Hiking L.A.

Hiking L.A., Most Literally

2007-11-23T14:51:00.000-08:00

Hiking L.A. has been in summer hibernation mode, apparently. When I logged in to blogger to add this post, I was shocked to see that I haven't added a hike since June. June? Surely I've hiked since then (I have), so what's the deal?

Well, first check out my post about walking the entire length of Pico Boulevard on the Pico and the Man blog. I believe that counts as "hiking L.A." in the most literal sense possible. And you won't see this in the San Gabriels:

There are a few other reasons I haven't been posting or hiking as much as I used to. First: I was busy finishing my book (which, despite Amazon.com's listings, will be authored by me, not "Chronicle Books LLC Staff" or whatever). Second: my usual hiking partner "BF" is no longer my BF, so I haven't been hiking as much. That's right, boys, I'm single now. I'll be accepting applications until further notice.

Take care, and I hope to have some new hikes (that don't involve 15.6 miles of concrete) posted soon!

Josephine Peak

2007-06-05T11:00:00.000-07:00

Hiked: February 19, 2007.

I know it's June and I'm just now getting around to posting a hike from February. I swear I have a good excuse. Or a couple of good excuses. Here are the highlights:

I don't have a (full-time) desk job anymore. This means I don't have copious amounts of spare time to stare at a computer.
I have other writing duties. A nice publisher is actually paying me to write something, so Hiking L.A. becomes a lesser priority.
I've been knitting like a madwoman, and last time I checked you can't hike or type while knitting. Oh yes, and they're also paying me to knit.

FAST FACTS:

• Length: 8 miles
• Elevation gain/loss: 1900'
• Location: San Gabriels
• Type of Hike: Out and back.

Satisfied? I know, I know. I'm a bad blogger. I hope you all will forgive me.

What's the first step to winning your forgiveness? Sucking up, of course!

This hike is dedicated to Casey at Modern Hiker who hiked this peak a while back. I would definitely check out his post to find out more information on this hike.

BF and I chose to do this hike because we wanted something quick but not too easy. As usual, it was getting late and we didn't want to get stuck hiking in the dark. Because it was closeby and the trail itself was a fire road, we figured we could get up and back before the sun went down.

It was a cool, brisk day, which is always refeshing in Southern California. As we started up the hill, I was moderately concerned about some swirling clouds nearby. Call me crazy, but I'm sensitive about getting caught on a mountain peak during a thunderstorm. Luckily, the clouds stayed South of us. Here's a view of Strawberry Peak with the clouds:

To get up to the peak, the fire road steadily climbs up the South side of the mountain for the first few miles. For the last mile or so, you disappear behind the mountain and get an awesome view of the San Gabriels to the North. The only downside to this was that the North side of the mountain was quite cold. So cold it froze my energy bar. Oh well.

Here are a few views as you're heading up the mountain:

See downtown L.A.?

At the top it was gorgeous:

And then it was time to head down because the sun was setting. Here's a panorama of the sunset

BF and I almost jogged down the mountain because it was such an easy trail. That and the light was fading. Thankfully, we only needed to use our flashlights for the last hundred yards or so.

More photos at on flickr.

Dante's View, R.I.P.

2007-05-09T00:52:00.000-07:00

Griffith Park is burning. One of the early casualties was the popular hiking destination called "Dante's View." It is no more. Guess I won't be hiking that trail any time soon.

Here are some pics BF and I took tonight from the L.A. River. More can be found in my full flickr set.

A smouldering hillside:

Wide shot of the whole hillside:

Fire appearing to pour down the hillside:

Scorched earth:

A "fire tornado":

More hills on fire:

Tree silhouetted by fire:

I'm really curious what all this will look like in the morning. It'll be a long time before Griffith Park returns to its former glory, that's for sure.

Towsley Canyon View Trail

2007-04-17T01:55:00.000-07:00

Hiked: February 10, 2007

I'm so far behind in updating this blog. I'd feel guilty, except this blog is supposed to be my "fun" writing, so I forbid myself to feel an obligation to update it regularly. That said, I'm secretly giving myself a mental flogging for being a bad blogger.

FAST FACTS:

• Length: 7 miles
• Elevation gain/loss: 1671'
• Location: Near Valencia, CA
• Type of Hike: Loop.

I have a good reason. Really, I do. I'm trying not to reveal too much too soon, but lets just say it involves someone paying me to write. And to knit. I have an actual deadline for this mystery project, and I'm trying not to screw it up. Hence, I've been forcing myself to do nothing but work on said project until I finish.

I've failed in that task, too. In my defense, I needed to give my wrists a break. I've been knitting nonstop for the past few days, and my joints are not happy. I've also watched nine episodes of Veronica Mars on DVD. I really need to go on a hike.

The next best thing to going on an actual hike is blogging about one. So here goes. Lets hope I can remember it...

BF and I decided to go a little further afield than usual for this hike. We saw there were some cool-looking hikes near Valencia, so we hopped in the car and headed up I-5. We decided to do the "long" Towsley Canyon View Trail. Apparently there's a shorter mile-long version you can hike. We didn't see this option because we started the hike at the end. We kept wondering why people were passing us going the opposite direction, but by the time we figured we were hiking backwards we were already halfway done. Oh well, c'est la vie.

The hike was beautiful. The weather was perfect. See for yourself:

The hike takes you by a few natural tar pits. You can smell them before you see them. At the very beginning of the hike we saw this stream with a steady stream of tar flowing:

The tar got the better of this Aquafina bottle:

Take that, litter! No plastic bottle is safe in SoCal.

As you gradually head up to the peak, it becomes clear that fire had ravaged the landscape not too long ago. At the peak, we took this picture of a burned tree and the hills in the background:

We also saw this cool tree that was coming back from the dead. I call it a "Lazarus Tree," but I'm sure that's not really what it's called:

At the very end of the hike (or the beginning, depending on your trajectory), you reach an canyon area called "the narrows." Once upon a time, it was dangerous to be a rock in "the narrows." There was a big of geological upheaval back in the day. It makes for some cool formations, but they're impossible to photograph. Here was an attempt:

Benign as it looks, it is really big. Flintstones-backdrop big.

Bing, bang, boom. That a blog post. Sadly, it's been over two months since we hiked this trail, so my memory is spotty. I do remember passing by a large family on the summit. They had obviously had a picnic and then decided to hike the trail. More power to them - kids really should venture out of the living room sometimes. (I should take my own advice.)

By the way, I have two more hikes to post. Keep an eye out. The next one's dedicated to Casey from Modern Hiker because he inspired us to hike it. That's all for now. I'm going back to knitting.

Henniger Flats - Hike Aborted!

2007-02-26T00:40:00.000-08:00

Attempted to hike: February 24, 2007

I'm jumping ahead a bit in my blogging (I have two hikes to report still) because I wanted to let people know about the status of the Henniger Flats hike as described on LocalHikes.

BF and I got a VERY late start on Saturday, so we decided to do a quick, local hike just to get our legs moving.

We drove out to Altadena to hike up to Henniger Flats (which is the proper spelling of the place, according to "Trails of the Angeles"), when we hit a little snag in our program. We got to the gates at the trailhead and they were locked. As we looked at the hill, trying to find the trail winding up the side, we saw this:

Yeah...

Hike aborted. We went to Trader Joe's instead. Though we didn't get a hike in, we did have a celebrity sighting at TJ's, so I suppose it wasn't a completely wasted afternoon. (Nothing's more L.A. than running into actors at the grocery store, after all.)

Devil's Chair

2007-02-20T23:40:00.000-08:00

Hiked: January 15, 2007

It was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and BF had the day off, so we decided to go hiking. The night before, we called up Danger Mouse (you may remember him from Switzer Falls) and decided we'd actually get up in the A.M. and drive somewhere more than 20 minutes away for the hike. Heavens!

FAST FACTS:

• Length: 7.4 miles
• Elevation gain/loss: 1000'
• Location: Near Pearblossom, CA
• Type of Hike: Out and back.

We decided on heading out to Devil's Punchbowl up in the desert east of Lancaster and Palmdale. Our goal was to leave by 10. We got on the road by 11—not bad by our standards. I chose to take I-5 to the Pearblossom Highway instead of taking the winding mountain roads through the San Gabriels. Though it added about 15 miles to the drive, we got to the trailhead in less than an hour thanks to clear highways (a rare sight in L.A.) and my lead foot.

While we were plodding down the Pearblossom Highway we saw a sign that seemed out of place. It proclaimed, "Hungarian meats and sausage - 2 miles ahead." We were in the middle of the California desert, and there was Eastern European meat to be had? My father is Hungarian and I've inherited his love for csirke paprikas and kolbasz. We just had to stop.

As it turns out, Valley Hungarian Sausage & Meat Co. is a happening place. Though it's in the remote town of Littlerock, California, it seems to be the place to get cold cuts. We waited in line to buy some sausage and salami, and I also scored a big can of chesnut puree.

Before I went completely insane buying sausage, BF and Danger Mouse lured me out of the shop and we were back on the road. It was a quick jaunt to the entrance of the park, which was happily devoid of people despite it being a holiday. We checked out the little displays describing the geology of Devil's Punchbowl and marvelled at some caged owls (one had recently decapitated a rat, which was laying, splayed, on the bottom of the cage). Then we got hiking.

The hike to Devil's Chair is out-and-back. After a moderate initial climb, the hike lolls up and down, staying mostly even until the very end. To get to the Devil's Chair, you have to descend a few hundred feet. This makes the very middle of the hike the most strenuous part. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The first thing that takes your breath away are these massive stone formations:

Pictures don't do them justice, as they're over 100 feet tall.

As you ascend the hill, you get a good view of the desert behind you:

As you keep walking, you pass by a small stream (I suppose it's bigger during other seasons). The first thing we noticed about this stream was that it was covered in ice:

We knew it'd be cold, but we didn't realize we were hiking on one of the coldest days on record in Southern California. The night before the hike, I had added earflaps to my knit hat. At the time, I was wondering if I was being ridiculous, but after a mile of hiking in the frigid conditions, I was the only one whose ears were toasty warm. Luckily, I had packed some extra mittens, a scarf, and a big knit hat for the boys. Here's Danger Mouse sporting my lovely entrelac scarf under his baseball hat:

And here's BF doing his part to help out mother nature (notice the lovely orange mittens):

On the way, you get to see some cool rocks:

But nothing compares to the view from the actual Devil's Chair. After descending a long batch of switchbacks, you end up here:

BF took some pictures and I put together two panoramas of the view from the Devil's Chair. They give you a better perspective on the coolness of the place. Here's panorama one and here's panorama two.

We headed back up the switchbacks eager to get out of the shade and into a warm car. Danger Mouse's fingers were just about frozen and I was unable to feel my legs under my jeans. Back at the stream, BF and I noticed a lot more ice that was camera-ready. (It wasn't until we got back that it started to look Georgia O'Keefe-esque.)

All three of us were pleasantly surprised by this hike. The geological formations were amazing, and it was only an hour outside of L.A. but had a completely different feel. Definitely worth the trip (and the cold).

Mount Lowe (again)

2007-02-17T14:25:00.000-08:00

Hiked: January 14, 2007

Friends, hikers, readers of my blog. I have been negligent. I have been a bad blogger. I have hiked three times since you've seen me last, with nary a word written on this blog. I am filled with shame over my inconquerable laziness.

FAST FACTS:

• Length: 3 miles
• Elevation gain/loss: 500'
• Location: San Gabriel Mountains
• Type of Hike: Out and Back

I actually have been quite busy lately, so I have a pseduo-excuse for not blogging. This hike to Mount Lowe took place a mere four days before I left town to attend the Sundance Film Festival. Midway through my 10 days at Sundance, I contracted a fun strain of food poisoning that cleaned out my entire digestive system and left me a tad lethargic. Then, once I returned from Sundance, I had to catch up with my actual life that I had left behind. This meant doing actual work. No more watching three movies a day and hobnobbing with celebrities. This "actual work" also left me with little time to blog. I apologize. This is my attempt at atonement.

So, on to the hiking. On Sunday, January 14, my friends Shanna (whose secret identity is no secret, hence the lack of pseudonym) and Pulitzer (name derived from her fabulous sweater) expressed an interest in hiking. Shanna was short on time, so I suggested we hike up Mt. Lowe. I had done this hike before, and I knew we'd be able to get up and back with enough time to spare.

When you arrive at the trailhead, just across Mt. Wilson road there's a great view of Mount Baldy covered in snow:

It was then I realized how different this hike was in the winter. It was a perfectly clear day, but it was very cold for Southern California. It had even dropped below freezing for a few nights, which might be the first sign of apocalypse. (In a related note, on the day I flew out to Sundance, it snowed in Malibu. Yes, snowed.) So up on the mountain it was even colder.

