A tour of SF and a day in the snow
It’s been a busy 2026 so far for the ESCAPE club with a tour of SF in January and a snow day in February! We had some great trips during the winter months with great groups of kids. Read on to hear about San Francisco and Tahoe!
In January we made our way to San Francisco to tour the city. It was a BEAUTIFUL day, starting with a walk across the first part of the Golden Gate Bridge. We then went down to Fort Point situated at the base of the bridge. Last year, bad weather kept us from the rooftop and then closed down the fort entirely shortly after we arrived, so it was great to be able to explore the new exhibits and renovations. After that, we spent some time in the Presidio Field Station. This space is an active field station for scientists and researchers in the area and has huge natural history collections that students are able to interact with hands on.
Finally, it wouldn’t be San Francisco without traffic, but with a lot of detours both planned (Palace of Fine Arts and Lombard Street) and unplanned (streets blocked off) we made it to our final destination: ice skating! We might not be competing in the next winter Olympics but it was a lot of fun to skate around and watch kids improve quite a lot during our time on the rink.
In February we went up to the Tahoe area for a day in the snow. Continuing the trend of beautiful weather during our trips this year, we had sunny blue skies and fairly warm weather. It was a sort of second try at the trip that went awry last year due to a bus issue, and this time we successfully made it to the Clair Tappaan Lodge. It was a new experience to have home base be at a ski lodge, and it was great to have a warm and cozy space throughout the day!
We partnered with Headwaters Science Institute for a snow science lesson where students learned how researchers study climate and analyze the snow in the region. After the science lesson, we had a hot spaghetti and meatballs lunch indoors courtesy of one of the chaperones.
In the afternoon, there was time for some sledding and playing in the snow. It wasn’t the best snow year that we’ve experienced – the sledding was bumpy and the snowballs icy – but students still had fun and did all typical snow activities. Lots of sledding, snowball battles, and snowman-making! Finally, we hit our usual spots of In-N-Out and the state capitol on the way home. Long but fun day!
March is bringing a couple more trips before our end of year trip to Yosemite, so keep an eye out for a recap of our last trips. There’s videos below if you have a few minutes!
