One Bay Area resident recently laced up and hiked the entire Double Cross Trail — Fort Funston to Pier 23 — as a memorial to a friend who passed away unexpectedly a year ago. The friend was an Apple employee, but before that, a deep south Texas "cowboy poet" — the kind of genuinely interesting person San Francisco used to attract in droves and, on its best days, still does.

The hike is no joke. It cuts across the full width of the city, including both brutal halves of Twin Peaks, which happened to be near where his late friend lived. By the time the hiker made it back home to the East Bay, his Fitbit read 50,000 steps. And then came the detail that elevates this from a nice story to something genuinely beautiful: the app buzzed to tell him he'd earned the "Cowboy Boots" badge.

For a cowboy poet's memorial hike. You can't make that up.

"I'm not a spiritual kind of guy," he said, "but I admit I had to smile at the poetic beauty of the moment."

Here's the thing: San Francisco is a collection of trails, hills, waterfronts, and neighborhoods that — when you strip away the politics and the dysfunction — form one of the most extraordinary urban landscapes on Earth. It doesn't cost a dime to walk it. No committee approved it. No supervisor took credit for it. It's just there, waiting for someone with a good pair of shoes and a reason to keep walking.

This city doesn't need more programs. It needs more people who care about it the way this guy cared about his friend — enough to put in 50,000 steps just to say goodbye properly.

Rest easy, cowboy poet.