Of course, Pulitzer, Shanna and I were all bundled up for our hike. As we got going we ended up shedding a lot of our layers, but it never got quite what you'd call "warm." Here's proof:

Snow on the ground only 20 minutes from downtown L.A. Stop the presses!

When I did this hike with BF in the summer, we added an extra two miles or so to the hike by hiking a loop around the front side of Mt. Lowe. I also tortured myself by wearing TeVa sandals. This time, we just did the quick 3-mile hike straight up and back, and I was wearing proper footwear.

Also, this being January, not July, the views from the top were much clearer. It was slightly hazy, but not the "my lungs are black from smog" type of haze, thankfully. Here are a few shots:

(That shiny thing in the distance is the Pacific Ocean.)

Some peak spotters (and Shanna using them):

Mt. Baldy in the distance:

And some info about Mt. Lowe:

The hike was pleasant, chilly, and otherwise uneventful. Just a nice day out. Nothing else to report.

Little Baldy - Sequoia Nat'l Park

2006-12-11T18:21:00.000-08:00

Hiked November 25, 2006

It was the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and BF, dad, and I decided to try and counteract our activities from the previous two days—namely, eating voaciously—and go out for a hike. It was supposed to be a clear day up in the Sierras, and we thought we might be able to get one last hike in before the snowy season. (They call that "Winter" in most places. In Los Angeles, we don't really know what it's all about.)

Because my parents are divorced, I had the good fortune of having two full Thanksgiving meals, one on Thursday and one on Friday. This meant I really needed to hike.

We chose a trail from my dad's book "Best Short Hikes in California's Southern Sierras" called "Little Baldy." Dad said he had hiked it before, and it was a nice little jaunt with great views. The forecast said it would be sunny with highs in the 50s. So we got on the road.

Of course, this being a Hiking L.A. hike, we got a late start. We got on the road by noon, though, with dad driving his Prius and BF snoozing in the backseat.

As we headed into the mountains, a huge wall of clouds loomed in the distance. Dad and I started to question the weather.com forecast of "sunny, 54 degrees." Our doubt only grew as we climbed higher and found ourselves deep inside a dense fog.

"Maybe we'll get above the clouds," dad said optimistically.

We got to the split in the road where you turn left to go to Kings Canyon and right to go to Sequoia National Park and it was still foggy. We took a right, and about fifteen minutes later, the sun started shining again. We were above the clouds.

As we kept driving, Dad started to get nervous about finding the trail. He had gone online to find a description of the hike, and had printed out a trail description for a hike called "Big Baldy." It was approximately the same distance and elevation change, but I had a sneaking suspicion that it was a completely different hike. Dad thought it was just people messing up the names. Big Baldy, Little Baldy—they're both bald, right? What difference could it make?

I was convinced, however, that these were two separate hikes. I was even more convinced when we passed a sign on the highway that said "Big Baldy Trailhead" and it didn't match the description from the book at all. Though he didn't really want to drive any further, I convinced dad to keep going so we could find the Little Baldy trailhead.

Of course, at this point dad realized that the last time he hiked what he thought was "Little Baldy," he had instead hiked it's big brother. Then dad really started to get concerned that the hike in the book would be either: 1) too far away, or 2) not a satisfying hike. There was no way to tell. We decided just to give it a chance.

With a little help from the Prius' GPS navigation system, we found the Little Baldy trailhead after a few more miles. We got out of the car to find ourselves in near-freezing weather. I had bundled up before we got in the car, and I came prepared with gloves, my winter hiking jacket, and long johns under my hiking pants. As I was getting dressed that morning, BF made fun of me. He teased me and said "we're not climbing Mount Everest."

But when we stepped into the chilly air, BF had stopped laughing. Luckily, dad had packed extra hats and scarves for the trip. BF wrapped a scarf around his head and neck and pinned it down with a baseball cap. He looked like a low-rent sheik. But it kept him warm.

Finally, we started hiking. The hike consists of switchbacks that head from Little Baldy Saddle, at around 7300 feet, to the top of Little Baldy, 8044 feet. The climb was gradual—enough to raise your heart rate but not punishing. On the way up, we started to climb high above the clouds and got some amazing vistas:

As you head up the mountain, there's a false summit about 500 yards from the real summit. It almost had us fooled, especially since you could see an amazing view of the Pacific Crest from there. Here's BF posing in front of it:

Thankfully, we kept hiking and after another quick jaunt uphill, we arrived at the top of the world:

It was hard to believe we weren't at the top of the world. We had a 360-degree view of the Sierras and the sea of clouds over the valley. Here's a picture that dad tells me includes Big Baldy in the distance:

BF had a fun time scaring me by pretending to jump off the side of the mountain. Here's an example of what it looked like, except I'm the one at the ledge:

It turns out there was another 100 feet or so of level rock beyond that point. It looks much scarier that it actually was. Here's a rare picture of BF and I together on a hike (usually it's just two of us, and one of us has to be behind the camera):

And here's the Pacific Crest again:

And another vista:

Other hikers had made cairns (or ducks, depending on what you want to call them) and placed them strategically at the edge of the bald summit:

Here's the marker to prove where we were:

The only downside was that it was downright freezing at the summit. The wind was blowing steadily, and it had to be at least ten degrees below freezing. After twenty minutes of soaking in the views, we decided it was time to thaw out.

So we headed back down the mountain, stopping at the false summit to eat some sandwiches. When we got back to the car, the Prius informed us that it was 32 degrees outside. This was at the bottom of the hill. For a L.A. girl, this was beyond cold. We needed to warm up.

Before we left the park, we stopped at a grove of giant sequoias to take some pictures. It was getting dark, and we were back in the fog, so there was an eerie glow about. BF managed to get a good shot of the trees, still:

We arrived back in Fresno safely, and not long afterwards BF and I gathered up our things and drove back home to Echo Park. Later that week, back in the warmth of sunny SoCal, dad called me to say that we had gone hiking at just the right time. Two days after our hike, the Sierras were hit by the first big snowstorm of the season, and most day hiking trails would be closed for the Winter. We got in just under the wire.

Switzer Falls

2006-12-06T19:12:00.000-08:00

Hiked: November 18, 2006

The weekend before Thanksgiving arrived and more than a month had passed since BF and I had been able to go on a hike. The simple explanation for this was that we had visited family up in Portland, Oregon one weekend, and then I proceeded to be ill with a viral cold (diagnosis thanks to my mother, the doctor and reigning queen of over-the-phone diagnoses).

But on Saturday, November 18, I finally felt well enough to venture out. Unfortunetly, BF and I didn't get our act together until very late (as usual). We had invited a friend to come along, and by the time we all figured out where to hike it was almost 3pm.

Because of this, we chose a short, four-miler just a few miles up the Angeles Crest Highway. We decided to hike to Switzer Falls, a popular hike among Angelinos in the know.

To arrive at the trailhead, you drive down a side road that descends about 500 or 600 feet into the canyon below. You start at the Switzer picnic area and head downstream from there. However, when we arrived at the gate, we were confronted with a large sign informing us that the gates would close at 4:30. BF drove us down the road halfway, just to check the scene out, when we saw multiple patches of broken glass on the ground. It seemed that many cars had been broken into at some point recently. Because of this, we didn't feel great about leaving my car below the gates, especially if it were to get stuck there overnight. So BF dropped the friend and I off and returned the car to the highway above.

A quick aside: the friend shall now be known as "Danger Mouse". I say this because when I told him to come up with a fun alias for the Hiking L.A. blog, he jokingly presented this as an option. He never came up with another one, so Danger Mouse it is.

Back to the hike. BF parked the car and carefully hid from sight all valuables. He then met us back down the path and we headed on our way.

The hike itself is very easy and pleasant. For the first half of the trail, you simply follow the stream on mostly flat terrain. The trail crosses back and forth across the water, but the stream was very low so this was an easy undertaking. Here's a view from the beginning of the trail:

And BF getting artistic:

About a mile in, the trail climbs the canyon wall and you gain all your elevation (600 feet in all) within a short distance. At this point, you find some nice vistas of what I gather is Bear Canyon:

Then you descend toward the falls and the shadows. There you eventually find the slightly diminutive falls. Here's Danger Mouse demonstrating his bravery:

It was getting dark at the falls, so we decided to hoof it back to the car. The light had completely faded when we reached the flat part of the trail again, but we each had flashlights, so it wasn't a problem.

There was only one mishap to report. As we walked in the dark, BF led, I was in the middle, and Danger Mouse brought up the rear. At one point, a large tree trunk crossed the path at about forehead level. BF ducked under it, and as I also ducked under it I thought, "Maybe I should warn Danger Mouse about this." Then I thought, "No, it's so obvious!" I didn't want to be patronizing, so I kept my mouth shut. The next thing I heard was a loud, cartoonish "boiiinnggg" and I turned to find Danger Mouse splayed out on the ground. Lesson learned: better safe than sorry. Luckily, Danger Mouse wasn't seriously hurt.

We arrived back at the picnic area without further incident and started our climb up the steep road back up to the car. I had to take a few breathers on the way up—I'm a slow climber and I was still recovering from that pesky virus. One of the great surprises of the hike came when I was pausing on the road staring up at the stars that don't come out in Los Angeles. I saw a shooting star, and then Danger Mouse spotted another, and we realized that it was the night of the Leonid meteor shower. Even though we weren't in an ideal geophysical position to see the show, we got to see at least a dozen shooting stars between the tree of us. Considering I can see about 5 stars on any given night in Los Angeles, this was certainly a treat.

When we arrived at the car it was still intact and our goods were still inside, thankfully. Then Danger Mouse asked if we might be interested in hitting up In N Out Burger on the way home. We told him it was basically a tradition at this point, and we wouldn't think of eating anything else, let alone anything healthy. So we three went off into the darkness, towards double-doubles animal style, a warm shower, and a good night's sleep under the obscured L.A. stars.

Grizzly Flat

2006-10-16T16:49:00.000-07:00

Hiked October 15, 2006

Angeles Crest Highway to Grizzly Flat and Vasquez Creek via Upper Dark Canyon Trail

After three weekends without hiking, BF and I were itching to get back out on the trail. The gods of scheduling had spitefully kept us from the mountains for far too long. First it was a trip to Wisconsin to attend a friend's wedding. Then BF's parents were in town for two weekends in a row, further preventing us from running off to the woods.

While BF's parents were in town, we did take them to walk around downtown Los Angeles. As we were touring around, it occurred to me that a walk through downtown L.A. could actually be considered a legitimate hike. There's significant elevation change (if you plan your route properly) and a lots of interesting scenery. For example, you could visit the Disney Concert Hall:

Only Frank Gehry could have designed a building like this. The inside of the concert hall supposedly has the best acoustics of any new building in the world. It also has an amazing organ completely integrated into the design of the back wall.

The other great thing about Disney Hall is that you can walk all around the structure, up and down stairways and around the curved metal. Here are some pics from around the building:

There's a garden terrace on the back side of the building, where Gehry designed this really cool flower fountain. It's made completely out of broken china:

When you're downtown, you can also visit the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. The architecture is very modern and quite different from most Catholic cathedrals you'll encounter. Standing over the entrance to the chapel is this statue:

Then go on to check out L.A. City Hall. Dragnet, anyone?

Onto hiking in the actual wilderness. On Saturday night, my girl friends had arranged a middle-school-style sleepover, complete with mud masques, sleeping bags, and cute PJs. Of course, we added a little vodka and rum to the equation. This resulted in a very fun and relaxing evening. Of course, the next morning I was suffering the inescapable effects of drinking and then only sleeping for four hours.

Around noon, the girls and I went to breakfast and I tended to my throbbing head with a good dose of bacon, coffee, and ibuprofen. Then I drove myself back home to a waiting BF.

BF was slightly irritated that I hadn't called him earlier. He had woken up at 9:30 because he wasn't sure when we'd be taking off to hike. I arrived home around 1:30 in the afternoon. I needed to lie down on the couch.

After about an hour of lounging around, BF inquired whether we'd be hiking at all. I replied in a noncommittal manner. Then BF rightfully put me in my place and properly shamed me into getting off my hungover rear end. It had been almost a month since we had gone hiking, he argued, and we really needed to get back out there. I grudgingly agreed, and so I peeled myself off the couch.

I picked a hike relatively close by, only 6 miles north of La Canada on the Angeles Crest Highway. Even so, we didn't arrive at the trailhead until 4 p.m. This was pushing it even for us. However, the trail was listed as "easy" in our guidebook, and it was only 4.5 miles long, so we figured we could easily get back before sundown around 6:30.

