From the bot­tom, it looks like an easy walk, but mid­way along San Fer­nan­do’s famed One Hun­dred Steps, you will prob­a­bly be gasp­ing for air. De­spite the ar­du­ous trek, most fit­ness en­thu­si­asts and oc­ca­sion­al jog­gers could tell of the ben­e­fits to their health and physique.

Some can even share sto­ries of the ro­man­tic view from atop the stair­case. On the north­ern side, the seren­i­ty of the Gulf of Paria awaits. At night­fall, you can gaze up­on the splen­dour of the city’s lights in the South. While it is named One Hun­dred Steps, the dual stair­case ac­tu­al­ly has 145 steps lead­ing from Mount Mo­ri­ah Road in Vista­bel­la to North Road.

On any giv­en af­ter­noon, scores of women, men, chil­dren and the el­der­ly fill the stair­case for their dai­ly work­outs. In re­cent years, sev­er­al fit­ness groups have found a chal­leng­ing ground for their clients. Joel Pile, CEO of Pre­ci­sion Fit­ness, said that his com­pa­ny car­ries out a fit­ness pro­gramme tar­get­ing var­i­ous land­scapes through­out the coun­try. In their four-month cy­cle, clients from around the coun­try will vis­it the stair­case at least four times.

Pile ex­plained that a sim­ple jog up and down the stairs brings ben­e­fits to a per­son’s quad, ham­strings, glutes and car­dio­vas­cu­lar mus­cles while strength­en­ing the lungs.

"It’s some­thing to chal­lenge you. The steps pro­vide re­sis­tance and chal­lenge your body, es­pe­cial­ly your legs. You will be us­ing them much more than when you're just run­ning on a flat sur­face. Any­one can use it, de­pend­ing on his or her fit­ness lev­el. They can run, walk, jog or sprint,” Pile said.

For decades, the stair­case served as a short­cut for res­i­dents liv­ing in Spring­vale and those would have oth­er­wise strug­gled to walk the steep Alexan­der Road near­by. By the ear­ly 2010s, ox­i­di­s­a­tion be­gan erod­ing the rails, and soil move­ments caused the steps to crack. Re­spond­ing to cries for its sur­vival, then San Fer­nan­do may­or Kaz­im Ho­sein or­dered its re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, in­stalling new rails, stair­case, light­ing, and a sign. To Ho­sein, the venue is like a her­itage site for the San Fer­nan­do burgess­es.

“Peo­ple use it for ex­er­cise, even at­tract­ing oth­ers from out­side of San Fer­nan­do. Es­pe­cial­ly around Car­ni­val time when peo­ple are look­ing to get in­to shape, you will find the steps packed. Some time ago, there was a group of tourists who came to see it as well, so fol­low­ing a lot of re­quests, we had to re­ha­bil­i­tate the steps,” Ho­sein said.

Since then, the area re­mains well main­tained by the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion. It is ex­pect­ed to see its an­nu­al in­flux of users in the com­ing months as hun­dred seek to slim down and tone up in time for Car­ni­val 2020.