John Marsland

Trails near North East Los Angeles

It took me a few years to appreciate LA trails, which outside of instagrammable landmarks don't have the typical hiking destination draw. Like in the movies, set and timing are everything. What LA lacks in lushness it more than makes up with cloud-free skies, frequent fog, and towering mountains. The views are the appeal, best experienced at dawn for the sunrise. Bonus: avoiding the heat and crowds.

North East LA hiking, most hikes within a 10-20 minute drive from Eagle Rock

Despite the lack of traditional seasons in Southern California, LA hiking experiences change throughout the year. Trails are at their greenest in the spring, bringing superblooms, fragrant california sage, and towering + flowering yucca. June gloom is a misnomer. The summer's thick fog and low cloud cover is ascendable, opening up celestial views of the city of angels. The late rising sun and the earth's ideal tilt make for spectacular sunrise colors in the fall. For a few weeks in the winter, snow will top trails in Angeles National forest, making for fun microspike execursions. Where else can you be in the snow in the morning and 70 degree beach weather in the afternoon?

Below are my goto NELA hikes in nearby Griffith Park, Verdugo Mountains, Angeles National Forest, as well as a a few further favorites

Griffith Park

The go to destination for out of towners for views of the Observatory and famed Hollywood sign, Griffith Park has it all, but gets crowded quickly. If you start your hikes earlier or on the northern part of the park, you’ll run into smaller crowds. Peaks top off at just under 2k feet.

Hollywood Sign via Canyon Drive

6.0mi, 1.2k ft elevation gain | FIRETRAIL - RUNNING - LIMITED SHADE - VIEWS - CROWDED

The view behind the sign and the easy firetrail are the main draw here. This is the go to hike I take out of towners on. Early starters will be rewarded with solitude, fantastic for an intermediate trail run.

Stereotypical but not less beautiful view from behind the hollywood sign

Mount Hollywood via Amir’s Garden

4.0mi, 1.1k ft elevation gain | MOSTLY FIRETRAIL - SOME SHADE - VIEWS

One of my favorite Griffith Park trails to avoid the crowds (at the trailhead) but still take in the views. Always folks at the top, though, no matter when you start.

Southwestern sunrise from Mt. Hollywood

Hollywood Sign and The Wisdom Tree

7.6mi, 2.0k ft elevation gain | SOME SHADE - VIEWS - FIRE TRAIL / SINGLE TRACK

Great trail that hits celebrated Griffith Park destinations (view of the hollywood sign and the Wisdom Tree) but generally avoids the crowds. The single track ridge in the last mile on the way to the wisdom tree has some scrambling, but less frequented and one of the best ways to see the famed Italian stone pine in Griffith during the pandemic.

Verdugos+

With views from up to 3k peaks of Griffith Park, DTLA, and the Angeles National Forest, the Verdugos are a 10-20 minute drive from Eagle Rock, have well maintained firetrails, and plenty of spots to take in the view and have a picnic. My typical togo destination on days with thicker fog and low-lying inversions

Mount Thom via Las Flores Motorway+

4.6mi, 1.2k ft elevation gain | FIRETRAIL - RUNNING - NOSHADE - VIEWS

Less than 10 min drive from my homebase in Eagle Rock, this is my goto sunrise and trail running hike. Limited shade but also fewer crowds. Great 270 degree views, especially great on foggy mornings or sunset. Trailhead starts in a neighborhood, be considerate if you're starting early.

Chandler Motorway

6.1mi, 1.5k elevation gain | FIRETRAIL - RUNNING - NOSHADE - VIEWS

Similar to Mount Thom, this hike ends at a subpeak with a youngish italian stone pine and picnic tables. The perfect destination to do a picnic or trail beers with friends. Firetrail all the way up, great for trail running.

Picnic table and Italian Stone Pine at the end of the motorway

La Tuna Canyon Out and Back

7.5mi, 1.4k elevation gain | FIRETRAIL - RUNNING - NOSHADE - VIEWS

This is a simple firetrail that has a gentler grade and is great for sunrise runs. Follow the recording from the link above (instead of the loop) to avoid the scrambling.

Cherry Canyon Park and Lookout Tower

4.6mi, 900 ft elevation gain | LIMITED SHADE - SOME VIEWS - FIRETRAIL - RUNNING

Technically not in the Verdugos but in nearby rolling hills, this is an easy, somewhat rocky trail that’s easy to access and has good (lower altitude) views of NELA / DTLA / etc. Perfect for those lower key hiking days.