The trail begins right off the road, and it heads straight up the hill with a very steep grade. In less than a half mile, you climb about 500 feet.

The weather had changed significantly during the past three weeks. On Friday the 13th, it had poured rain throughout Los Angeles for the first time this season. When we arrived at the trailhead, it was overcast and legitimately chilly. I loved it. I was so ready for the sweltering summer to be over and to have some temperate conditions to climb in.

Once we started up the trail, we quickly walked into a very light fog. We could see the trail ahead of us, but not much of the surrounding wilderness.

It was eerie and wonderful. Here's a big tree hiding in the fog:

It wasn't great for taking pictures, though, so we didn't bother with too many. As we got to the top of the first climb, we arrived at a pine plantation—apparently the forest service used to repopulate burned-out forest here with pine trees. They look very out of place.

After the first group of pines, you descend along a fire road toward Grizzly Flat, where you encounter another pine plantation. Here's a pic:

The pinecones dropped by these trees are extra-sharp and pointy. I found them interesting:

BF and I tried to take a side-trail to go find Vasquez Creek, but after about a half mile of descending and no creek to be found, we decided to turn back. We've seen creeks before. We needed to get back to the car before the sun set, and we had a lot of climbing to do.

Turning around, I huffed and puffed my way back up the trail. It turns out that there were almost no flat parts to this trail - you were always climbing or descending. I had just recently recovered from a nasty bout with Mr. Common Cold, so my climbing speed was even slower than normal.

However, I made it back up to the first pine plantation much easier than expected, and BF and I walked straight into some very dense fog. It made me think of Halloween. I love the mood overcast skies and dense fog creates. But I digress.

BF and I descended the final stretch very quickly. I had a flashlight in my hand, but it was more for insurance than for actual illumination. We arrived back at the car by 6:30, with plenty of daylight to spare.

Dillon Divide to Pacoima Canyon

2006-09-19T17:40:00.000-07:00

Hiked: September 17, 2006

BF and I had to skip a week in our hiking adventures. For the first time in ten weeks, we had plans that prevented us from hiking! These aforementioned plans involved flying to Missouri to attend a friend's wedding. We flew out of LAX at 6 a.m. Saturday morning and returned by noon on Sunday. That calculates to exactly 30 hours spent out of town. Packed into those two score and ten hours were the following:

LAX to STL flight

Drive from STL to Rolla, MO

Five White Castle Burgers (my first)

One wedding ceremony

One wedding reception

Two glasses of rosé champagne

Two red bull & vodkas

It was an open bar...I lost count

Three hours of sleep

Drive from Rolla to STL

STL to LAX flight (not sitting next to BF)

Needless to say, BF and I were wiped out by the time we got back to our apartment. We had toyed with the idea of hiking on Sunday afternoon, if only to keep up our streak, but instead we both passed out cold on the couch. In fact, it probably wasn't until Wednesday that we felt back to normal after our marathon outing to Missouri.

Having missed a week, BF and I were more determined than ever to get back out on the trail this weekend. We both had previous engagements for Saturday, so we decided Sunday would be our day. We even considered doing a "big" hike like Mount Baldy. These high-minded plans were thwarted when, on Thursday, my knee started acting up, and then I got a miserable migraine on Saturday night. A "big" hike was out of the question. Instead, BF consulted our new hiking book, "Trails of the Angeles," and came up with hike #6: Dillon Divide to Pacoima Canyon. I was game.

The trail begins north of Sunland, off of Little Topanga Canyon Road. BF and I got a late start (like I really need to point this out anymore), but we had plenty of time to do the 7-mile, 800 foot elevation gain hike. We started out around 2 p.m. by heading down a little fire road. The road heads gently downhill until you find the footpath, which leads you straight down to Dutch Louie Flat, at the base of the canyon.

Just as we got started, BF snapped this picture of the hills:

The black & white isn't a stylistic choice—he just didn't realize it was set for monochrome at the time.

On the way down, I admired the abundance of this pretty red-orange plant:

It really was all over the place, and it looked like a Southern California version of New England Fall leaves. In fact, the weather had cooled down during the last week, and I felt a distinct sense that Fall was right around the corner. However, the beginning of our hike was decidedly hot, and we were glad to descend into the shade of the canyon below.

Once down at Dutch Louie Flat, the first thing we noticed was the lack of any water in the streambed. Our book had promised a all-year stream flowing through the canyon. Instead, we found a rocky river bed covered in a layer of gray, dried-out algae. This lizard was chilling on top of said algae:

BF and I continued along, alternately hiking in the riverbed and along an indistinct path that wandered to and fro from the nonexistent stream. From the moment we arrived at Dutch Louie Flat, our hiking options were limited to climbing over large rocks or walking in soft sand. Neither choice was ideal, and the hike felt twice as difficult because of the uneven terrain. I knew I'd be sore the next day in all those weird side-leg muscles I never use during regular walking. (I was right.)

As we hobbled along, I suddenly saw this monster of a bug flying at my head:

Aahh!

I screamed and ducked in the calmest way possible when a two-inch insect is hurtling towards your head. I believe I exclaimed "oh, damn!" as it flew towards me. Luckily, it passed me by and disappeared around the next bend. BF hadn't seen this bug, and when I described it to him he was incredulous. It probably wasn't that gnarly, I was just being girly, he figured.

So we moved on, hiking around the bend from whence the monster bug came, and discovered a sunny clearing dotted with pretty yellow flowering bushes. As we walked around exploring, I came very close to one of these flowering bushes and heard loud buzzing noises. I scuttled away quickly when I realized that the buzzing noise was emanating from a large beehive embedded in the center of the bush. When I was relatively certain that the bees weren't coming after me, I took a look around and realized that most of the bushes were covered in stinging, airborne insect life.

On one bush in particular, there was not just one monster bug, but probably a dozen of them. BF and I kept a safe distance away as he whipped out his telephoto lens:

He took about 30 pictures of these critters, many of which are actually in focus. But I chose this shot because it captures the color of the bug well—shiny blue body and bright rust-colored wings.

When BF got home, he immediately did some research and discovered that the monster bugs were in fact called "tarantula hawks." Essentially, these are big wasps that hunt tarantulas. They hunt tarantulas, people! How hardcore is that?

Of course, as BF noted later in the safety of our home, the presence of so many tarantula hawks indicated the presence of tarantulas. Had we seen a tarantula, we might have been even more freaked out. (Author's note: I do realize that tarantulas aren't particularly poisonous to humans. Nonetheless, they still are big, hairy spiders, which is justification enough for me to run away from them.)

The other interesting thing about the tarantula hawk is its incredibly painful sting. For your consideration: an entomologist named Justin O. Schmidt ranks it near the top of his eponymous Sting Pain Index. His description of the pain is as follows: "Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath (if you get stung by one you might as well lie down and scream)."

If BF and I had known this, we may have stepped back a few feet.

Once we had had our fill of the tarantula-eating insect, BF and I decided to keep heading down the canyon. We were almost ready to abandon our plan of finding landmarks described in the hiking book (an old tunnel, something called "Dagger Flat") but we just decided to keep going until we were certain we'd never come to an identifiable spot and then turn around.

We were both very glad we continued on, because shortly we came upon an awesome sight. There was a small pool of water with a little stream feeding it—what appeared to be the last remains of the stream—and standing in the pool was a huge bird:

BF and I stealthily approached it, and snapped a million pictures of it going about its business. Here are some highlights:

As we got closer, the bird fanned out its wings and stood up very straight. We're still not sure if this was a defensive stance or if it was just trying to warm itself in the sun:

It was difficult to tear ourselves away from the bird, but we finally decided we had bothered it enough, and we moved on. We went another half mile before we finally gave up hope of the tunnel or Dagger Flat. BF claims he saw a deer, but it ran off before I could spot it.

One thing we did find a lot of was shotgun shells. They were scattered evenly all along the trail route. I'm not sure who was firing a shotgun out here, and I was not eager to run into a gun-toting maniac, so I was happy to head back out of the canyon. BF thought they might have been shooting at this old, rusted-out car:

Back at our pool, our bird friend was still there. As we walked, it decided it had had enough of us, and it flew away:

And so we headed back, keeping an eye out for the apocryphal tunnel. (We never found it.) The last leg of the hike was the uphill slog back up to Dillon Divide. I had to take it a bit slowly, but it wasn't as brutal as I had anticipated. Once up at the fire road, the sun started to set behind the lingering forest-fire smoke:

BF and I considered staying later to get a shot of the sun as it turned fire-engine red behind the smoke, but we were ready to get back to the car. We were both hungry, and we could hear In-N-Out calling our names. So we found the end of the trail and headed back down to the L.A. basin, but not without picking up some animal style burgers first.

Boole Tree - Sequoia Nat'l Park

2006-09-11T18:03:00.000-07:00

Hiked September 2, 2006

BF's sister, NM, visited us last week. She is a NICU nurse in Erie, PA, and she was interested in visiting a bona-fide children's hospital, so we took a trip up to Fresno so she could check out my dad's workplace, Children's Hospital Central California.

We also decided to show NM some of Sequoia National Park. NM wasn't quite in a state to hike long distances, so we chose a shorter hike. We decided to hike to Boole Tree, theoretically the largest tree (by volume) in any national forest. This is theoretical, because different sources give me different data. Our hiking book said it was the largest, but Wikipedia claims it's the 6th-largest, and yet another web site says it's the 8th-largest. Bottom line: it's a freakin' big ass tree. Excuse my lack of literary prowess, but that's the truth.

So Dad, BF, NM, and I drove up to the park, less than two hours outside of Fresno. The hike was supposed to be an out-and-back two miler according to our hiking book. When we got to the trailhead, we saw that we could instead do a 2.5 mile loop that would provide nice views of Kings Canyon. We opted for the extra half mile and the better views.

At the start of the trail, you climb almost the entire 600 feet in a mile. The scene is very pastoral at the beginning:

And a cool piece of flora BF spotted:

As you head up the hill, the woods get thicker and the sunlight filters through all the big trees. Just when it was starting to get really dark, we came to a fork in the trail and saw a sign pointing to the right. It said "Trail". We debated the meaning of this sign for a few moments before BF ran ahead to check things out. When he returned, we all agreed that "Trail" was to be interpreted as "Trail spur to go see the Boole Tree."

For once, we were actually right in our trail navigation. We followed the spur a few hundred feet to find the massive Boole Tree. According to the mostly-trustworthy Wikipedia, the Boole tree is 268.8 feet high and 113 feet in circumference. In volumetric terms, that's 317,733 gallons. My car could travel 9,531,990 miles on that!

Look at NM and myself standing in front of the tree, and you'll believe it's huge (I'm the one pointing to the heavens):

Because the tree is so large, it's not very easy to photograph. Never afraid of a challenge, BF stepped up with his digital SLR and shot away. This is a pretty cool shot up through a charred hole in the side of the tree:

Giant Sequoias have a unique ability to survive forest fires. Seeing as they live thousands of years, this is a necessary trait. The reason they can have charred-out insides and still persevere is because of the way they transport water from their roots to their leaves. Essentially, all a Giant Sequoia needs to survive is a few inches of its outer rings (and enough of a root system to keep it from toppling over). This is why many Giant Sequoia trees have large burned portions on their trunks.

BF decided to do a sideways panorama of the tree. He took a bunch of pics and stitched them together, to get this awesomely distorted shot:

Having circled the tree a few times, we all decided to get on with our hike. We looped around and got a cool view of beautiful Kings Canyon:

It was a hazy day, so the next huge vista we got wasn't particularly camera-friendly, but it was beautiful nonetheless:

We were back at the car before we knew it, and with daylight fading, we decided to visit the sequoia grove to see some more massive trees. BF caught the sunset reflecting off the Oregon Tree:

Once the sun set, we headed back to Fresno. We stopped over at my stepmom's house to eat some Thai takeout (NM can't get Thai food in Erie, so she was very excited about this meal) and hang out with my stepbrothers. Incidentally, my stepmom introduced me to a wonderful new dessert. It involves hollowing out a strawberry, pouring butterscotch schnapps into the cavity, topping it with whipped cream, and popping the whole concoction into your mouth. I highly recommend it.

Echo Mountain

2006-09-06T11:22:00.000-07:00

Hiked August 26, 2006

BF and I chose this trail after I returned from flute choir. I had wanted to do an easy hike because I was recovering from a case of strep throat—I was still feeling a bit out of it, and a long hike wasn't in the cards. I also needed to do a short hike because my friend Shanna and I were heading to the American Idols Live concert that night.

