StepTrek Route: Goldroute 2021

From the registration area you can join the Black Route on S. 21st St. Please see map and narrative.

Make a left and descend these 72 serpentine steps, grouped together in sets of three, to top of S. 21st St. Follow paved road on left down to the registration area where you started. The trees on the right were planted in 2013 by SSSNA.

Cross to opposite side and turn right. Walk 40 feet to entrance to South Side Park and walk down Kimbol St. into the park.

Look up. You are now directly below the Oporto Street landslide. Make left and follow street to S. 18th St.

Turn right and continue past century-old brick homes to where street meets Crossman St.

At bottom of steps, cross lane and make right on Roscoe St. Ascend 8 steps on left side. Continue past Crossman St. to St. Leo St. Notice the tight yards on the right.

Descend 10 steps and turn right. Begin descending the 115 steps to Roscoe St. To the right of the steps was the site of the Sankey brick yard that was active in the Slopes until the 1950s. Many a yard in the slopes has a stash of Sankey bricks buried under the soil.

Make left and descend to Oporto St. Steps. A landslide this past spring has closed Oporto to the south and right of you. The neighborhood is in a constant negotiation with the city to maintain the infrastructure of its hillside community.

Make right. This dead-end street is pitched high in the Slopes with lovely view below.

Built in 1944, the steps drop a total of 301 stairs to Pius St. below. Cross Shamokin and descend 63 of them to Huron St. and the temporarily closed Winters Playground. It is one of a series of parklets dotting the hillside. If you complete both routes, you will pass three of them.