The other side of the mountains

Griffith Park Trail

It may seem a little silly for people who live in the Santa Monica Mountains to drive thirty miles across town to go hiking in the Santa Monica Mountains, but that's what we did on the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day holiday.

The transverse mountain range where our home is located runs from Griffith Park overlooking the City of Los Angeles all the way west to Point Mugo in Ventura County. We drove to the park and left the car just north of the Greek Theatre, and took the fire road trail up. It was dry and hot, but the trail wound around so that half the time we were on the shaded side of the cliffs.

And here's what's really magical about hiking Griffth Park, and why we drove all the way there from Topanga.

Click to "embiggen"

The experience is like inhabiting multiple worlds - the quintessential Los Angeles experience. You are walking on a dusty trail through rugged chaparral, scrub oak and pines, when suddenly you round the bend to see a vista of modern skyscrapers, and in the foreground the emerald green of a golf course.  All this, within the boundaries of a major urban city.  I don't know of any other city where the boundaries between the streets and the wilderness are so ephemeral.