If you're wondering why Shanna doesn't get to be anonymous on my blog, it's because she has her own blog called "Out of My Head" (linked in the right column) where she has already revealed her secret identity.

Anyway, for the sake of saving my infection-ridden self and making it in time to hear Elliott Yamin sing "Trouble", BF and I chose to hike Echo Mountain, just north of Pasadena.

It was a hot day in Los Angeles, and the views were not exactly clear. There are days in L.A. when you can see from the mountains to the ocean with perfect clarity. This was not one of those days. Instead, the city was hazy with smog.

It made me want to cough. I thought of all the particulate matter that I was inhaling, and suddenly I yearned for Yosemite again. But we were stuck in Los Angeles, and we were going to hike through the smog even if it killed us!

After a little puttering around trying to find the right trailhead, BF and I stumbled across a plaque detailing the hike. Here I am looking over it:

The plaque informed me that at the turn of the 20th century, some very industrious individuals built a railway and a large complex of buildings at the top of Echo Mountain. I've borrowed the following picture from Peter J. McClosky's site:

He has a lot of cool pictures of the railway, the observatory, and the whole Echo Mountain site.

Before I get ahead of myself, let me talk about the hike. Basically, the hike is just switchbacks straight up to the mountaintop. There is very little shade, which was pretty brutal on such a hot day. Ascending 1400 feet in 2.5 miles was surprisingly strenuous for me. I suppose I should have known it would be, but I was expecting it to be a little easier. Of course, I drank a lot of water and just took the hike slowly. In the end, the ruins at the top easily justify the slog uphill.

About halfway up the hill, you cross under some huge power lines:

Being late summer, there weren't a lot of wildflowers, but here's one we found:

There were a fair amount of hikers coming down the trail as we were going up. Of course, this had to do with our usual late start. Most sane hikers had headed up the hill when it was cooler. However, because most people were coming down, we had the summit mostly to ourselves when we arrived.

BF liked the look of the rock on the mountainside and he got artistic:

We also found this dusty grasshopper sitting in the middle of the trail:

Otherwise, the hike up was mostly uneventful. Once we reached the summit, we got a good dose of history. You can read all about it on the Wikipedia entry for the Mount Lowe Railway.

Here are the Clif's Notes: a railway was built in the 1890s to take vacationers up to Echo Mountain, where there was once a casino, observatory, and a big hotel. There were also two large generators to supply the tourists with electric illumination. Unfortunately, in 1905 the wires from said generators got caught up in a wind storm and caused a huge fire that burned down everything but the observatory.

They rebuilt the Echo Mountain House, but the railway was abandoned in 1938 after a string of natural disasters made the whole operation unfeasible.

Now, all that's left is the foundation of the Echo Mountain House and a few pieces of the railway. Here's the remains of the house:

A big piece of railroad equipment:

And a huge gear for pulling the railcars up the incline (with me standing next to it for scale):

BF also got a little artsy with the gears:

Another cool artifact is the "echo phone":

Apparently people used to yell through this contraption, and people up on Mount Lowe could yell back through another and they'd have a conversation. It's no RAZR V3, but it's certainly wireless communication.

Having checked out the ruins, BF and I decided to head back down the mountain. It's always amazing to me how much faster you descend on a hike, and this trail was no exception. What took an hour to climb took what seemed like minutes to descend. BF and I knew we had to get back to the car ASAP so I could make my date with Taylor Hicks, so we didn't stop very often. We did stop to get a shot of a circling hawk overhead:

I suspect it's a red-tail hawk, but I'll have to wait for my brother to confirm this for me. Right now he's in Veracruz, Mexico, counting and identifying hawks for a living, so I always default to his raptor-spotting skills.

We made it back to the car just in time to pick up some In-N-Out Burger, get home, shower, and eat (in that order) before heading off to the concert.

P.S. The concert was great, especially because I got the tickets for $10 each even though the face value was $60. Thank you, eBay.

Panorama Trail - Yosemite

2006-08-24T16:26:00.000-07:00

Hiked: August 19, 2006

My entry for this hike requires a few disclaimers. First: I know Yosemite isn't exactly in Los Angeles. I also know that this is supposed to be a blog about hiking L.A., but you're going to have to cut me some slack. In truth, Yosemite isn't all that far from Los Angeles. If people travel from all over the world to see Half Dome and El Capitan, Angelinos certainly can jump in there car and check it out. (According to Google Maps, it's 311 miles from Los Angeles to Yosemite.)

More information: I grew up in scenic Fresno, the raisin capital of the world that's currently run by Capt. Bubba Skinner. Dad still resides in the 'no, and he likes to take advantage of its close proximity to Yosemite. He had hiked the Panorama Trail once before and had been recommending it to BF and I for quite some time. After a lot of scheduling mishaps, we finally decided on a mutually-agreeable weekend to hike the trail. Our plan was to come up to Fresno on a Friday night, sleep a few hours, then head up to Yosemite Saturday morning. After the hike, we'd return to Fresno, sleep, and then head back to L.A. on Sunday. That way we wouldn't have to miss work.

Here's who joined BF and I on this hike: dad, mom, Panda and Xmas. You may remember my dad as the guy who took pictures of his Toyota Prius on the Mishe Mokwa Trail. Even though my parents have been divorced for ten years, dad invited mom to come on the hike, too. They're friends now. It's all very progressive and mature of them, don't you think? It seems like the premise for a sitcom on the ABC Family channel.

Panda and Xmas are two of my friends that I met in grad school. I could call them by their initials, like I did with EVG, but calling them by these names is much more amusing to me. Regardless, Panda and Xmas are best friends and roommates, they're both from Connecticut, and they're both fiction writers. I originally only invited Xmas to join us on the hike, not because I don't like Panda, but because she was out of town when we originally planned the hike. Luckily for Panda, dad and I had scheduling conflicts that pushed our hike back to a day when she could join us.

Once Xmas got home from her fancy showbiz job, and after we took care of a little foster cat drama we got on the road to Fresno. We arrived at my dad's house around one a.m., just in time for three hours of sleep.

In the morning, Panda and BF complained that they both didn't really get any sleep. Xmas and I had slept some, but three hours isn't exactly enough to make you feel bright-eyed and chipper. Nonetheless, we all somehow managed to get dressed and on the road by 5:30.

The Panorama Trail is a one-way hike. To get started, you park in Yosemite Valley and take a bus from Yosemite Lodge up to Glacier Point. The bus ride took about an hour. Our driver was a well-intentioned but nonetheless annoying woman who insisted on talking about mountain elves and referring to all pines as "Christmas trees". Luckily, the seats were comfortable and we all nodded off for most of the drive.

Once at Glacier Point, you are suddenly accosted by the magnificent view of Yosemite Valley below you. Here's what I'm talking about:

It's certainly an awe-inspiring place. The six of us walked around Glacier Point taking pictures for about a half hour before we realized that we'd have great views all along the trail. It was getting on to noon, and we really needed to get on the trail.

As you may have noticed, BF has a very nice digital SLR camera. My dad also has a similarly nice digital SLR from a different manufacturer. BF even has a fancy telephoto lens with a gyroscopic stabilization system that allows him to take very detailed pictures of far away things. Case in point: the hikers on top of Half Dome:

Those little specks of people were barely visible through binoculars from Glacier Point.

As opposed to dad and BF, with their multi-megapixel contraptions, Xmas had brought along two disposable cameras. Now, I'm the first person to celebrate the merits of disposable cameras. The investment is small so you never have to worry about breaking them. The only problem is that once you've taken 36 pictures you're done.

This becomes a distinct problem on the Panorama Trail because every step you take brings you to a new, amazing vista. I believe Xmas finished her first two cameras in the first mile of the hike.

The Panorama trail takes a wide loop from Glacier Point and curves around past Illouette Falls, then behind Half Dome past Nevada Falls, and finally Vernal Falls. Dad had told us that the trail was "mostly downhill, with a little uphill part in the middle." Seeing as we started at Glacier Point, 7274 feet above sea level, and we'd be ending at Yosemite valley, 4000 feet above sea level, I believed him. How much uphill could there possibly be? The trail was only 8.2 miles long, after all.

As we got started on the trail, dad gave mom one of his hiking sticks—essentially a collapsible ski pole—to help her with the hike. This would become a very important tool for mom as the hike wore on. But first, the initial views:

The upper waterfall is Nevada Falls, and the lower one is Vernal Falls. This was mid-August, so the falls were supposedly on the weaker side. You could have fooled me and Xmas—we both thought they were pretty big.

The beginning of the hike takes you gradually downhill towards Illouette Falls. We stopped often to take pictures and enjoy the views, but we were making good time. Here's a picture of Illouette Falls as we approached it:

We arrived at the crystal-clear pool above Illouette Falls around noon, and we decided to sit down and eat lunch. The water looked inviting, so Xmas took off her shoes and waded in ankle-deep. Dad decided this would be the perfect time to test out his new UV Water Purifier. (I had stumbled upon this device reading over other hiking blogs, and when I showed it to dad he immediately wanted one.) Dad took a sample from the river and, after sterilization, I had a sample. The water was refreshing and tasted quite good, and to this date (over a week later) we haven't gotten sick.

One of the reasons I had encouraged dad to take water from the river was because I was concerned we didn't have enough bottled water to go around. BF and I packed our usual large amount of partially-frozen water, more than enough for the two of us. Dad had plenty, too. Xmas and Panda reassured all of us that they had enough, so we didn't press them for details.

Mom, on the other hand, clearly didn't have enough water. When I asked her if she had water, she pulled a small bottle of diet pepsi and a bottle of club soda out of her fanny pack. I told her this wasn't enough, but she didn't seem to agree with me. It turns out that dad hadn't quite explained to mom just how strenuous the hike was going to be. In fact, he hadn't quite been accurate in his description of the trail to any of us.

After leaving Illouette Falls, the trail began to climb uphill. Jokingly, we immediately started razzing dad about his claim that the hike was "mostly downhill." Our tone became less humored and more accusatory as the trail kept climbing. Mom and I climbed the trail slowly, the rest of the crew having hiked ahead of us at the beginning. Every couple hundred feet, mom would stop and say, "it keeps going up!" I was trying to use positive thinking to my advantage, and my mantra was "it couldn't possibly go much higher." Mom was the pessimist, I was the optimist. In the end, mom was right. It did keep going up.

I can understand why mom was exasperated. Three months prior, she had fallen sick and ended up in the E.R. with a raging case of sepsis. According to my stepdad, there was a point during the night she was admitted when she was very close to death. My mom is a doctor (as are my dad and stepdad) and the infection that knocked her out was a particularly gnarly hospital infection. These are bugs that generally only hang out in hospitals, where they mutate into antibiotic-resistant monsters that are difficult to kill.

Luckily, mom survived her ordeal and had been on the steady road to recovery all summer. But all was not back to normal. Most notably, her hemoglobin levels were still low. Hemoglobin is what transports oxygen from your lungs to the rest of your body. Hiking uphill at 7000 feet, you better have your hemoglobin working full-force. Unfortunately for mom, this wasn't the case.

And so, we took the uphill part slowly. It turns out that dad's "little uphill part" was a little more substantial than reported. According to yosemitefun.com, the Panorama Trail actually has 1964.8 feet of elevation gain.

Mom is a trooper, though, and we eventually made it to the top of the climb. We got some great views of the back-side of Half Dome during the climb:

BF switched his camera to black-and-white mode in what seems to be a tribute to Ansel Adams:

And so we started back downhill towards Nevada Falls. Up to Nevada Falls, we had only seen a dozen or so other hikers on the trail. Even though it was the height of tourist season and a Saturday, the trail was pleasantly unpopulated (unlike the valley and Glacier Point). But, when we got to Nevada Falls, we were suddenly confronted with hordes of other humans! Well, I may be exaggerating a bit, but there were definitely more people to be found. We soon figured out that this is because you can access both Nevada Falls and Vernal Falls by relatively short hikes from the valley floor.

Regardless, we took a much-needed rest at the top of Nevada falls:

We then doubled back and hiked alongside Nevada Falls towards Vernal Falls and got this great view:

And then as the trail approached Vernal Falls:

The trail leading up to Vernal Falls was beginning to get quite steep, and we were all feeling it in our knees and ankles. It was getting late, so we didn't dawdle at Vernal Falls. Instead, we decided to head down. There was only about a mile left of the hike, so we were getting excited about the prospect of a big dinner and a soak in mom's hot tub.