Angeles National Forest

With visible peaks towering 5k feet and hidden ones above 10k, Angeles National Forest is relatively unknown by most but loved by many. This is my destination when I want solitude, elevation, and distance. Fortunately, there are plenty of accessible trailheads just a short drive away--these are some of my favorites within 20 minutes:

Earl Canyon Mountainway

6.7mi, 2.0k ft elevation gain | FIRETRAIL/SINGLE TRACK - RUNNING - NO SHADE - NOT CROWDED

Starts off on a steepish firetrail that transitions to a single track. I’ve done this hike a half a dozen times and have never seen a person on the way up. Trail ends at a helicopter landing pad along with 270 degree views of LA and Angeles mountains. Perfect for solitude and amazing on a foggy day.

Just above the fog layer at the end of the trailhead

Tee Pee Trail

5.1mi, 1.0k elevation gain | FIRETRAIL/SINGLE TRACK - RUNNING - NO SHADE - NOT CROWDED

The first trail up the 2 into Angeles, this is a great fire trail for running relative to others since it's only an 8% grade. Limited views until a mile in, but then opens up to views of LA. Trail ends at a Tee Pee, but you can continue all the way to Lukens

Crescenta View Trail

6.3mi, 2.2k ft elevation gain | SINGLE TRACK - LIMITED SHADE - NOT CROWDED - VIEWS

Rocky trail that follows a dried river bed and then meanders up. Great views post 1.5mi as well as rock circles and other random hiker vantage points. My favorite nearby trial the day after it snows--can often see snow at around 3k! Surreal to experience that in LA. Also the starter trail on the way to Mt Lukens

Echo Mountain via Sam Merrill Trail

5.4mi, 1.4k elevation gain | MOSTLY SINGLE TRACK - NO SHADE - CROWDED

A popular trail that brings you to echo mountain, once a popular 1900s destination that has since turned to ruins in the mountains. Great hike to take in a view and have a picnic at the peak.

Fern Truck, Brown Mountain and El Prieto Trail Loop

7.6mi, 1.4k elevation gain | MOSTLY SINGLE TRACK - MUCH SHADE - CROWDED

Great easy trail to do if you’re looking for trees and shade.

El Prieto Loop

2.7mi, 600ft elevation gain | MOSTLY SINGLE TRACK - MUCH SHADE - CROWDED

Similar to Fern truck, but not as long

Henninger Flats Trail

5.5mi, 1.4k ft elevation gain | FIRE TRAIL - NO SHADE - VIEWS

Henninger Flats is first come, first serve walk in campground and one of LA’s best known secrets. Hot and steep until you reach the campground, which is beautifully shaded with lots of great history.

Perfect day above the inversion

Eaton Canyon Trail

4.4mi, 520ft elevation gain | SOME SHADE - WATERFALL - CROWDED

Flattish trail that parallels a river. Rocky and scrambly at places. Get’s especially crowded and popular with families.

Waterfall at the end of Eaton Canyon

Further Favorites

10mi+ trails in Angeles National Forest and San Gabriels, many of which make LA hiking aficionado bucket lists. Up to an hour's drive away.

Inspiration Point Loop

10mi, 2.8k elevation gain | SHADE - VIEWS - SOMEWHAT CROWDED

This is a beautiful primarily single-track trail that travels through crests, a shaded canyon with oak/bay/pine trees, and occasional tree cover that ends at a viewpoint. Mountain bikers often barrel down the back part of the trail so be alert. The first part of the trail gets crowded so you'll have to pass a lot of folks on the way down no matter when you start. But the trail is worth it

Easy to see why they call it inspiration point

Mt Baldy Notch Trail

11mi, 3.9k elevation gain | SOME SHADE - VIEWS - CHALLENGING

This is an LA bucket list hike just an hour drive from NELA. Starts off rocky and forested and then transitions to rocky and bare. The back half of the hike is along a ridge and stopovers at a Ski lodge, perfect for lunch and a beer. You can shorten the hike by taking the trail lift down. Best done around the summertime when the snow is absent/minimal.

Mount Wilson Toll Road Climb

16.9mi, 4.2k elevation gain | ALMOST ALL FIRETRAIL SOME SHADE - VIEWS - CHALLENGING

An LA bucket list hike. Limited crowds and decent views on the way up. I hiked it during the pandemic and the observatory was closed, but when it’s open there’s a restaurant on the top, a welcome reward after a mile of vertical gain.

