ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER
That’s just one of the pleasures of hiking in and around Los Angeles (yes, we said L.A.).
By Chris Warren. Photographs by Jennifer Rocholl.
I like to blame my eldest brother for my early aversion to hiking. When I was just seven or eight, Mike, who was attending Dartmouth College at the time, invited our family to stay a few days at an isolated, rustic lodge at the base of Mount Moosilauke, one of New Hampshire’s many 4,000-plus-foot peaks. The plan was for the entire brood to climb to the summit together, but I never even made it to the trail.
A favorite nighttime tradition at the lodge was to tell — complete with lights extinguished and well-timed screams — the story of a local doctor who, in the 1800s, kidnapped and killed a young girl on the mountain and was said to still haunt its slopes. Fooling nobody, the next morning I feigned the kind of doubled-over, gasping-for-breath stomachache so popular with kids trying to avoid something unpleasant. It worked, but it also ensured that my cowardice would become family lore. I can’t say for sure, but I imagine that my conversion later in life into an enthusiastic mountaineer (I eventually conquered Mount Moosilauke, along with other summits) was simple overcompensation for years of feeling like such a wimp.
Regardless, hiking has become a vital part of my life for all the reasons that are so obvious to anyone who gets out on the trail even occasionally: It’s great exercise, it’s spiritually renewing, and it provides a connection to nature that’s otherwise elusive in modern, urban America. It’s also one of the main reasons I live in Los Angeles — yes, Los Angeles. Snicker if you like, but the fact is that L.A. has a remarkable selection of easily accessible trails that can transport you from the clutches of gridlocked traffic to a quiet meadow dotted with grazing deer in a matter of minutes.
Unbeknownst even to many locals, L.A. features an impressive amount of federal, state, and locally managed open space, including Topanga State Park in the Santa Monica Mountains, the largest chunk of wild land located entirely within the borders of a major city. Over the past decade, I’ve spent countless hours on narrow trails through thick forests filled with sycamore and live oak trees, as well as on wide, dusty fire roads along ridges overlooking the vast Pacific Ocean. Deer are an almost everyday sight in some places; toward dusk and at night, the sound of coyotes howling is common; a rarer treat is to see one of the few mountain lions or bobcats that live in the Santa Monica Mountains. A constant marvel is just how much trail time can be spent in solitude. On weekdays, in particular, it’s possible to walk for hours without bumping into another person — this in a city with more than 3.8 million residents.
It would be impossible to detail all the worthwhile hikes within easy reach of metropolitan Los Angeles, let alone the many challenging climbs nearby in the San Gabriel Mountains, Angeles National Forest, and Joshua Tree National Park. Still, if you’re looking to trade asphalt for a waterfall or a rearview mirror clogged with SUVs for a wide-open vista, here are a handful of our favorite treks.
Will Rogers State Historic Park
It’s hard to go very far in west Los Angeles without running into the name Will Rogers: a beach, a park, and an elementary school are all named after the cowboy humorist, who in the 1920s and ’30s was one of the most popular and highly paid actors in Hollywood. Rogers used some of that wealth to purchase a sprawling 186-acre ranch in the hills of Pacific Palisades, just above Sunset Boulevard. The ranch, which became a state park after Rogers’s widow died in 1944, has horse stables, a riding and roping arena, and a large, lush polo field, where matches are still held on weekends from April to October.
For hikers, it’s also the perfect jumping-off point to explore a host of trails that begin there and wind their way through the ranch’s land and then into the adjacent Topanga State Park. If you’re short on time, or just in the mood to walk casually, there’s a quick, two-mile loop that begins just to the north of Rogers’s 31-room ranch house — now part of a museum — and snakes its way up along a ridge above the entire property.
For someone who was introduced to hiking in New England — where you often have to slog hours through heavy forest before getting any kind of view — the almost instant, spectacular sights on this walk elicit pangs of guilt, the result of a Yankee insistence on earning any reward. Indeed, within 10 minutes of leaving the parking lot, and after a very modest climb, a myriad of postcard-like views come into sight and remain a constant companion for much of the route. To the south and east are the skylines of Westwood and Century City and, even farther away, the towering skyscrapers of downtown L.A. Just to the west, and in sharp contrast to the teeming metropolis, are the Pacific Ocean and, at least on clear days, Catalina Island.
The summit of the loop is Inspiration Point, a flat clearing with benches that force you, as if you really need coercion, to sit and ponder just how enormous and diverse the city below actually is. If a mere two miles isn’t enough, not to worry. Just below Inspiration Point is a sign that marks the eastern end of the Backbone Trail. Named for how the volcanic-formed ridge that the trail follows resembles a spinal column, albeit a horribly gnarled one, the Backbone Trail is almost 70 miles long, journeying from Will Rogers State Park west to the beach at Point Mugu State Park in Malibu.
Sullivan Canyon Loop
A short drive east from Will Rogers is a trail that cuts through Sullivan Canyon, one of the most popular hiking, mountain-biking, and horseback-riding routes in the city. And for good reason. The first three-plus miles take you up a very gently rising, intermittently shaded grade, really more of a stroll than a strenuous hike. Take the time to notice the changes in sounds as you progress up the trail — the hum of leaf blowers around affluent homes is gradually replaced with the songs of birds and the gurgling of a seasonal river. The trail — once narrow and bumpy, it has been widened and smoothed out in many places — ascends steeply over the final mile to the unimaginatively named Sullivan Fire Road No. 26, which hugs the ridge.