Little did we know that the Mist Trail steps were ahead of us. Below Vernal Falls, the trail consists of countless stone steps that wind steeply down the side of the waterfall. In 0.3 miles you lose about 1000 feet of elevation. After hiking from Glacier Point, this descent is killer on your joints. Mom, dad, and I all had to take our sweet time hobbling down the stairs. Mom had to stop at one point and lie down because she was so exhausted. My legs were trembling as though I were shivering, and my knees were aching with each footfall.

In the midst of all this, the sun hit the mist off Vernal Falls and BF took this amazing photo:

And, no, that is not photoshopped in any way. Well, I resized it in Adobe Photoshop, but that's it! Isn't it a great shot?

So, we somehow made it down to the valley floor in more or less one piece. We took the shuttle bus back to the Yosemite Lodge where our cars were parked. The sun was just going down as we arrived at the lodge, and apparently that meant it was time for the raccoons to come out in full force.

There were a few raccoons wandering around the grounds of the lodge, completely unfazed by all us humans. But what was more disturbing was the horde of raccoons on the roof of the lodge. I first noticed about six of the masked furballs wandering in a pack on the roof, and someone said, "they're coming out of a room!" Well, that made me pay more attention, and we watched as the group went to the next window, quickly pulled off the screen, and went looting. Here are some grainy action shots:

I decided that the responsible thing to do would be to go tell the front desk. As I approached, I noticed there was a raccoon standing guard outside the front door. Apparently he was their lookout. Eventually, he wandered away, and I told the manager that raccoons were systematically breaking-and-entering into guest rooms. He sighed, picked up the phone, and unenthusiastically told me, "this has happened before."

After admiring the raccoons' ingenuity for a few more minutes, we all decided it was time to get on the road. We stopped in Oakhurst for dinner, having found a lovely Italian restaurant that was still open and would take six sweaty, grimy, tired hikers. Unfortunately, I had started to feel quite ill on the drive home. I had eaten plenty of food and imbibed plenty of water during the hike, but somehow my internal equilibrium was not right. At dinner, I was hungry but incredibly nauseous and unable to eat any of my delicious-looking chicken piccata. I did manage to eat a few bites of salt-laden baked potato. My mom had suggested I try that because she suspected I was low on salt. I now think I had a mild case of hyponatremia. Whatever it was, I felt awful and I was embarrassed that I was such a miserable dinner companion.

I also inadvertently insulted my mom by suggesting that I drive home with dad instead of her. I only suggested it because I know dad drives slower than my mom, and I was hoping this would curb my nausea. Unfortunately, I think mom took this as a judgment about her driving. In all honesty, I was feeling so awful that I wasn't really able to make such a judgment. I just wanted to get home without ralphing.

I succeeded, and actually felt much better once I got home. The salt I poured on that baked potato must have kicked in.

The next morning, Xmas, Panda, BF and I all slept in late, working off the exhaustion and sleep-deprivation we had accumulated since Friday. After waking up and enjoying some coffee, we all went over to mom's house for a huge brunch of cheese, smoked salmon, hummus, scones, fruit... you name it, she had it. Then we all retreated to the back yard and took advantage of mom's fabulous pool and hot tub before heading back to Los Angeles.

Devil Canyon

2006-08-16T18:07:00.000-07:00

Hiked: August 12, 2006

I'm not sure why, but I'm really feeling a strong aversion to writing this blog post. Maybe its because all the events surrounding the hike were relatively infuriating, or perhaps it's because the hike itself wasn't particularly eventful. Regardless, I shall push on and write. Here goes nothing.

BF and I weren't sure if we'd get to hike this weekend. On Friday, we were supposed to be contestants on a new game show—the name of which shall not be mentioned because the network can sue me for a million dollars for just about anything at this point. The release form was pretty hefty, and I'd rather not violate its terms. Hell, even talking about the release form probably violates its terms. I better stop while I'm ahead. Regardless, Friday morning was our call time, but they told us to keep the whole weekend clear. Well, after about 10 hours of sitting around on Friday, we never became contestants on said game show. They told us to come back Sunday afternoon, so we had all day Saturday to hike.

I also was able to go to flute choir, which was a nice bonus. Of course, by the time I had come back from the music center, eaten lunch, and sat around watching TV for a while, BF and I still hadn't chosen a hike. We wanted to do a relatively easy hike, and because it was a very hazy day, I vetoed anything that had a "good view." Nothing could have had a good view on Saturday. Finally, we decided on Devil Canyon (not to be confused with Devil's Canyon) in Chatsworth. It was supposed to be a 5-mile hike with only 500 feet of elevation gain—exactly what I wanted. I used Google maps to find our trailhead's longitude and latitude, printed out the directions and the trail map, and we jumped in the car.

It was already 4p.m. by the time we left the apartment, but the freeways were clear and we arrived at our destination by 4:30. Unfortunately, our destination did not seem to exist. We consulted the map, and we were certainly in the right place. But where was the trailhead? All we saw were some massive ravens picking at roadside garbage. BF and I drove around for about a half hour looking for the trail. We went up a nearby side street only to find ourselves in the middle of a huge construction zone. We drove around some private streets and found nothing. Finally, we returned to where we started and explored a little on foot.

There was nothing to be found. Finally, a local resident called out to us from his passing car. He informed us that you can't get to the trail anymore because of the aforementioned construction. In order to find the trail, we'd have to get creative.

We drove around the corner to a large apartment complex where the guy had told us we could find the trail. BF got out of the car and hiked around for a while without finding anything. Finally, I consulted my handy Thomas Guide and saw that there was supposed to be a creek off to our North. We drove deep into the apartment complex and found a parking spot that seemed unreserved. Ducking under a wire fence, we saw our trail down the hill below. We quickly suited up, me wearing the camera bag and BF carrying the heavy backpack, and boogied out of the parking lot before a resident reported us for trespassing.

We descended along a small hill on the back side of the construction. Here's why you can't find the trailhead anymore:

With all those sprinklers and backhoes in the way, there's no real way to get to the trail without committing a minor misdemeanor. Of course, after all these delays, it was almost five o'clock by the time we started hiking.

Heading down the trail, you pass a rusted-out, wrecked car on your left:

This was my first indication that we were in the right place, because I remember it being mentioned in the Los Angeles times article about this trail. We pushed on and found a fork in the road where a dirt trail went off to the right and a gravel path continued straight. Here's a bit of advice: take the gravel path. BF and I took the dirt path about 300 feet up a hill before realizing we weren't in the right place.

Back on the right trail, we found our way along the mostly dry creek with ease. The main features of this hike are all the interesting sandstone formations along the canyon walls. For your consideration:

The trail follows a seasonal creek, which was pretty dry in this season. There were a few puddles of stagnant water to be found that were less-than appetizing:

The only real obstacle on our hike was a lovely tree that had fallen right across the trail. However, it was an easily-overcome foe:

Supposedly, you're only supposed to hike to a locked gate, but when BF and I found the gate, it was wide open. We decided we hadn't gone far enough, and we just kept going. We found these cool flowers and BF got artistic with the ye old camera:

Just past the gate is an old concrete dam:

We kept hiking until we realized that it was getting dark and it was time to go home. Turning back around, it got dark very quickly. But compared to our crazy night-hiking experience the week before, this was like walking down a multi-lane highway. We both had flashlights, and we just cruised along, enjoying the sounds of owls, frogs, and crickets. Speaking of frogs:

Also, the flowers we enjoyed earlier must have been night-bloomers, 'cause they were opening up:

We got back to our car, which, thankfully, hadn't been towed and headed on our way home. See? Nothing dramatic happened on this hike. It was just pleasant, like most hikes should be! And we only lost our way once. What's happening to BF and I? It's almost like we're becoming responsible outdoorspeople or something.

Check back next week for my report on the Panorama Trail in Yosemite National Park. I know it's not near L.A., but it'll be a great hike!

Malibu Spring

2006-08-08T14:28:00.000-07:00

Hiked: August 5, 2006

What is it those pesky Boy Scouts always say? "Be prepared"? It's a good idea in theory, but in real life you can never be fully prepared. Sure, you can try to prepare for all foreseeable scenarios. But when hiking, this makes for a very heavy backpack. What "be prepared" really means is: have some useful supplies, and be resourceful when those supplies aren't enough.

By this standard, BF and I were "prepared" for our hike on the Malibu Spring Trail. (I am here to tell the tale, after all.) By all other standards, though, we were woefully under-prepared for our adventure. There were a few key things we lacked.

Things We Lacked:

1) An early start. As usual, BF and I had mitigating circumstances that prevented us from getting out to the trail early. The official explanation for our late start was this guy:

His name is Peter, and he was one of our foster cats. BF and I have been taking in foster cats for the Southern California Siamese Rescue (SoCSR) for a few months now. Peter had been adopted by a woman in Phoenix, and someone from SoCSR came by to pick him up to take him to his new home.

Of course, I call this the "official" reason because Peter was in his carrier and on the road by 9:30 a.m. The real reason BF and I got a late start was because we decided to go back to sleep after Peter left.

2) A proper map. We had very sketchy directions to the trailhead. We would have missed it, but a nice resident of Malibu, noticing our navigational distress, pulled over to show us to the right place. When he asked where we were going, I told him "Nicholas Pond, via the Malibu Creek Trail."

"Oh, you're way off!" He proclaimed. I didn't believe him. I knew we hadn't found the trailhead, but I also knew we were on the right road. Nice Resident disagreed. But when I showed him the Google map of the site, he relented and said we had just passed it. But he did question our judgment.

"That's the long way to get there. It's like 3 miles straight up that hill. You don't really want to do that, do you?" He protested. We assured him that yes, we did want to hike up that hill, and though he raised his eyebrows, he didn't stop us. He did warn us that there were "a lot of ticks" on that trail, and we definitely needed long sleeves for the hike.

3) Long-sleeved shirts. Though I had read some of the trail reviews on LocalHikes, I didn't think the conditions would be bad enough to merit a long-sleeved top. In a rare moment of foresight, I did somehow manage to put on long pants and remind BF to do the same. When we arrived at the trailhead, BF and I saw why covered limbs would be preferable. The trail was beyond overgrown. A chain-link fence marked the beginning of the "Malibu Creek Trail." There was some remnant of trail at our feet, but everything ahead of us was dense foliage, with the occasional cleavage indicating where the path would lead. It looked just like this:

If BF and I hadn't been wearing long pants, we would have turned around immediately. But since most of the brush had only metastasized to armpit-level, we decided to give it a go. It was 4 p.m., after all, and if we wanted to finish this hike before dark, we'd have to get on our way.

Because of all the stories of the hike being "ticky", BF and I ended up developing our own obsessive-compulsive tics along the way. Whenever we had an intimate encounter with a bush or a tree, we would systematically wipe our hands over all exposed skin areas. Because the flora on the non-trail was so ubiquitous, we had to do this more or less continually during the first two miles. We probably looked like escaped mental patients---luckily there was no one to witness our perpetual gesturing. I probably got an upper-body workout, too. There's always a silver lining. Always.

4) A navigable trail. Calling this a "trail" is generous. Because of all the unruly plant life, finding the right path was mostly guesswork. BF and I were wandering more or less blind for the majority of the afternoon. After about two miles, we found ourselves at a nice overlook of the Santa Monica mountains:

There were also these monstrously large satellite dishes watching us:

We had printed out the topographic map of the trail from LocalHikes:

According to this map, we were supposed to come to a junction where we'd take a right, head out to a nice "ocean view", then continue on to the pond.

BF and I hadn't realized we were off the trail until we arrived at a golden meadow, with no discernible path in sight. BF decided just to head up the hill, his logic being that we were supposed to be going up, so "up" is where we'd go, trail or no trail. I followed him at first, then I got cold feet and insisted we return to the meadow to look for a real trail. When we didn't find one, I defaulted to BF's logic and followed him up the hill. Lo and behold, we found what appeared to be a real hiking trail at the top of the hill. I thought we were home free. We took a right and eventually came to an actual trail marker. This must mean we're in the right place, I thought. I was wrong. We took a side trail up to what we thought was the "ocean view". It turns out there was a view of the Pacific at the top:

But then BF and I decided this couldn't have been the right overlook, so we continued on a promising-looking trail off to our right. After about a mile, and after descending a couple hundred feet, BF and I reëvaluated our options. We turned back and decided to find the trail marker again and go from there. Somewhere in all this backtracking, BF got a shot of a little dragonfly:

We found the trail marker and I decided, using my ever-evolving theory about our location, to head right. Going right was my default plan. Because the trail was completely impossible to decipher, going right was as good a plan as anything. Finally, we got to another meadow that was right next to a paved road and I figured we were close to Nicholas Pond. After circling around the meadow a few times and not seeing the pond, we spotted a couple parked on the road and asked for their guidance. They pointed us down the road and said they pond was that way. I suggested to BF that we just scrap the plan and turn around. BF is somewhat goal-oriented, and having come all this way to not see the pond was not in the cards. We were going to see the pond. So we headed down the road.

