Monday, July 2, 2012

This evening, I discovered the ultimate in mountain hiking in the LA area—Griffith Park.  Though I had already navigated a couple of the trails with a group of hiking enthusiast friends, I’d never been on this trail that lead away and up from the Griffith Observatory into the surrounding hills and neighboring mountains.  This is the trail my friends and I navigated tonight.

Must say, from the get go, I was impressed with this trail.  Not for its ability to be strenuous, but because it offered a lot of amenities not often found on LA trails.  Since a lot of folks bring horses up there, watering troughs and also water fountains for people and pets are available throughout the trail—all the way up to and including at the summit.  Also, there were a series of horse hitching horizontal poles at the summit that folks could tie their steed to or use to work out on.  Though nice features, those weren’t the selling points of the trail. 

For me, it was the unobstructed panoramic view, complete with the Observatory, quite a distance in front of and below the summit, that won me over.  The view was breathtaking with a host of mountains and hills rolled out in every which direction as if someone had draped the land with billowy mounds of green velvet.  As far as I could see, the mountains stretched out.  And beyond that, I could see the ocean.  Yes, the actual, waves-crashing-to-the-shore ocean.

 

Don’t often find spectacular views like this in LA!  But for adventuresome type, such as my friends and I, we go out of our way to acquaint ourselves with sides of where we live that most don’t ever see.  To us, it’s not always about how strenuous a hike can be, but rather, how much our trek and afforded views can steal our breath away.  Make us feel infinitesimal as we stand atop towering mountains and gaze out at the ever-expanding land that falls away from us.

Tonight’s hike was one of those—a rare treat where we become privy to little-known secrets that made us stand in awe of our surroundings as our minds struggled to grasp that this…all this majesty was right in our very own backyard.  That it was here, laying in wait, just hoping others like my friends and I would come and explore her wonders.