During month of April we enjoyed time with family and explored LA and its vicinity.
Besides spending a few days at my sister’s and our daughter’s places, we stayed in three differ places. Two of them were Airbnbs and one a friend’s house, where we learned how to feed their cats. We also enjoyed hiking in the hilly areas up north, and biking along the shore, both on the south and west sides.
Southern California had a great bloom of wild flowers because of a wet winter and we witnessed it. One of the best places to do so is Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve. To get there, we had to cross Los Padres National Forest. When we emerged on the other side, we saw carpets of red flowers in the valley in front of us. That was a harbinger of things to come. We spent the next three-four hours driving through and walking amidst hills covered with flowers… red, yellow and purple. We had never seen anything like this before. The only problem was fierce wind, which made walking, or even standing upright, quite challenging. In the coming days, we encountered other areas of wild flowers, but nothing like the ones in Antelope Valley.
In our continuing search for places to hike and do photography, we spent a day at Point Dume in Malibu. It comprises of a promontory on the coast of Malibu and a beautiful beach. It too was covered with wild flowers and the view of the ocean was gorgeous. Parking was difficult but we found free parking at a church and walked.
We were staying in an Airbnb in Atwater Village, which is located on the southern end of Glendale. From there, we drove to La Tuna Canyon Park, which we found using AllTrails, an App for outdoor activities.
The first problem with La Tuna was to find the trailhead. There was no sign of any “Park” where GPS told us there should be. We found a bunch of cars parked on the shoulder so we parked ours and discovered a sign that talked about hiking regulations but still did not say where the trail was. We ventured in a riverbed and proceeded toward the canyon. The trail disappeared in a jumble of rocks. Meera tried to cross it and promptly put her feet in water. We were about to give up when we found a couple of hikers. They told us that the trailhead was washed out due to heavy winter rains and pointed us to a short cut toward the trail. We scrambled up, found the trail and walked on it for an hour or so. The view was quite nice but the trail remained treacherous with washouts every now and then. We had to be very careful otherwise we could have slipped in the canyon. There is a lot more hiking to be done in this canyon and someday we will return with poles and hiking shoes.
Griffith Park was right near our Airbnb, and we hiked in it, reaching the highest point, Mt. Hollywood, before coming down to Griffith Observatory. It is a very nice trail with views of Los Angeles downtown all along.
The next on the list was Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park, which features highly tilted rock strata. One major factor in causing these formations is the famous San Andreas Fault. On of its offshoots, Elkhorn Fault goes right under the rock formation. We walked to the main formation, climbed a little way up the rocks, and then took a longer trail for a little while. One can get to the Pacific Crest Trail from the park but that would have taken a lot more time than we had. We will come back some other day.
The final area we explored while staying in Atwater was Elysian Park, which we had been to a couple of times when we were staying in an Airbnb in Echo park before heading to Asia. We found a lovely trail, about three miles long, that provided a good work out and good views. We came back three times to the same trail during the next few days.
There are lots of places to hike in vicinity of LA. We will explore them further in summer and winter.
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Our bicycles came to LA in the small container that had almost all our remaining physical assets. We got them out of the container during our first few weeks in LA in December. However, they stayed at my sister’s place and were not used until April. We thought of bringing them to Atwater because there is a bike path on LA River that runs through the community. However one look at the path convinced us that biking on it would not be very pleasurable. LA River is a filthy little stream with concrete embankments. Worse, the homeless have found this area to be attractive and are everywhere.
So we postponed bringing the bike until we reached our Long Beach Airbnb. That was a good decision. We finally got on our bikes and started practicing for our upcoming bike week with friends in SF.
The first ride we did was in San Diego, not in Long Beach. Meera’s brother and sister-in-law live there and ride bikes, and we took the opportunity to ride with them. So we went to Coronado and rode on Bayshore Bikeway that goes around the San Diego Bay. It is a lovely ride with ocean views all along. We reached the southernmost point, which is only five miles from the Mexican border and turned around. It is feasible to make a loop but then you end up riding on urban areas, not along the ocean. Coming back, we encountered stiff headwind, which made this trip slightly challenging.
The second ride was on Huntington Beach. It is possible to get to Newport Beach and then beyond, all the way to San Diego on this bike trail. However, we only did a few miles and turned back. It is a bit monotonous. There is a bike trail on Long Beach as well, but we preferred to walk on it instead of ride. It is only three miles long and not worth getting dressed up for.
The next ride was along the west coast of LA. Our original plan was to bike in Palos Verdes area. Meera had found a ride called Palos Verdes Donut that goes along four streets: Palos Verdes Drive South, West, North, and East. Supposedly a really scenic ride, it is almost 30 miles long and goes on some steep areas. There is a bike lane but it is not all the way. It can disappear at any point. We thought we could ride the flatter areas along the ocean but that too proved to be difficult. From a parking lot we found, getting on the bike lane on the other side meant crossing a very busy highway with insane drivers. At that point we gave up. This Donut is just too risky and difficult for people like us.
It was in subsequent search we found Marvin Braude Bike Trail that starts at Torrance and goes along the ocean all the way to Santa Monica with a gap at Marina Del Rey. So, we drove to Torrance, parked our car and started riding. We went through Redondo Beach, Hermosa City Beach, Manhattan County Beach, and El Porto Beach. We did not quite make it to Marina del Rey but stopped at Dockweiler State Beach because Meera had a stumble. Only a few scrapes but it was enough to make us turn around. This was a pretty ride and we had gorgeous weather.
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