5) Daylight. It was becoming increasingly clear, as we walked down the road towards the fabled Nicholas Pond, that the sun was setting. Luckily, BF had his headlamp and I had thought to pack my own flashlight, so a little night hiking wouldn't be a total disaster. We came to another trailhead and pushed onwards. Another mile passed and we hadn't found the pond, though we did see three deer leaping across the meadows! BF tried to get a shot, but they were too quick for him. However, he did get these pictures of the sun setting:

With the sun setting, and something like four miles to trek, BF and I switched into super-hiker mode. We whipped out our flashlights and booked it down the mountain.

Finding our way back down the mountain through the thick brush was not a task for the lighthearted. Because BF led the way up, it was only natural for him to lead us back. The only saving grace was that the moon was large and bright in the sky, so it wasn't pitch black surrounding us. But it was pretty close. BF whipped through the overgrowth, figuring out the trail using what seemed to be hiker's ESP. I was absolutely certain we weren't on the trail more often than not---everything looked different at night.

We walked as fast as we could down the mountain. BF, being in the lead, had noticed a few spider webs straddling the "trail" on the way up. Apparently the critters had been very busy while we were gone, and BF had to stop at least a dozen times to avoid getting a mouth full of spiders. So many had made their webs directly across the trail that BF had to use sticks to clear our path. It was unsettling, to say the least.

Just as BF's m.o. had been "just head up" at the beginning of the hike, my mantra quickly turned to "downhill equals good." I didn't care if we ended up at the right trailhead, I just wanted to find myself somewhere along Mulholland Highway. Though I was skeptical, BF insisted he remembered parts of the trail. A rock was familiar, a turn rang a bell. I remembered nothing. Just when I was absolutely sure we had lost the path... a chain link fence! We had made it! It was 9:30 p.m. What had taken us four hours to do on the way up, we had conquered in less than two and in the dark.

Before we left, BF and I looked each other over for ticks (we had found two on our clothes earlier, but that was it), and I gave BF the kudos he deserved. We wearily climbed into the car and drove home. En route, we picked up a fabulous meal at an In-N-Out Burger in Studio City, and then promptly got stuck in traffic. I was so hypoglycemic when I got home that I couldn't even eat my double-double. I had a massive headache and the thought of food made me nauseated. I forced a quarter of the burger in my mouth, popped a bunch of ibuprofen, and passed out on the couch. Twenty minutes later, I woke up and devoured the rest of my burger and animal-style fries. I had recovered. THE END.

Mishe Mokwa

2006-08-01T18:03:00.000-07:00

Hiked: July 29, 2006

Last Friday, as I was wrapping up my day at work, my dad appeared in my instant messenger contacts list. As we started chatting away, he asked me if BF and I were planning on hiking the next day. Rather than try and summarize the conversation, here it is for your enjoyment. (Names have been changed to protect the innocent.)

dad: when are you going hiking, Sat or Sun?
iwriteplays: Sat, probably
dad: only you and BF going?
iwriteplays: maybe EVG, too
dad: what time?
iwriteplays: he's "EVG" on the blog
iwriteplays: don't know -- probably sometime after noon, 'cause of flute choir
dad: I am toying with the idea of joining you. It is quite a drive but I would get to see you
iwriteplays: it could be fun
iwriteplays: you're more than welcome
iwriteplays: you can sleep on the futon
dad: thank you. I don't want to push my way into a group of young ones, though
iwriteplays: nah, it's fine
iwriteplays: plus, EVG's 30
iwriteplays: he's getting up there :)
dad: that IS old
iwriteplays: haha
dad: How'bout I think about it a bit, talk on the phone tonight. It would be nice to see you.
iwriteplays: yeah, definitely
dad: it looks like the weather will be OK
iwriteplays: good
dad: 83 deg high, 20% precip, Winds SW 5 - 10
iwriteplays: nice
iwriteplays: perfect
dad: OK, so if it is OK with you young ones, I will join you.

I hope that gives you a little insight into the inner workings of our brains. That, right there, is a candid conversation between father and daughter. Uncensored, unscripted, unrestrained.

Probably uninteresting, too. Moving right along...

It turns out EVG was feeling "lethargic" and decided not to join us on our hike, but dad followed through with his plan. He drove 3.5 hours and met us at the Sandstone Peak trailhead at Circle X Ranch. I had picked this particular 6-mile loop specifically because I wanted a change of scenery. Our previous hikes had all been in the San Gabriel mountains, which are beautiful and great, but this time I wanted to see the ocean. Give me the Pacific, I said! BF and dad agreed to indulge me, and they blindly agreed to the hike.

BF was starting to question my judgment as we drove along to meet up with dad. The trailhead is high up in the Santa Monica mountains, just north of Malibu. We took the 101 to Westlake Village where we then took a succession of incredibly windy roads south towards Circle X Ranch. When I say windy, I mean a 15-mile-per-hour, braking-then-accelerating-then-braking-again type of road. It was just plain gorgeous, but it was also making BF and me carsick.

We arrived at the trail just before the situation got critical. Dad had been punctual---unlike me---so he was waiting for us when we pulled into the parking lot. To keep himself busy, he took a picture of the trailhead:

And then he took a picture of his Toyota Prius at the trailhead:

I'm glad we arrived when we did, because he was quickly running out of photographic subjects.

And so we started hiking. The plan was to take the Mishe Mokwa trail to Split Rock, keep going to the Backbone Trail, which would take us to Inspiration Point and Sandstone Peak and then back to the parking lot.

I'm proud to report that we only lost the trail once. But more on that later.

I have to say that this trail was enjoyable from the beginning to the end. Or from the beginning to the beginning, I should say, since it is a loop. The entire length of the trail provides beautiful views of the surrounding wilderness and encroaching suburbs. Here's such a view, taken near the beginning of the trail:

As you walk along, you get progressively closer to these rocks, known as the Echo Cliffs:

Somehow, we never thought of testing whether they actually echo. I guess that's something to save for next time. Also, just next to the Echo Cliffs, a monstrous rock balanced on another rock comes into view. Curiously, this is called "Balanced Rock":

The first major landmark on the hike is Split Rock. One of my hiking books told me it was a tradition for hikers to walk through the split in the rock. Peering through the crack, BF and I noted a large number of cobwebs straddling the width of the split. We made dad go through first:

Once we had all walked through Split Rock, we took a little spur to get a better look at Balanced Rock. While there, BF noticed a strange plant with white powder all over it. He was fascinated, and documented it for posterity:

We noticed a few of these further on down the trail, all of them covered with the same white powder. Their origins remain a mystery to BF, dad, and me. Between the three of us, we have an M.D. and two master's degrees, but botany clearly wasn't in our curriculum.

We made our way down the Mishe Mokwa trail until we hit the Backbone trail junction. We turned left and continued on to Inspiration point. Inspiration point afforded us these lovely views:

See those clouds? Well, according to a jogger who ran past us, this was the "marine layer" coming in. I knew about this so-called marine layer, but I rarely saw it in East L.A. What this really meant was that I probably wouldn't get to see the ocean. So much for my views of the Pacific. After taking a break and eating some Clif bars, we headed back down the Backbone trail towards Sandstone Peak.

I'd like to stop here and apologize for the bland description of these portions of the trail. The plain truth is that the majority of this hike was uneventful. We had beautiful views and didn't lose the trail. Well, that's not entirely true. Let me explain.

To arrive at the top of Sandstone Peak, you have to take a short spur off the Backbone trail. Because Sandstone Peak is the highest point in the Santa Monica mountains, it is understandable that this spur is steep and a bit rocky. When we arrived at the top of the peak, we signed the register (where I plugged the Hiking L.A. blog, thank you very much), and took a few pictures of the insidious marine layer rolling in:

Here is the plaque on the peak. Apparently there's some sort of miscommunication about what the peak is actually called:

Mt. Allen, Sandstone Peak, tomatoes, tomatahs... it's all good.

Since the "trail" to the peak was mostly composed of rock, it wasn't so easy to follow. As we headed down the trail, BF kept saying that he didn't recognize where we were going. Dad and I disagreed. We had definitely come up this way. Definitely.

When we got back down to the Backbone trail, we took a right and continued on our way. For some reason, BF just wouldn't let it go. He claimed we had gone over a few pieces of lumber on the way up and never passed them on the way down. His version of events started to ring a bell. Dad was won over, and suddenly I remembered what BF was talking about. He was right. We took a non-trail back to the bottom. That would explain all the parts where we were scrambling over rock.

Regardless, we had ended up back on the right trail and made our way safely back to our cars. The missed trail wasn't a big deal, but it was the closest thing to a misadventure we had.

Back at the cars, BF and dad took the Prius back and I drove home listening to "Memoirs of a Geisha" on audiobook. By the way, I wouldn't recommend it. Listen to Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides instead.

We got home, showered, ate a huge meal at El Compadre, went home and fell asleep. Dad slept on the futon, as planned. We had breakfast the next morning before shipping him back home. Thus ends the tale of Mishe Mokwa.

Mount Islip

2006-07-26T12:56:00.000-07:00

Hiked: July 22, 2006

What is it they say about the best laid plans of mice and men?

For the first time since we began our foray into hiking L.A., BF and I actually picked out our hike at least 12 hours in advance. Our friend EVG had expressed interest in joining us this week, so we figured we should know where we'd be hiking ahead of time. On Friday night we picked out the northern approach to Mount Islip and called EVG up to confirm his participation.

Part of the reason why we picked Mount Islip was because it was advertised as a relatively easy stroll. Only 5 miles and 1250 feet of elevation gain, it should have been a quick and painless hike. We wanted to make it easy because, to quote BF, "we don't want to kill EVG." See, EVG is a fellow writer, which is usually enough to make a person out of shape. (All that sitting in front of computer, staring at the blank document...) But not only is EVG a writer (and a good one, at that), he is also a heavy smoker. Rather than ravage his lungs with a death march, we decided on a short jaunt in the woods.

Like usual, BF and I slept in too late on Saturday morning. In fact, we never saw the morning, finally dragging ourselves out of bed just after noon. We called EVG, whipped together some breakfast, and started to prepare for the hike. For me, this usually means slathering myself in SPF 60 sunscreen. For BF, it means packing the backpack full of our frozen water bottles and energy bars.

Just as EVG arrived at our apartment, so did our landlord. She had mentioned that she wanted to swing by and check out our ant infestation, but I didn't expect her to arrive quite so soon. Our apartment was a complete mess, which was embarrassing enough, but then I realized that I hadn't told her about our foster cats. I was worried she would think we were trashing the apartment (with the help of two homeless siamese cats), but she seemed relatively nonchalant about the disaster that was our living room.

After our landlord had seen enough of the ants, we finally headed off on our trip. As usual, it was 3 p.m. by the time we left. Because we had to take the Angeles Crest highway more than 40 miles, it would be another hour before we got to our destination. Or so we thought.

We were supposed to find the trailhead at mile marker 65.5 on the highway. As we drove along, we gained elevation quickly and soon were seeing pine trees and new landscapes. I drove happily along, EVG and BF chatting away, looking out for mile 65.5.

And then we hit a road block---literally. At mile 61, the road was completely closed off with large metal gates. Unsure of what to do, we parked and BF ran ahead to see if the trailhead was close by. A few minutes later, he ran back and told us we were just around the corner from the Pacific Crest Trail. We consulted the map and saw that taking the PCT would just add 2 miles to the trip, and rather than turn around and find a new trail, we went ahead to find the PCT.

Here's where things really started to go awry. Because the Pacific Crest Trail is 2650 miles long, we weren't sure exactly what portion of this trail we were jumping on. Sure, the sign said "PCT", but it turns out we were actually four miles from the real trailhead.

The trail we found simply took us about a mile over a small hill and then deposited us back on the closed highway. Back on the highway, we decided to just keep walking along the road until we found our trail. I think we all knew it was still three miles away, but we were in denial. Personally, I thought we'd just walk along the highway until we got bored and then walk back. Who needs Mt. Islip?

It was definitely eerie to be on the highway all alone. EVG and BF agreed that it was like The Stand. The creepiness factor increased when we arrived at two long, dark tunnels. BF walked ahead of EVG and I, and I got this shot of him:

"Go towards the light, Carol Ann!"

