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Trailhead: Badwater Basin, Badwater Rd, Death Valley, CA 92328 Parking: Free parking in parking lot or along road. Death Valley National Park does have a $30 entrance fee. More about the park fees HERE. Distance: 1 mile out & back. Badwater Basin is a popular tourist destination in Death Valley National Park. It's worth at least a short visit if you're visiting the park because of it's unique topography and because it's the lowest point in North America, coming in at 282 feet

As 2021 comes to a close, The Wanderer Hiking Blog celebrates a year of existence! Technically, our 1 year anniversary came at the end of November, but close enough... With the end of the year closing in fast, it's time again to share with you my top 5 trails of 2021. This year we went to four national parks! We also ventured to quite a few more trails in the Los Angeles area. So it was definitely hard to pick, but here they are: 5. Echo Mountain via Sam Merrill Trail Maybe i

Trailhead: Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes Parking, CA-190, Stovepipe Wells, CA 92328 Parking: Free parking lot at trailhead. Death Valley National Park does have a $30 entrance fee. More about the park fees HERE. Distance: 2 miles out & back. This review is a little different than previous reviews. That's because there is no actual path to follow on the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes. It's more of a choose-your-own-adventure experience. We ultimately walked about 1 mile out to one of the

Trailhead: Golden Canyon Trailhead, Badwater Rd, Furnace Creek, CA 92328 Parking: Free parking in parking lot. Death Valley National Park does have a $30 entrance fee. More about the park fees HERE. Distance: 3 miles out & back. The Golden Canyon Hike can be done in a number of ways. The complete circuit actually totals about 7.8 miles and more information on that version of this hike can be found HERE on the NPS website. The version we did was to hike to the Red Cathedral an

Trailhead: Titus Canyon Parking Lot, End of Red Pass, Titus Canyon Road, Death Valley, CA Parking: Free parking in gravel parking lot. Death Valley National Park does have a $30 entrance fee. More about the park fees HERE. Distance: 6.6 miles out & back The hike for Fall Canyon starts at the parking lot for Titus Canyon. Google Maps may try to send you around to the Eastern side of the mountain range because Titus Canyon can be viewed by driving a one-way road from East to We

Trailhead: Mineral Wells Road at Griffith Park Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90027 Parking: Free parking on Mineral Wells Road. Distance: 2.6 miles loop. As life gets busier once again, it certainly becomes a rarer opportunity to get out and enjoy nature. But we were finally able to get back to hiking recently. Since it's been a couple of months, we didn't go for anything too grand. We started with a trail (or a combination of trails) at the northeast end of Griffith Park. Beginning

Trailhead: 3302 Lake Ave, Altadena, CA 91001 Parking: free street parking on Lake Avenue. Distance: 5.4 miles out & back. The Sam Merrill Trail to Echo Mountain starts in the town of Altadena at the gated entrance to the Cobb Estate. That gate is known as the mortuary gate from the movie Phantasm for any movie buffs out there. After walking through the open side gate to the right, you'll be on a paved (but not well kept) road for about a tenth of a mile. As the road turns nor

Trailhead: Spring Canyon, 5400 Griffith Park Dr, Los Angeles, CA 90027 Parking: Free parking along the road or at nearby parking lots. Distance: 1.6 miles out & back This one is a shorty but goody. Found on the east side of Griffith Park, Bee Rock is a cliff-side overlook that looks out onto Glendale and Los Angeles. The trail to Bee Rock starts at Griffith Park Drive, just north of the Merry-Go-Round. Parking will depend on when you get there and how busy the park is, but if

Trailhead: Vincent Gulch Divide, Pacific Crest Trail, Azusa, CA 91702, at CA-2 Parking: Parking Lot at Vincent Gulch Divide. Adventure Pass is required to park in the lot. Distance: 3.7 miles out & back. After a bit of a hiking hiatus, we're back! And to ease back into the trails, we decided to do a hike that I've been wanting to do for a while now, the Big Horn Mine in the Angeles National Forest. It's not that long of a trail and it's relatively easy. But it is a bit of a d

I love nature photography so it's no surprise that when I'm going on a hike, one of the things I almost always bring with me is a camera (or multiple cameras...). From my phone to my DSLR, I've got to have something that'll capture the beauty of the trails we're on. Here are the cameras I use: The good ole cell phone. It's slim, it's easy to carry around, it take decent photos. My Iphone is the camera that is always with me. Besides having other essential capabilities such as