​​Lucked out on my way to Mt Wilson and got this perfect inversion layer

Mount Lukens Via Dunsmore Canyon

9.9mi, 2.8k elevation gain | SOME SHADE - VIEWS

Mt Lukens and Mt Wilson are the two famed viewable peaks from NELA. This hike is a continuation of the Crescenta view trail, and a ton of fun in microspikes if you're lucky enough to get snow.

​​Mt Lukens post snow in December

Strawberry Peak Trail via Redbox Canyon

7.2mi, 1.8k elevation gain | NOSHADE - VIEWS

Beautiful hike. Last two miles get more challenging with some bouldering and many false peaks. But the views at the end make it worthwhile

​​Made it just in time for the sunrise on a snowy december

Josephine Peak Trail

8.3mi, 1.8k ft elevation gain | FIRETRAIL - NOSHADE - VIEWS - RUNNING

The pure firetrail version of Strawberry peak, this hike offers similar view payoffs but has less scrambling. Great in the winter when it snows as well as in the summer when you want to rise above the low cloud cover, as seen below

About 500ft above the summer inversion

Amaretti cookies

Amaretti look like the cousins of mexican wedding cookies, but are far more than distant relatives. Hunger while vacationing in Italy led us to a tiny bakery in Sardinia that forever changed my relationship with cookies, which I've made at least two dozen times since. The recipe is simple, the ingredients few, and the wow factor great. These initially unassuming powdered sugar bundles of joy pack a huge almond flavor. If you're the type of person that greedily makes their way to gooey center of the almond croissant, these cookies will satisfy. The key is baking them just right so that they are crunchy on the outside but still chewy on the inside. Best to undercook than overcook

Ingredients

250 grams almond flour (2 1/2 c)
200 grams sugar (1 c)
Lemon zest of one medium lemon
3 egg whites
Extra granulated sugar for rolling
Powdered sugar for topping
1 vial bitter almond extract. Don't use store-brought almond extract. Order Dr. Oetker Bitter-Mandel from amazon here

Directions

Preheat oven to 325° F. Position rack in the center.
Line large baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, whisk almond flour and sugar together.
Add grated lemon zest and whisk a few more times. Set aside.
In a separate bowl, whisk egg whites to a soft peak stage.
Whisk in the bitter almond extract.
Incorporate the egg whites to the dry ingredients (it’s okay to smush and stir it, don’t need to preserve the air). Once the dough is completely moist, you are done.
Use the smallest ice cream scooper to portion the dough (about 1 TB, 20-25g).
Roll the balls of dough with granulated sugar. Then place on a cookie sheet at least one inch apart.
If you want them more ball-like, make them into ovals
If you want them more cookie shape-like, depress them ever so slightly at the top so that they’ll spread out more as they bake
Place on the paper lined baking sheet.
Bake cookies until the tops are cracked and a few of the cookies tops have a faint golden brown color, about 25-35 minutes. Remove from oven and let them cool on the baking sheet for a couple of minutes, then transfer to a wire rack so they can cool completely.
Dust the cookies with powdered sugar, preferably using a mesh strainer
Cool before storing at room temperature in airtight containers. Will keep for 3-4 days, but won't last that long

In artificial intelligence, emergent properties are behaviors that unexpectedly appear in a program. For example, applied Large Language Models (LLM) such as ChatGPT were designed to facilitate Q&A, but can also code and pass the bar exam, even tho designers didn't intend for those skills explicitly.

For most of my life, I'd been uncomfortable with my body. Nearly a decade ago, I lost twenty pounds after a focused year+ on diet and exercise. I didn't set out to lose weight to be healthier or run a mile faster, I just wanted to look better. Vanity was the catalyst, but now I'm motivated to stay healthier because of the unexpected physical and mental benefits--fitness emergent properties.

LLMs are trained on a large corpus of text, goaling to predict the next probable word following a prompt. I kicked started a healthy operating model by logging calories and exercising daily. The more weight I lost, the better I felt. The more regular my exercise routine, the more energy I had, and the healthier I wanted to eat. This fitness flywheel reinforced healthy habits, similar to self-supervision employed to train LLMs today.

