Hiking the Golden Gate Bridge

I would consider walking a bike at the Golden Gate Bridge hiking. And hiking it is. Although I did not plan on it. The plan was to bike the 1.7 mile suspension bridge that connects the San Francisco Peninsula to the Marin Headlands over the Golden Gate Strait. 

The strait that separates the San Francisco Peninsula from the narrow piece of land that projects from the Northern California coastline into Pacific Ocean reminded John C. Fremont, a topographical engineer of the U.S. Army in the 1840's of a harbor in Istanbul called Chrysoceras or Golden Horn. Fremont thought of the strait as Chrysophylae or Golden Gate. 

Upon completion of the bridge in 1937, after four years of construction, Joseph P. Strauss, then  chief engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District  wrote a poem titled "The Mighty Task is Done". The following excerpt sums up my impression on the bridge, having visited it for the third time, today.
 
"To north, the Redwood Empire's gate; 
To south, a happy playground waits in Rapturous appeal; 
Here nature, free since time began, 
Yields to the restless moods of man, 
Accept his bonds of steel."



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