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Trailhead: The Greek Theatre, 2700 N Vermont Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90027 Parking: Free parking in the lot next to the Greek Theatre unless there is an event going on. There is free street parking on some side roads like Commonwealth Canyon Drive and Vista Del Valle Drive. Distance: 2.6 miles out & back Difficulty: Easy to Moderate Griffith Park is a great place to visit in the spring. After the rainy season has brought some much needed hydration to the area, the park ends up w

Trailhead: Debs Park Road Parking, Debs Park Rd, Los Angeles, CA 90032 Parking: Free parking in the lot on Debs Park Road. Distance: 1.8 miles out & back Difficulty: easy Nestled in East Los Angeles near Montecito Hills, Ernest E. Debbs Regional Park is a decently sized open space nature reserve. With plenty of parking, even on a weekend, this park is a good choice if you want don't want to drive too far but also don't want the crowds. The Summit Ridge trail is a paved bike p

Trailhead: 2333 Fern Dell Dr, Los Angeles, CA 90068 Parking: free parking along Fern Dell Drive and in a parking lot just north of the trailhead. Distance: 1.8 miles loop Difficulty: Moderate Griffith Park is a treasure trove of short (and long) hikes right in the heart of Los Angeles. You may not be escaping the city as much as you would by heading to some of the other mountain ranges in the area, but it's still a great place to go to get outdoors and see some nature. Fern D

Trailhead: 4730 Crystal Springs Dr, Los Angeles, CA 90027 Parking: free parking in the parking lot by the Merry-go-Round. Distance: 1.9 mile loop Difficulty: Easy As I continue to explore more of Griffith Park this spring, I came to realize that I had never seen the old L.A. Zoo, which is an area in the park with abandoned zoo cages from when Los Angeles' zoo occupied the space from 1912 to 1966. So recently, I took a nice stroll along the Old L.A. Zoo Trail to see what it w

Trailhead: 4730 Crystal Springs Dr, Los Angeles, CA 90027 Parking: free parking in the parking lot by the Merry-go-Round. Distance: 3.0 miles out & back. Difficulty: Moderate Griffith Park is a Log Angeles staple. There are so many trails to traverse within its 4,210 acres. One of the treks that I had done a few years back and just revisited is the Fern Canyon Trail to Beacon Hill. It's a great trail to do if you're looking for some cardio and it has a pretty nice 360 degree

Trailhead: Switzer Falls Trailhead, 701 Angeles Crest Hwy, Tujunga, CA 91042 Parking: Parking lots down by the trailhead, halfway down the road, and up at the turnoff on Angeles Crest Highway. An Adventure Pass is required to park. Distance: About 4 miles out & back Difficulty: Moderate Switzer Falls is a popular waterfall hike in the Angeles National Forest. It's a fun trail that has a couple of different environments as you go along. The first thing to note though is the pa

Trailhead: Wonder View Trailhead, Wonder View Dr, Los Angeles, CA 90068 Parking: street parking along hillside road at trailhead. Distance: 3.0 miles out and back Difficulty: Challenging Sitting atop a peak on the western side of Griffith Park is the Wisdom Tree, a singular tree that survived the 2007 Hollywood Hills fire. And not too far away to the east is the famous Hollywood Sign. If you want to see both landmarks in one hike, then the Wonder View Trail is for you! If you

Trailhead: Hollywood Reservoir North Gate, Los Angeles, CA 90068 Parking: street parking along hillside near gate Distance: 3.5 mile loop Difficulty: Easy Nestled to the south west of the Hollywood sign is Lake Hollywood, or the Hollywood Reservoir, a man-made lake created by the Mulholland Dam. The entire circumference of the body of water is lined with a paved walking path which adds up to a 3.5 mile loop. I started the loop at the North Gate which is off of Lake Hollywood

Trailhead: Ascot Hills Park, 4371 Multnomah St, Los Angeles, CA 90032 Parking: Free parking in two lots in the park off Multnomah Street. Distance: 1.9 miles Difficulty: Easy to Moderate Ascot Hills is a 93 acre park in the middle of a residential area between the Lincoln Heights and El Sereno neighborhoods of Los Angeles. It's a little nature oasis in a big city. The main entrance is off of Multnomah Street, although there is an entrance at the northern end on Kewanee Street

2022 is coming to a close, and with that comes my annual top 5 trails of the year! This year was a busy one in our lives, and so the number of trails we hiked fell off a bit. But that doesn't mean we didn't get to hike some awesome trails or see some beautiful places! 5. Petrified Forest National Park Not so much a single trail as it is a bunch of shorter trails and walking paths that can be done all in a day's drive through the park. This is certainly one of the more underra

Trail Head: Scorpion Anchorage, Ventura, CA 93001 Parking: To get to the Channel Islands, you need to purchase a ferry ticket from Island Packers in Ventura, CA. Parking at the harbor is free. For more information on the ferry, click HERE. Distance: Approx. 6 miles loop Difficulty: moderate to challenging The Channel Islands are a national park only about an hour drive from Los Angeles. The only way to access the islands is by ferry boat. Island Packers is the company that is

Trailhead: Mt Wilson Trail, Sierra Madre, CA 91024 Parking: free street parking on E Mira Monte Ave. Distance: 3.6 miles out & back Difficulty: Challenging The Mount Wilson Trail is actually a longer, 7.25 mile trail up to Mount Wilson (14.5 mile round trip). But this shorter hike is a good starting point to gauge the trail's difficulty and still enjoy some views from the National Forest. The parking for this trail is just street parking, but it was not that difficult to find

Trailhead: Rocky Peak Rd, Simi Valley, CA 93063 Parking: Free parking either in the very small lot at the trailhead or on the other side of the highway overpass. Distance: 5.6 miles out & back Difficulty: Challenging The trailhead to Rocky Peak, in Simi Valley, literally starts at an exit ramp for the 118 highway. The parking area right in front of the trail is extremely small so if there aren't any spots available, there is more parking on the other side of the highway overp

Trailhead: The Greek Theatre, 2700 N Vermont Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90027 Parking: free parking in the Greek Theatre parking lot (unless there is an event) or free street parking where indicated on N. Vermont Canyon Road. Distance: 3.2 miles out & back. Difficulty: Moderate This is actually one of my favorite hikes in Griffith Park and one that I've done numerous times over the years. I used to hike this trail all the time to build my endurance before trying out bigger, more re

Trailhead: Millard Trail Camp, 4041 Chaney Trail, Altadena, CA 91001 Parking: There is a parking lot at the camp that requires an Adventure Pass. Distance: 3 miles loop/out & back This trail is one of many that start from this area at the Millard Camp and Mt. Lowe Trailhead. In fact, we've been here before to hike to the Dawn Mine. When we arrived, it was a lot busier than the last time. The parking lot was full and so we had to park along the road a little ways up from the l

Trailhead: 12869 Yerba Buena Rd, Malibu, CA 90265 Parking: Free parking in lot at the trailhead. Distance: 6.25 miles loop I had decided recently that I wanted to do a sunset hike in the mountains near Malibu, and I'd been given a recommendation by someone that Sandstone Peak was a great hike to do. It's the tallest peak in the Santa Monica mountain range and offers spectacular views of not only the surrounding mountains but also some of the ocean as well. The hike starts aft

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: 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