sits at the western heart of the park, and it is on the South Fortuna trail — specifically the wooden staircase section — where hikers have historically faced the most demanding stretch of terrain in the entire park system.
The Stairway to Heaven: What It Is and Why It Matters
Known as the "Stairway to Heaven," the staircase leads hikers to panoramic views of Mission Gorge, the San Diego River and downtown San Diego. That payoff — open sky, desert scrub dropping away in every direction, the city glittering in the distance — is what keeps people coming back. But the climb to get there has always demanded something real. The wooden steps don't allow for a casual pace. They stack on top of each other, narrow and steep, forcing a rhythm that is less hike and more climb.
Regular visitors to the trail know the staircase's idiosyncrasies by heart. One hiker named Brian, who has logged the Fortuna Mountain Trail many times, described it plainly: "Lots of climbs and ups and downs, lots of flora and fauna, but the staircase, you know, it's a real quad buster. You know, it is definitely challenging, but very enjoyable." That candid assessment — the staircase as punishing but rewarding — captures the spirit of the trail perfectly. Nobody climbs the Stairway to Heaven because it is easy. They climb it because the difficulty is the point.
The trail draws enormous crowds by any measure. An estimated 60,000 people hike the trail each year. For a single staircase on a single trail in an urban park, that is an extraordinary volume of foot traffic — the kind of use that grinds wooden infrastructure into splinters over time, regardless of how well it was originally built.
Decades of Decay: How the Staircase Got Here
The current wooden staircase was not built to last forever, but it has survived far longer than most infrastructure of its kind. Decades of heavy use, extreme weather and erosion have deteriorated the wooden staircase. Southern California's climate is paradoxical in its destructiveness — long stretches of baking dry heat alternate with intense rain events that send water cascading down exposed hillsides, undermining foundations and shifting structures that were never designed to handle that kind of hydrological stress.
The consequences are visible to anyone who looks closely. Years of heavy use, extreme weather and erosion have badly degraded the wooden staircase. Some steps are unstable while others have shifted or disappeared altogether. A staircase with missing steps is not simply an aesthetic problem — it becomes a safety issue, particularly on a steep exposed slope where a misstep can mean a serious fall. Beyond the structural concerns, the degraded stairs have had a secondary effect that trail managers find equally troubling.
Hikers walking around the steps have also damaged native vegetation in the surrounding area. When a step is broken or unstable, people naturally route around it, stepping off the established trail surface and into the scrub on either side. Multiply that behavior by tens of thousands of visitors per year and the cumulative damage to native chaparral and coastal sage habitat becomes significant. Trail managers have long understood that infrastructure quality and ecological health are directly linked — a well-maintained trail keeps people on it, and a deteriorating one spreads impact across a much wider swath of land.
The Plan: Stone, Helicopters, and a Six-to-Eight Month Build
The upgrade that the San Diego River Conservancy's grant will fund is not a modest patch job. It is a comprehensive reconstruction that will leave the Stairway to Heaven fundamentally transformed — longer-lasting, safer, and more ecologically sound.
A nearly $1 million grant from the San Diego River Conservancy will fund the project to replace the wooden steps with 350 to 400 stone steps. The scale of that replacement gives a sense of how much vertical territory the staircase covers. Three hundred fifty to four hundred individual stone steps, installed by hand on a steep mountain slope, represents a serious construction undertaking even before accounting for the logistical challenges of working in a protected natural area.
Under the project, the foundation will hire a trail contractor to reconstruct around 630 linear feet of stone steps along the existing South Fortuna Trail alignment, covering roughly 282 feet of elevation gain. That elevation gain packed into 630 linear feet gives a mathematical sense of just how steep this staircase actually is. For context, that is a grade that would challenge most staircases inside a building, let alone one built into a natural hillside.
The scope of work goes well beyond just swapping wood for stone. The work will consist of removing the existing wooden steps, installation of natural stone stairs, drainage improvements, new trail signage and restoration of disturbed areas along the trail margins. Drainage improvements are particularly critical. One of the reasons the wooden staircase deteriorated as quickly as it did is that water sheeting down the slope had no managed pathway — it found its own way, and that way ran through and under the steps themselves, undermining their footings and accelerating rot. Engineered stone steps with proper drainage channels change that dynamic entirely.