When we made it through the empty tunnels, we were treated to a lovely view:

It was the first time hiking around L.A. where I truly felt isolated. We were so high up the mountain that the landscape and foliage was completely different. Luckily, so was the weather. Though mother nature was breaking records in the L.A. basin with 100°+ weather, up in the mountains it was cool and breezy. It was also quickly turning overcast.

Before we left for the hike, as I was filling up my gas tank in Echo Park, I pointed up at the clouds in the distance. I told EVG and BF that those were developing thunderheads. I also told them we'd get rained on. They didn't believe me.

Fast-forward to approximately 6 p.m. and we were walking steadily into the shadow of thunderclouds. Still skeptical, BF and EVG pressed on to find the trail. Finally, after three miles of steadily-uphill climbing on the abandoned highway, we found the trailhead.

From the trailhead we were supposed to hike about 2.5 miles to the top of Mt. Islip, 1250 feet above us, and then return from whence we came. I was already trying to veto actually making it to the summit when we heard the first claps of lightning. Unfazed, EVG and BF kept climbing, and I followed.

We dubbed the beginning of the trail "the pinecone highway". Here's why:

The air was sweet with the smell of pine trees when the rain started to fall. It was just a few drops here and there, so we kept going. At the top of the pinecone highway, where the trail turned towards Little Jimmy Campground, we got a good view of the mojave desert below us:

We pressed on. We heard the thunder get louder and louder, and soon we were seeing the flashes of lightning. We counted the seconds between flash and thunder, and we figured the storm was still a mile away. This chipmunk seemed unperturbed by the thunder:

I, on the other hand, was getting paranoid. I love a good thunderstorm, but I prefer to watch them from low ground and under shelter. We were heading to the summit of a mountain. It was also getting late, and the sun would be going down around 8:30. The rain was getting more intense, and I was only wearing a tank top and shorts. EVG and BF weren't any better clothed than me.

When we arrived at Little Jimmy campground (about 1.5 miles from the trailhead), there were about four people already there with their tents set up and a campfire blazing. Just as we rounded the corner to greet the campers, we saw a bright flash of lightning followed immediately by a deafening thunderclap. Even the campers looked stunned. That one was close. The rain intensified, and we were soon soaked. It was 7:30. We were on the dark side of the mountain. If we were to try and make the summit, we'd be hiking the whole trail back down in the dark. BF had a headlamp, but EVG and I had no flashlights.

Though BF and EVG were set on the idea of hiking up to the summit, I had to veto it. After explaining myself, EVG and BF both realized that the responsible thing to do was to hike back down. Mt. Islip would have to wait for another day.

On the way down, the sun started to set. Rather than go back to the trailhead, we took the PCT an extra mile back down to the road. It saved us a little mileage and turned out to be the highlight of the trip. The following shots were both taken as the sun set on the PCT:

We arrived back on the abandoned highway just as it became too dark to see where we were walking. BF whipped out his headlamp and we headed back the three miles to our car. From the road, we got a perfect view of a great thunderstorm over the L.A. basin. We could see whole strokes of lightning, from cloud to ground.

Walking back through the abandoned tunnels in the dark was undoubtedly creepy. EVG, being a horror writer, wanted BF to turn off his headlamp so we could walk in the dark. Figuring that not walking into the tunnel walls was more important than giving EVG new writing material, BF kept his light on. Even with the headlamp, I have to admit that I looked behind me a few times, half expecting to see an apparition trailing us.

After we made it through the tunnels alive, the walk back to the car was all anticipation. All in all, our short 5 mile hike turned into an 11-mile trek. All three of us were ecstatic to see the car again. EVG had a cigarette, BF took his heavy backpack off, and I sat down in the driver's seat, relieved to be off my feet. We were done.

And we didn't kill EVG.

Arroyo Seco

2006-07-18T13:49:00.000-07:00

Hiked: July 15, 2006

Saturday was the first day of a major heat wave that swept across the entire country. The national weather service had issued a heat advisory for basically all of Southern California. Temperatures in Pasadena were predicted to get as high as 104°F with "increasing humidity." They advised people not to leave neither humans nor pets in cars for any period of time, even with the windows cracked. Remember all those people who forgot their infants in cars a few years back? The national weather service remembers, and they wanted to send out a warning. Stay indoors, they urged. Keep cool. Avoid sun exposure.

What does the national weather service know, anyway? BF and I were determined to go on a hike, heat wave or no heat wave. But where to go?

Rewind to Friday, when BF and I jetted over to the REI in Arcadia to buy new hiking boots. After my Teva debacle on Mt Lowe, I realized my dire need for new boots. BF also was hurting, literally, for new footwear. Just as we returned from our Mt Lowe hike he noticed that both soles on his old boots had separated from the toe. Sure, they had good air flow, but they certainly weren't trail-worthy.

At REI, a very nice fellow bearing the nametag of "Steve N." helped pair us up with the right hiking boots. Initially I was looking at low-rise cross-training shoes, but Steve N. steered me in the right direction. I needed ankle support, he said, or else my feet would slip too much in the shoe. If my feet slipped too much, I would lose my toenails. Seeing as I wear flip-flops almost 100% of the time, I decided having toenails was something I valued. I got the high-ankle boots. Incidentally, BF and I got the exact same boots. We didn't plan it that way, I swear. We're not trying to be the cute hiking couple that has matching gear.

Anyway, Steve N. asked about our hiking plans for Saturday, and we told him we were still undecided. He immediately recommended the Arroyo Seco trail, just north of Pasadena. He said it was shaded and by a river. A cool hike was promised---double entendre intended.

After REI, we stopped at Trader Joes to pick up some Clif bars. I mention this because I have now discovered my favorite on-trail snack: the Clif Nectar bar. A mere $0.99 at Trader Joes, this bar is tastiness in stick form. I'm not a health-food nut, nor do I particularly care if my produce is organic or pesticide-ridden. I probably should care, but I can't seem to muster up the energy to take on a new cause. What I do care about is taste. I tried the LARABAR once and I nearly spit it out. It may have been organic and raw and whatnot, but it just didn't taste good. The Clif Nectar bar, on the other hand, is delicious. I highly recommend picking one up before your next hike.

Now we're back to Saturday. I had a flute choir rehearsal to attend in the morning, so I wasn't free until about noon. When I got home, BF and I fired up the grill and made some chicken sandwiches. By the time we had cooked, eaten, and digested properly, it was 3 p.m. I don't know how that happens. Somehow we get into a major time-warp before hikes. Regardless, we managed to get ourselves up off the couch and prepared for Arroyo Seco. I think our motivation had a lot to do with wanting to break in our new hiking boots.

Arroyo Seco is a very popular trail that originates in Altadena. Because of its proximity to the city and the well-kept trails, you see a lot of picnicking families, joggers, and bikers. Luckily, most of these people tend to stick to the paved section of the trail. After about one or two miles, the likelihood of running into another human dwindles significantly.

We arrived at the trailhead at about 4 p.m. The parking lot overlooks CalTech's Jet Propulsion Laboratories. I sure hope I'm not compromising national security by posting this picture:

As we walked towards the trailhead, which happens to be the beginning of the Gabrielino trail, we got views of the JPL from many angles. I thought about all the crazy physics going on in those buildings. BF reminded me that physicists probably took Saturday off.

It was hot. There was no question about it. We had three liters of frozen water (a.k.a. "ice") in BF's backpack, as well as 3 more liters of cold liquid-form H2O. At first we thought this was a bit of overkill. Then we started walking the trail. The first mile or so of the trail is all paved road, with little shade. I felt like my face might catch on fire. I felt my pulse in my cheeks like a bass drum - BOOM BOOM BOOM. I started to wonder where this river and shade was that Steve N. had promised. BF and I killed the first 1.5L of water in the first mile. Then we started to wonder if we had enough water for the trip.

Luckily the trail meandered down to the stream side after about a mile and we were shaded by the beautiful trees. We dipped some scrap cotton fabric (makeshift bandanas, we figured) in the stream and plopped them on our heads. BF and I started to cool down and notice the beautiful scenery:

The trail continues along the stream, which was thankfully not true to its Spanish name (arroyo seco translates to "dry stream") and provided us with many scrap-cloth dips along the way. The trail crosses the stream a few times along the way, but all the crossings were very easy to navigate. Here's one:

The stream was less-than-mighty at times:

But it was always pretty. Under the trees and by the water, the temperature dropped considerably. It was even pleasant at times. As the sun started to go down, I started to wish I had bug repellant on. I swatted a good number of unidentified buzzing insects away from my face and arms and somehow managed to escape without any mosquito bites. (Writer's note: mosquitoes love me. I'm their meal of choice. To go anywhere without falling victim to these blood-suckers is a major accomplishment for me.)

On the trail, there are a few different landmarks conveniently spaced along the way. There's the Gould Mesa Campground at about 2.5 miles, the Nino picnic area at the 3-mile mark, and then the Paul Little picnic area at mile 4. According to our hiking book, we should have walked an extra mile past the Paul Little picnic area to the Oakwilde campground. The book also mentioned that this section of the trail was a steep climb up the side of a cliff. BF and I decided 8 miles was plenty and turned around.

We did see a deer on this trip, but it didn't stick around like the one on Hoegee's Loop, so we have no pictures as proof. We did see a lot of lizards, as usual, and got a shot of this one as it was doing push ups:

We also had a rabbit run across the trail. All in all, it was a good day for wildlife. Still no cougars, though. (Is that a good or a bad thing?)

Apparently the Arroyo Seco trail used to be occupied by lots of resort cabins in the 1930s. Now you can only spot the stone foundations and the occasional wall. The real impact of these cabins is all the non-native flora that still thrives along the trail. We were told to look for agave plants. We think these are agave---they look a lot like century plants, but they're MUCH bigger:

We also saw quite a few eucalyptus trees. We didn't bother taking a picture of them, but we did take some shots of this weird and colorful plant:

I have no idea what it is (I'm sure someone more educated in botany can identify it for me), but it was crazy colorful and had spines. BF was getting artistic with his digital SLR here:

By the time we got back to the paved portion of the trail, the sun had disappeared behind the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In the end, we only drank three liters of water plus a sample of the partially-frozen bottle. We survived sans heat stroke. It was a successful trip.

Summary Judgment

Nice trail, though the beginning is a little boring and hot. May be too crowded for comfort on holidays. Easy, with very little elevation gain and only basic trail-navigating skills needed.

Mount Lowe

2006-07-10T14:06:00.000-07:00

Hiked: July 8, 2006

Once again, BF and I got a late start hiking. We set our alarms for 9 a.m., hoping to wake up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to set off towards... well, the first problem was that we didn't know where we were hiking. The night before, we both sat around reading our various hiking books while watching TV (me) and playing internet poker (BF). Needless to say, we didn't come to a conclusion on where to hike.

After pressing snooze for about an hour, I got a call from my good friends N&N. Apparently N&N were at the Brite Spot, a fabulous diner around the corner from my apartment, and they were wondering if BF and I wanted to join them for breakfast. We did. BF, N&N, and I had a leisurely breakfast---so much so that the waitress had to kick us out because she "needed the table." Then we all walked down to the park to check out the Lotus Festival, an annual celebration of Asian and Pacific Islander cultures.

Eventually, BF and I realized that if we were going to hike, we needed to stop lollygagging and get our butts on the mountain. N&N needed to get back to their lovely dog, Katie, anyway, so we parted ways. Before N&N left, though, we promised to hike to Dawn Mine together soon.

Back at the apartment, BF and I nearly didn't make it out to hike. I flopped down on the couch, and he parked himself in front of the computer. Once again, we were both lazily thumbing through hiking books without making anything resembling a decision of where to hike. Somehow we peeled ourselves away from lethargy and got out the door. I made the final decision to go to Mount Lowe. The book said it was a 3.2 mile hike, with approximately 500 feet elevation gain/loss. Seeing as it was almost 2 p.m., and would probably be 3 before we got to the trailhead, I figured an easy hike was the way to go.

Because this seemed like an easy hike, I decided to wear my Tevas. Flash forward to 6:30 p.m. and my feet looked like this:

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

To get to Mount Lowe, you take highway 2, also known as the Angeles Crest Highway, about 14 miles from La Cañada, then you turn and go 2.4 miles up Mount Wilson Road. We ran into our first snag about 3 miles up the Angeles Crest Highway. We had been coasting along, enjoying the fabulous views and bright sunshine, when we saw a ranger holding up a stop sign on the side of the road. She gestured ahead of us, and we saw that there was a growing line of stopped cars in our path. We dutifully stopped and speculated on the cause of the backup. I thought maybe a rock slide had blocked off a lane of traffic. I was wrong. After four emergency vehicles screamed past, sirens blaring, and a ranger search & rescue helicopter started circling ahead, we figured out there had been an accident. The helicopter landed just past the curve in the road. People started turning off their engines and getting out to see what all the hubbub was about:

Inquiring minds walked ahead to see the wreckage, and reported back that there had been a motorcycle crash. About 20 minutes later, the helicopter took off again, and a tow truck carried the wreckage of the motorcycle down the mountain, and the emergency vehicles puttered off. We were allowed to drive again.

