How terrible is it to get out of downtown San Francisco headed toward Yosemite on a Friday afternoon?

I'm considering a move from San Diego where I have a relatively easy escape to get to the Sierras on Friday afternoons.

Is South bay a better option for a weekend warrior who likes to get to the mountains?

Friday afternoon traffic around the Bay is wretched.

Ideally, you could get east and get out of this traffic nightmare as quickly as possible. South Bay isn't much better.

South Bay is considerably worse. The northbound traffic on 680 is terrible. I recall waiting hours for partners who were supposed to meet me Friday evening coming from South Bay.
When I lived in the East Bay I never bothered trying to leave before 7:30 or so. I tried it a couple times and you end up getting to your bivy site at the same time leaving at 6 than if you leave at 7:30 or 8.

The nice thing about leaving at 8 is that it's almost always smooth sailing, but it's late as hell.
I believe the key for "beating" traffic out of the Bay is getting east of Livermore before a certain time (probably by 4:00 and you'd be good). Coming from the East Bay is easier because you aren't dealing with the Bay Bridge which will be the first choke point leaving on a Friday, from the City. After that you have to get past the 580/680 junction and then Livermore which for some odd reason always seems to have terrible traffic.

East Bay may be a better option. Sorta ghetto though.

Berkeley does have a climbing population...

Both are impossible between 3 and 7 pm. Leave early or late.

As stated earlier, East Bay has the best positioning for getting out of the city on a Friday. Characterizing the entire East bay as being "kind of ghetto" is too broad of a brush to paint with. Sure, Oakland has some ghetto areas, and Fremont/Hayward are a wasteland. Berkeley, though, is a great place to live, with beautiful old neighborhoods, good food, and a really unique culture (which may annoy some people, but I like it there). If I were to move back to the Bay Area, I would probably choose to live in Berkeley.

I also think that Berkeley has the best climate in the Bay Area. It is remarkable how much micro-variety there is around the Bay; moving two zip codes in any direction seems to produce a totally different climate. Berkeley is nice because it gets a little bit of the fog, but not too much. This is a nice compromise, for my preferences, between SF (too cold/foggy) and the South Bay (hot/sunny).

With regard to SF vs. South Bay, I would choose SF in a second; this has nothing to do with the climbing access (neither of them is great for climbing access). SF has one of the most interesting and vibrant urban cultures in the US, while the South Bay is pretty dull. In the South Bay, it seems to me that it is either (A) Kind of Ghetto, or (B) White-bread affluent suburbia with too many engineers. People are more interesting in SF.

Berkeley is expensive when compared to North Oakland which is even more bike friendly, has a good crop of restaurants, is easier to get onto the freeway (24 to 580) and you can get 2-3x more housing for the same price in Berkeley. The weather in Temescal is noticeably more pleasant than Berkeley too. I used to bike commute from Oakland and rather regularly, a ride that started out sunny at home turned to overcast by Alcatraz and falling precip by the time I arrived in downtown Berkeley.
Another problem with Berkeley is that there aren't many people roughly aged 26-45. People are either very young, or older. There isn't much in-between. YMMV. You can easily live in Oakland and still take advantage of the things Berkeley has to offer. That worked out well for me.

+1 on the Temescal neighborhood (where I used to live)

- great restaurants/bars
- Trader Joe's
- direct BART line to SF
- good options for road/MTB riding in the Oakland hills; no need to drive

You really need to put more thought into where you'd like to live, since that's where you'll spend 95% of your time, rather than how easy it is to get out of town for the Valley. Having said that, the East Bay is nice. Even Oakland, which has a bad rep, has some really nice neighborhoods like Rockridge and Piedmont. East of Berkeley there are some, pricey towns like Lafayette, Danville, etc. A little climbing on Mt. Diablo, still close to Indian Rock, but also great mt. biking (though it's all fire road) and road biking. Not a bad place to live at all.

os.cqpress.com/citycrime/2009/CityCrime2009_Rank_Rev.pdf

In 2009 Oakland took the #3 crime rate.

Berkeley is super ghetto. Maybe strolling around Pearl Street has made me jaded.

there's more to the east bay than oakland and berkeley Colin. Antioch and Livermore are nice and cheap, and will put you a half hour closer to the valley than "super ghetto" Berkeley.

Colin, just FYI, your comments make you sound like a spoiled, privileged kid from the suburbs. If you think Berkeley is ghetto, then you need to explore the world a bit and broaden your worldview. The whole world can't be a isolated and sheltered like Palo Alto or Boulder....thank god.

If you live in SF your shit won't stink! Yes it is further from Yosemite but way cooler than anywhere around, food, culture, girls ect. all better. Leave early or late and the traffic is not all that bad. I leave after work around 5 smoke my dinner in the truck while waiting for traffic and I'm camping just outside the gates by 10-11.

This is actually one of the better maps of the Bay Area I've ever seen

Berg, That map is awesome, lol.