Getting materials to the site presents its own logistical puzzle. The South Fortuna staircase is not accessible by vehicle, and hauling hundreds of heavy stone steps up a steep trail by hand would be impractical. The materials will be flown in by helicopter, and the trail will be closed during construction. Helicopter-supported construction is standard practice for remote or difficult-access trail projects in the western United States, but it adds both cost and complexity to an already demanding build. According to the foundation, construction and helicopter-supported material delivery will occur outside bird nesting season, with measures in place to reduce impacts to wildlife. That seasonal constraint speaks to the care being taken to ensure the construction process itself does not undo the ecological benefits the finished project is meant to deliver.
The foundation hopes to complete the project in six to eight months, depending on weather conditions. Southern California's unpredictable winter rainfall patterns mean that the construction window is not entirely within anyone's control. Morrissey said that if it turns out to be not so rainy, the team will be able to make some progress likely this winter. The project team is threading a needle between bird nesting season on one end and wet weather on the other, which requires flexibility and careful planning.
The project does not create a new trail or reroute the existing one. That matters to the thousands of hikers who have memorized every switchback and landmark on the South Fortuna route. The character of the trail — the lines it follows up the mountain, the views it reveals at specific moments — will remain intact. What changes is the quality of the surface underfoot, and the experience of moving over it.
The Habitat Angle: Restoration as Part of the Build
Infrastructure projects in protected natural areas carry an inherent tension: the construction process itself inevitably disturbs the landscape it is meant to serve. The South Fortuna staircase project addresses that tension head-on by making habitat restoration a core component of the work rather than an afterthought.
Jennifer Morrissey, executive director of the Mission Trails Regional Park Foundation, was direct about the dual purpose of the project. "We want people really to stay on trails so that the habitat can be protected, and so what we're going to do in this project as well is restore the habitat on either side of the trail, and then also take up some invasive plants that have made their way up there," Morrissey said. Invasive species are a persistent challenge throughout Southern California's natural areas. They move into disturbed ground — exactly the kind of marginal, eroded soil that accumulates along the edges of a degraded trail — and crowd out the native plants that local wildlife depends on. Pulling them out while simultaneously stabilizing the trail edges with stone gives native vegetation a fighting chance to reestablish.
Julia Richards, executive officer of the San Diego River Conservancy, put the project's environmental significance in stark terms: "This investment will deliver real benefits for the people of San Diego and visitors alike. Rebuilding the South Fortuna staircase will make a heavily used public trail safer and more sustainable, while reducing erosion, and protecting native habitat in the San Diego River watershed. It is the kind of project that improves public access to nature today while protecting these important natural resources for future generations."
The connection to the San Diego River watershed is worth pausing on. The San Diego River flows through the park. Erosion on the South Fortuna slope doesn't just damage the trail — sediment and debris move downhill with every rain event, ultimately reaching the river system. Stone steps with engineered drainage interrupt that cycle, keeping soil on the slope where it belongs rather than letting it migrate into the watershed. The ecological and hydrological benefits of the project extend far beyond the staircase itself.
The Foundation's Role: Where Public Parks Meet Private Fundraising
The mechanics of how this project came together say as much about the future of public land stewardship as the project itself does. Jennifer Morrissey, executive director of the Mission Trails Regional Park Foundation, said the nonprofit applied for the grant and will work with the city's Parks and Recreation Department and trail experts on the project. The foundation's ability to pursue and secure that grant is not a given — it reflects years of relationship-building, a track record of successful project management, and a sophisticated understanding of how conservation funding works in California.
Morrissey was unambiguous about what the grant represents: "This is exactly why the Mission Trails Regional Park Foundation exists. Mission Trails belongs to the people of San Diego, and our role as its nonprofit partner is to step up, find resources and help the city accomplish important projects that benefit the public." That framing — the nonprofit as the mechanism that unlocks public benefit — reflects an increasingly common model in urban park management across the country. City budgets are rarely adequate to maintain trail infrastructure at the level that heavy use demands. Foundations, conservancies, and friends groups have stepped into that gap, often doing the grant writing, fundraising, and project management work that city staff cannot absorb.