Turning back here and retracing your steps along the canyon floor will yield a trek of a little less than nine miles. But don’t be too hasty to return to civilization — from the intersection of the Sullivan Canyon trail and the fire road, it’s easy to imagine you’re miles from the nearest town, so completely obscured by the surrounding mountains and ridge lines are any traces of humanity. To continue enjoying spectacular views of the surrounding mountains and the ocean below — and to make it a loop, rather than an out-and-back hike — go right (or north) along the fire road until you reach a yellow metal gate, which is the intersection of an unpaved portion of Mulholland Drive.
Taking a right onto Mulholland will lead you quickly to San Vicente Mountain Park, which, at the height of the Cold War, was a radar installation. The location, once considered ideal by military planners intent on thwarting their Soviet counterparts, is oddly idyllic, with some of the remaining structures under siege by grasses and bright wildflowers. The original radar tower is now a lookout platform providing views of the entire Los Angeles basin.
To complete the 10-mile circuit, head south on Fire Road No. 25, which follows the ridge separating Sullivan Canyon on your right and Mandeville Canyon on your left. It’s a pleasant, mostly downhill four-mile walk with almost continuous views south to the Santa Monica pier and the Palos Verdes Peninsula. When you reach Westridge Trailhead — conveniently spelled out on a metal gate — follow the sidewalk along Westridge Road to Bayliss Road. Take a right on Bayliss and follow it back to where the loop began.
Santa Ynez Waterfall
The car trip to Trippet Ranch — the trailhead for numerous hikes throughout Topanga State Park — is a worthwhile journey in itself. From Santa Monica, take the Pacific Coast Highway north, past the newly refurbished and reopened Getty Villa, to Topanga Canyon Boulevard. Driving through Topanga Canyon is dramatic: Much of it is undeveloped, and at points the road is bordered by steep cliffs and sharp drops into the canyon below. After passing through the small town center of Topanga — which retains a hippie-commune feel despite skyrocketing real estate prices — look for Entrada Road on the right, which leads to Trippet Ranch, described as once being a “gentleman’s ranch” built as a getaway for city slickers.
Beginning at the ranch, a favorite six-mile round-trip hike is to follow the well-marked route down into Santa Ynez Canyon to an 18-foot waterfall that’s always peaceful and occasionally dramatic, if there’s been a lot of rain. The hike begins on the Eagle Springs fire road, passing wide-open meadows, which, in spring, are filled with colorful wildflowers. Soon, you leave the fire road and begin a descent — steep enough at times to make you dread the return trip — along a narrow trail over rock formations that give the landscape a lunar feel.
For the first part of the hike, the view is dominated by Eagle Rock, a rugged, layered rock outcropping that towers over the horizon to the north. There’s a distinct spot on the way down — just before the final descent to the valley floor — where there’s a sudden change in the tenor and level of the surrounding noise; it goes from quiet, except for the inevitable plane passing overhead, to the roar of running water. Once you enter the shaded, cool canyon bottom, the croaking of frogs punctuates the steady hum of flowing water.
The walk through the sycamore, oak, and bay laurel trees is flat and cool. Although there is a sign pointing out how to reach the waterfall, it can be a little tricky to find, as evidenced by some well-worn trails to nowhere up a steep ravine opposite the brook. Be sure to follow the stream back up the canyon and over some boulders in order to reach the waterfall. On a hot day, the cool, damp air swirling around the grotto under the falls will make it difficult to leave.
Griffith Park
Because I live in Santa Monica near the ocean, convenience and habit lead me to do most of my hiking in west Los Angeles. But farther east, closer to Hollywood and downtown, there are plenty of options for quick getaways from the heart of the city. The most obvious is Griffith Park, the destination of 10 million people annually. Located northeast of Hollywood and bordering the Los Feliz neighborhood, Griffith Park is more than 4,100 acres — about five times the size of New York’s Central Park — of largely undeveloped, chaparral-covered hillsides on the eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains.
Created in 1896 out of land donated by Colonel Griffith J. Griffith, a Welsh émigré who made a fortune in gold mining, the park today is home to the Greek Theater, the Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens, and the stunning art deco Griffith Observatory, where scenes from James Dean’s Rebel Without a Cause were filmed. But it also has 53 miles of trails for hiking and horseback riding. Located in the heart of the city, Griffith Park has a more urban feel to it, particularly on weekends when large crowds come to picnic and hike.
This is just the way Griffith envisioned it. When the park was originally dedicated, he hoped that it would become “a place of recreation and rest for the masses, a resort for the rank and file, for the plain people.” Nowhere has that vision been more obviously achieved than on the rewarding three-mile round-trip hike from the parking lot at Griffith Observatory to the summit of Mount Hollywood, which, on a sunny Sunday afternoon, is always bustling with activity. The wide, well-traveled dirt path from the Charlie Turner Trailhead to the 1,625-foot summit is a route with ever-improving views of the city below. At the tip of one of the switchbacks, the iconic Hollywood sign on nearby Mount Lee is literally at eye level.
At the top of Mount Hollywood are arguably the best views of the city — on clear days, downtown looks so close that you feel like you could reach out and touch it — and of the entire geography of the L.A. area, including Pasadena, Glendale, Burbank, Long Beach, and Catalina Island. Elsewhere in the park, it’s possible to get the same sort of solitude so easily found in Topanga. In the southwest corner of the park are the Bronson Caves, familiar to anyone who watched the 1960s TV show Batman as the Bat Cave.