I want to take a second and say just how beautiful the Angeles Crest Highway really is. Though I was driving and couldn't gaze at the mountains for extended periods of time, I thoroughly enjoyed the drive to Mount Lowe.

We arrived at the trailhead and got cracking on our hike. The first part of the hike follows an unused fire access road. The road hugs the side of the mountain, and then goes through a large tunnel:

The inside of the tunnel was covered in concrete, presumably to stop the rock from breaking off and hitting us in the head. BF and I both noted how "fake" the contouring inside the tunnel looked. It was very Disney-esque. I've noticed this in nature elsewhere, too. Sometimes forests look scarily like the fake trees you see in theme parks. Or real granite rocks look like they're made out of chicken wire and sprayed-on plaster. What's particularly disturbing about this is that I find myself comparing the real world to manufactured reality, but I'm using the fake example as the standard. I don't go to theme parks and say, "Wow! Those look like real rocks!" I got into nature and say, "Wow! Those look just like the ones at Six Flags!"

And this is why I'm trying to hike more. Real world = good. Fake world = entertaining, but still fake.

Back to the hike. About a half-mile down the fire road, you take a left and go up a dirt hiking trail. I was pleased because this trail was mostly shaded. BF and I spotted some big fat lizards and consistently great views. I have to say that the views are spectacular right from the beginning. Hell, where we parked there was a great view of Mt. Baldy in the distance. You can't go wrong with this hike.

Another mile or so and we were almost done with the first leg of our hike. We had barely broken a sweat. I looked at our book, and there was a short mention of "adding 2 miles" to the hike by taking the East and West Mount Lowe trail around the mountain. That path would loop us around to the peak, then deposit us back where we started. There was a little diagram of the loop, but no topographical information. We decided to do it.

We started to loop around the South side of the mountain. The views of the L.A. basin were stunning. I then decided that I would have to come back up to Mt. Lowe the next time the smog lifted (or got blown/washed away). Even though the day was a bit hazy with pollution, we could still see all of Los Angeles, all the way to the ocean:

As the East Mt Lowe Trail continued on, we started to lose elevation quite fast. I started to become concerned that my Teva-clad feet weren't up for this trip. There were a few really slippery and rocky spots where closed-toed shoes would have been welcome. I even slipped and fell once or twice. (I have a gnarly bruise on my leg and a sore hand, but no serious dings.) After about a mile of steady descent, BF and I arrived at the West Mt Lowe Trail.

Guess what? What goes down must come up. The next mile or so was all uphill, and fairly steep in sections. I had to take it slowly. BF was very patient with my huffing and puffing. I was turning red, I think. I even thought, "Now this is cardio!"

Not a moment too soon we arrived at the rocky peak of Mount Lowe. There was even a rickety bench for me to sit on. After a good long drink of water, and finishing some fruit leather (I think I had low blood sugar), I stood up to look around. Here's me looking out over L.A.:

Here's the view facing North from Mount Lowe. (One of these peaks is called "Mount Disappointment". I like that.):

Another view of the L.A. basin from the top:

After soaking in the views for a while, BF and I headed back down the trail. This leg of the trip was refreshingly easy, all gradually downhill and no tricky rocky spots. About three-quarters of a mile from the trailhead, there a great sweeping view of a valley. (I was trying to be artistic, getting the sun flare in the picture.)

Once we regressed through the Disney-tunnel, we got a clear view of Mount Lowe's summit:

It's always nice to look back and say, "Wow! We were just at the top of that mountain!" The best part of the Mount Lowe hike is that you can do this on a fairly easy trail and in an afternoon.

Summary Judgment

Awesome trail. I don't have anything negative to say about it. Beautiful views, great trails, customizable for length and difficulty. Even the drive to and from the trail is nice. I'll be returning on the next clear day.

Hoegee's Loop

2006-07-05T16:12:00.000-07:00

Hiked: July 2, 2006

BF and I got a late start on Sunday morning. We aren't accustomed to waking up in the A.M. on the weekend, so dragging ourselves out of bed by 8:30 for the hike was a tad unsettling. We cooked eggs and leisurely sat around the apartment, trying to figure out when and where we were going.

Our friends WC and NO had considered joining us on this trek, but NO hadn't called, which meant she wasn't coming, and WC had trepidations. BF and I hadn't decided on a specific hike by 9:30 (so many to choose from!), and he wasn't able to dedicate his whole day to schlepping around the Angeles National Forest, so WC passed on the hike as well.

Down to just BF and I, we finally had to decide on a hike. Initially, BF wanted to go to Mt. Baden-Powell. I was worried that it was too far away (possibly 70 miles, depending on which you go), and also that it would be too strenuous for a "first" hike.

I've done a lot of hiking in my life, but I have to say that I've been relatively sedentary for the past few years. I'm a writer and do web coding and design to make money, so most of my day is spent in front of a computer. BF and I acquired a free treadmill from craigslist a few months ago, and I had been making efforts to use it regularly until about two months ago when it spontaneously stopped functioning. Mr. Treadmill still ran, but he slipped and screamed whenever you started to walk faster than four miles per hour. BF and I have been trying to fix him---we've made some major breakthroughs in the past week---but for now he's gathering dust (and taking up space) in our living room.

I've used the broken treadmill as an excuse not to exercise for far too long. The problem is that I hate the concept of exercising. I have major hang-ups about exercising in public---I'm not sure why, but I assume everyone's criticizing my technique and judging me---and it's not easy to exercise in your living room sans Mr. Treadmill. Though I hate exercising, I could hike forever and I never think of it as "cardio."

So seeing as I am slightly out of shape, we decided to hike "Hoegee's Loop" as describe in Top Trails Los Angeles. The book promised shade, a "2 out of 5" difficulty level, and approximately 5.3 miles of trail.

From our abode in Echo Park in East L.A., it only took 20 minutes to drive to Chantry Flat, the starting (and ending) point of the hike. After pruning the contents of our backpack to three liters of water and a small collection of varied nutritional bars, we headed on the trail. I carried the camera case, and BF had the heavy backpack.

The loop was planned as follows:

Leave Chantry Flat via the "First Water Trail"

Arrive at Roberts' Camp

Take the "Lower Winter Creek Trail" to Hoegee's Camp

Leave Hoegee's Camp via the "Upper Winter Creek Trail"

Arrive back at Chantry Flat

The initial descent to Roberts' Camp is a gently twisting, quite steep asphalt road. At 12:30 in the afternoon, the heat from the sun radiated off the road insidiously. BF and I noted how unpleasant it would be to return on the steep road. There were a fair amount of people making their way up the road, and you could see the anguish in their faces as the slowly passed by. We descended into the Santa Anita canyon rapidly, the hills towering over us as we walked. After about a half mile (these are all completely uneducated estimates), we found ourselves in a shady landing. A sign pointed towards Hoegee's Camp in one direction and then towards the First Water Trail in the other. Thinking we were at the terminus of the loop. BF and I headed toward the First Water Trail, as it was the first trail listed in our guide.

We walked downstream for about a mile, enjoying the shade of the trees and the scattered 1920s-era cabins that still sit streamside. This is a view from the First Water Trail:

According to the guide, we had to take a left at some point and go upstream. We couldn't figure out where this would happen. We had been heading downstream for a mile, and there was no sign of the trail turning the other way. We ventured a bit further, along a narrow, cliff-hugging path until we arrived at a small swimming hole. There were a few people jumping off the rocks into the pool below:

Of course, those people jumping into the water were also drinking beer. I marveled at their casual attitude towards impending quadriplegia, and BF observed that carrying an ice cooler along that crumbling trail required a noted lack of common sense. Either that or a raging case of alcoholism. Either way, BF and I decided we should leave before we were witnesses to a drowning.

Consulting our map, we realized our problem. Rather than take the long paved road to its terminus, we were supposed to cut off onto an "obscure trail" about .2 miles from the start. Amazed that we somehow missed the "obscure trail," we then saw that we just picked up the First Water Trail at Roberts' Camp. We had simply been backtracking. BF and I dutifully turned around and made our way back to Roberts' Camp, which added about a mile to our trip. The trip back to Roberts' Camp was completely uphill and upstream, but we were still shaded and we only passed one or two hikers, so our hiking experience was still a pleasant one.

Back at Roberts' Camp, we followed the trail marker towards Hoegee's Camp. According to our book, Hoegee's Camp was a gold mining operation from the 1850s-1950s. We were told there would be interesting detritus left over from the mining operation. The Lower Winter Creek Trail took us toward our destination, 1.5 miles ahead. The trail was well-worn, easily followed, and mostly packed dirt. There were a few easy river crossings. The trail wound its way uphill around multiple concrete dams:

The trail was a bit relentlessly uphill. Though the book only claims 1300 feet are gained and lost in this hike, they are all done fairly quickly. The descent down to Roberts' Camp is rapid, done in probably less than a mile, and then at least 2 miles are straight uphill. The grade is forgiving, but it did make sedentary me sweat just a tad.

When we arrived at Hoegee's Camp, we saw the aforementioned "detritus" from the mining operation. There were a few US Forest Service issued camping stoves lying around. Most notably, there were the remains of some sort of building, with a stove or fireplace still intact:

Being the spoiled brat I am, this didn't really pass muster as real "history" for my sensibilities. I've been to Europe---now those old buildings are historical. But I suppose history in Southern California only dates back to whenever someone devised a way to get water down into the desert they now call Los Angeles, so the remains of Hoegee's Camp would qualify.

BF ran off to the outhouse for a moment and I decided to poke around the campsite a little more. I walked over to get a better picture of the stone building when I saw:

Lil' Miss Deer was looking for some good greens to eat when I happened upon her. I was convinced she'd bolt the minute I took a picture, but by the time BF returned from the loo she was still standing in front of us. BF and I proceeded to take pictures of her for the next 15 minutes.

Eventually, we decided to leave her alone and get trekking on our hike. We were about to pick up the Upper Winter Creek Trail, and we were looking forward to some walking downhill.

Unfortunately, we had some delayed gratification with the Upper Winter Creek Trail. It continued to snake uphill for another half mile or so (much to my chagrin), until it leveled off above the canyon. Though the trees were thick, we got a few good views of the canyon we had just emerged from:

Eventually, after a close call with a bee hive, we could even see the city in the distance.

The path slowly meandered downhill, with nice but not extraordinary views, for quite some time. Finally, we could see the parking lot:

BF liked how these trees looked (they were quite red in "real life"):

The best part of choosing to do the loop was that we never had to ascent that horrendous asphalt road. The Upper Winter Creek Trail dropped us off on a fire service road, which then plopped us on the opposite end of the parking lot from where we departed. We found our car and drove home, by way of CostCo, and thus ended our first hike in L.A.

Summary Judgment

Pros:

Nicely paced walk, easily finished in an afternoon

Close to the city/Short drive

Shaded almost the entire way---great for a hot day

Trail is well marked, easily followed

Cool stream runs along the first few miles, great for head-dipping

Cons:

Views not particularly spectacular

Historical importance overrated

Conclusion:

Well worth the trip.

If you'd like more detailed information about the hike, including topo maps and specific mileage information, check out Dan's Hiking Pages and Top Trails Los Angeles, the book we used for this hike.

Start Hiking L.A.

2006-06-30T10:54:00.000-07:00

Welcome to hikingla.blogspot.com. I've decided to start this blog because I'd like to explore all the hiking around the Los Angeles area, and I thought it would be fun to document my explorations in the blogosphere.

I lived in Portland, Oregon, for four years, and one of the main things I miss about the Pacific Northwest are the mountains. I enjoy Los Angeles, but I sometimes lamented the lack of greenery and the disconnect from nature. But one day I just looked up and noticed the massive mountains surrounding the city. North of Glendale there are some serious peaks, and it occurred to me that I could get just as much hiking done around here as I could in the Northwest.

My boyfriend (BF) and I are planning on using a few books as our guides. We picked up Top Trails Los Angeles at Barnes & Noble last night, and we've borrowed Ecstatic Trails: The 52 Best Day Hikes and Nature Walks In and Around Los Angeles from the fabulous Los Angeles Public Library.

I'll come back here to report on each of the trails and get suggestions about future hikes. BF and I will also take some pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Check back soon for the first hike report! Thanks for visiting.