Trailhead: Lodgepole Campgrounds, Sequoia National Park, CA 93262 Parking: Free parking spaces on Lodgepole Road. Sequoia National Park does have a $35 entrance fee. More about the park fees HERE. Distance: 4.0 miles out & back Tokopah Falls is a magnificent waterfall in the Sequoia National Park that is actually pretty easy to get to. The trail is well marked and family friendly. The trail starts at the Lodgepole campground upper loop, which is just east of the Lodgepole Vis

Trailhead: Mist Falls Trailhead, CA-180, Cedar Grove, CA 93633 Parking: Free parking spaces at Road's End. Kings Canyon National Park does have a $35 entrance fee. More about the park fees HERE. Distance: 8.4 miles out & back. King's Canyon is the sister park to Sequoia National Park and is well worth the extra drive to get to it. To get to the Mist Falls trailhead, you'll need to enter on the western side of the park and drive the scenic byway, Rt 180, to the other end. It's

Trailhead: Lakes Trailhead, 62260 Wolverton Rd, California 93262 Parking: Free parking spaces at Wolverton Picnic Area. Sequoia National Park does have a $35 entrance fee. More about the park fees HERE. Distance: 8.2 miles out & back. Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks are spectacular natural wonders and I was lucky enough to visit the two parks recently on a week-long vacation. We visited a number of hiking trails and points of interest within the parks, but I have to s

Trailhead: Strawberry Peak Trailhead, CA-1, Palmdale, CA 93550 Parking: Red Box Picnic Area, Forest Rte 2N24, Palmdale, CA 93550. Adventure Pass Required for parking. Distance: 7.2 miles out & back Strawberry Peak is a great hike if you are looking for a bit of a challenge. Its length, its numerous peaks and valleys, and the steepness of some of those inclines all make it a bit more difficult than some other hikes in the Angeles National Forest. But if you are up for the chal

Trailhead: 27807 CA-1, Malibu, CA 90265 Parking: $12 parking in the lot or free parking on CA-1 Distance: 3.8 miles out & back This trail starts right off CA-1 on a paved road that leads up into a hillside community full of nice homes. There are two options for parking. The first is the parking lot at the corner CA-1 and Winding Way. It conveniently has a porta-potty if needed. The cost, however, is pretty high for parking here at $12. The option we went with was parking on t

Trailhead: 9253-9254 Wildwood Ave, Sun Valley CA 91352 Parking: free street parking in the neighborhood. Distance: 4 miles out & back. Talk about a peaceful hike! This turned out to be a nice, secluded hike up in Sun Valley. Despite being not too far from some highways, it really felt like we were away from the hustle and bustle of the city. The trail starts in a quiet neighborhood with some very nice houses. The trailhead is a dirt path on the right side of one of those hom

Trailhead: 4141-4149 Crisp Canyon Rd, Sherman Oaks, CA 91403 Parking: Free street parking around trailhead. Distance: 2 miles Out & Back. At just about 2 miles round trip, this trail is pretty short but we happened to be looking for something short on this particular weekend. It turns out that it wasn't the best choice for a few reasons, which I'll get into by the end. The trail starts in between two residential properties in Sherman Oaks. There was plenty of street parking a

Trailhead: Deukmejian Wilderness Park Open Field, Glendale, CA 91214 Parking: Free parking in the lots at Deukmejian Wilderness Park. Distance: About 11 miles out & back This hike is a long one but it's worth the time and effort for the rewarding view at the end. The trail starts at the Deukmejian Wilderness Park in Crescenta Highlands. On the weekend, it seems to be a popular place to go so finding parking was a little tricky. Even the overflow parking lot was just about ful

Trailhead: Nadeau Mtwy & Placerita Canyon Rd, Santa Clarita, CA 91321 Parking: Free parking in a small dirt lot at the trailhead. Distance: 3.2 miles loop We decided to check this hike out after doing the East Walker Loop which is on the south side of Placerita Canyon Road. As we were doing that hike, we could see the trails on the north side of the road and thought, "Hey, that looks nice over there!". So we decided to journey back up to Santa Clarita for a second weekend and

Trailhead: East Walker Ranch, 16723 Placerita Canyon Rd, Santa Clarita, CA 91321 Parking: Free parking in dirt lot just off the road at Walker Ranch. Distance: 3.3 miles loop This hike is not so much one trail as it is a combination of a bunch of different trails in Placerita Canyon. And the fun part of this one is that you actually can make it more of a choose-your-own-adventure path if you wanted to because there are so many interconnected trails in this area. For the same