Fitness Flywheel and Emergent Properties

Since that year of focus, I've permanently changed my approach food and exercise, gravitating toward a more active lifecycle. After our newborns started sleeping through the night, I began waking up early to exercise while they were still sounds asleep. Too early for scheduled classes, but not too early to hike. From my alone time on the trails, I developed a deep appreciation for soltitude, serenity, and sunrises.

When my kids started waking up even earlier for primary school, I swapped hiking for trail running so I could get home sooner. A decade prior I had back surgury and several year recovery period, and I'm still prone to relapses. I never imagined that my injury would allow me to run trails, yet after two weeks of shure will, I swapped hiking boots for trail runners and started running trails regularly and pain free.

Now trail running is my favorite past time, which in turn has triggered an interest in dancing. I'll take spontaneous dance breaks when I reach a vista or start to feel a song. A runner's high became indistinguishable from a dancer's high, reinvigorated my interest in music, and inspired me to learn how to do shuffle (think: running man dance), my latest emergent interest.

I wake up early and get less sleep, but I don't feel tired. Now I sleep ~20 minutes less per night since developing a morning exercise routine, but I still get the same amount of regenerative sleep. Some studies show that athletes fall asleep faster, reaching the needed sleep phases with less overall duration. Getting in shape not only gave me more energy, but I got back more of the day.

Staying active has graduated from a chore to my identity's core. Shallowness triggered the change, but feeling great has kept me consistent and enabled me to appreciate adjacent interests such as music and the outdoors. I am happier, healthier, and still able to do piggyback rides for my growing twin girls, something I couldn't have imagined would have even been possible a decade ago. If you're struggling with a fitness goal, know that the more you stay focused, the payoff will come, and often in unexpected but rewarding ways.

For more inspiration:

• • Permanent Fitness, similiar articulation of this article

• • Fitness Gamification, tips for getting healthy

Renting a shared apartment in San Francisco 2004 begins with the housing wanted section on Craigslist. Posting about why you'd make a good roommate was less about you and more about filtering for whom you want to live with. Most couples spend years getting to know each other; SF transplants get a paragraph and a meetup before signing a year long lease. These cosigners became my city companions, jointly discovering a umami-laden bite of a great street eat, hiking to a hidden gem, or dancing till dusk at a city festival. The fun seemed like it wouldn't end.

That is, until the engineer in me began trying to maximize these experiences, beginning with an obsession to find the best bay area dishes. I sought out then broke down the features of what made everyday eats great. I went on a best banh mi binge, a coffee craze, and a super quesadilla quest, the last of which should have been paired with exercise (instead, with chips). I learned that the tri-folded SF super quesadilla is commonly mistaken for a burrito, snubbing traditional fillers for more of the good stuff. Paired best with late nights, the perfect one is seared on both sides, elects avocado over guacamole, balances fillings fused with gooey cheese, contains deeply seasoned protein accompanied by at least one intensely flavorful (and not runny) side salsa, and is too much for one sitting for but too good to save for later. Have each of these and you have me hooked.

The problem is that most miss the mark. Experience satisfaction follows a log-normal distribution, the joy is front loaded before slowing diminishing. The newness of enjoying a different super quesadilla is eventually subsumed by the snobbiness of (higher) standards. Setting expectations meant setting myself up for disappointment.

While I took food finding to an extreme, the same diminishing returns principal can be applied more broadly. Filling your life with material possessions might leave you feeling empty, but so can filling it with solely with experiences.

Fast forward years later, my partner and I decided to have kids. Before doing so we took time off from work to travel--we didn't want kids to hold us back. We worried that becoming parents would be a step-function back to banality: a move to suburbia, breakfast routines over brunch runs, and no no reservations dinners.

All of those worries came true, but less freedom didn't mean less fulfillment. What surprised me is how much joy I began to experience through the eyes of our twin daughters. No longer is it about me having the best quesadilla, but watching their eyes light up after tasting one for the first time. Today I watched them jump head first into incoming waves, giggling all the while. First words and big milestones are brought up often, but it's the little things, a spontaneous scribble or song, that bring smiles to their faces and mine. When that happens, my partner and I lock eyes, hands clasped tight, thankful for the glimmers that we get to experience through our girls.

Perhaps the joy I feel now will fade when they turn into teenage monsters. I may just be on the early upward slope of the distribution. Or maybe parents become happier over time because of the shared experiences they have with their children. Kids do mean more routine and less freedom, but not less happiness. After a while, you spend less time seeking experiences for yourself, and instead through those you love.

A morning addiction

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Two under two

My experience as a father of premature twins

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