San Diego's Parks and Recreation Department will provide design review and collaborate with the MTRP Foundation on the project. The foundation will manage the grant and contribute a $15,000 match. That matched contribution signals commitment and accountability — the foundation isn't simply passing through money but has skin in the game financially. It also demonstrates the kind of public-private partnership structure that grant-making bodies like the San Diego River Conservancy increasingly require as a condition of major awards.
Built to Last: Stone Steps Versus Wood in the Long Run
The decision to use natural stone rather than replacing the wooden steps with newer wood — or with composite or synthetic materials — was deliberate and reflects hard-won wisdom about what works in exposed mountain trail environments.
Morrissey laid out the durability calculus plainly: "This project is going to probably last beyond our lifetimes. They will be stone steps, and you know the wood steps have lasted for decades, and so these too will be, you know, lasting much into the future." If the wooden steps lasted decades despite lacking proper drainage and bearing 60,000 annual visitors, properly engineered stone steps with drainage infrastructure could conceivably serve the trail for a century or more. That multi-generational durability changes the economic calculus considerably — the nearly $1 million investment amortized over 100 years is dramatically cheaper than a cycle of periodic wooden staircase replacements.
Stone also handles the thermal and hydrological extremes of the San Diego climate far better than wood. Wood expands and contracts with temperature swings, soaks up water, rots at the contact points between step and soil, and becomes slick with algae and moss in wet seasons. Natural stone — properly selected and placed — does none of those things. It stays stable through heat cycles, sheds water cleanly, and develops a surface texture over time that actually improves traction rather than reducing it. For a trail used by 60,000 people a year, including people of varying ages and fitness levels, that safety margin matters.
What Hikers Can Expect When It Reopens
The trail closure during construction will frustrate regulars who have built the South Fortuna climb into their weekly routines. But the payoff on the other side of that interruption should be substantial. Hikers who return to the trail after the project's completion will find a staircase that is more evenly graded, better drained, and far more stable underfoot than what exists today.
Another hiker named Robby, encountered on the trail, offered a simple and direct endorsement: "It's a steep climb, so I think better stairs will be great, honestly." That sentiment likely captures what most regular users will feel when they stand at the base of fresh stone steps and look up toward the summit. The challenge will still be there — 282 feet of elevation gain in 630 linear feet doesn't become easy just because the surface is better — but the frustration of navigating missing and unstable steps will be gone.
The restored habitat on either side of the staircase will also change the visual and experiential quality of the climb. Native coastal sage scrub and chaparral species, given room to establish without the pressure of off-trail foot traffic and without competition from invasive plants, tend to fill in quickly in Southern California's Mediterranean climate. Within a few seasons, the staircase corridor that has been scraped bare by years of wandering foot traffic should green back up, giving the climb more of the wild, immersive character that makes Mission Trails such a compelling place to spend a morning.
A Model for Urban Trail Stewardship
The South Fortuna staircase project arrives at a moment when the tension between public demand for urban outdoor recreation and the funding constraints of city park systems is more visible than ever. The COVID-era surge in hiking participation put unprecedented stress on trail infrastructure nationwide, and many park systems are still working through the maintenance backlog that surge created. The Mission Trails project offers one template for how that gap can be closed.
The formula here is replicable: a nimble nonprofit foundation identifies a critical infrastructure need, pursues external grant funding from a conservation body whose mission aligns with the project's goals, partners with city departments for technical review and credibility, and manages the construction process with enough care for ecological values to satisfy both regulatory requirements and the broader public interest. The result is a major infrastructure improvement that the city's parks budget could not have funded alone.
For the 2 million annual visitors who pass through Mission Trails Regional Park each year, and for the 60,000 who specifically seek out the South Fortuna climb, the Stairway to Heaven upgrade represents something more immediate: a trail they love, made more worthy of that love. When the stone steps are finally in place and the habitat restoration has had a season or two to take hold, the climb to the summit of South Fortuna will be the same punishing, panoramic, deeply satisfying experience it has always been — just better built, and engineered to outlast the people who now make it their weekly ritual.
