Hiked Sunday, December 7, 2025. Now that we're approaching the holidays, I was anticipating gridlock traffic heading up to Griffith Observatory, so I figured I'd plan on an early arrival and hike, before my shift. I ended up leaving home later than I wanted, but the expected traffic did not materialize. It was also empty on Tuesday, December 6. Can't say for how long this lull in visitation will last.
This is probably my most walked trail over the past ten years, but I haven't walked it that frequently, recently. Policy changes let us start our telescope shifts earlier than before, so now, if I get here early from my day job, I can just log in and start my shift earlier. We officially have telescopes on the front sidewalks from 7pm until 9:30pm, but, especially in the winter, when it gets dark early, there's no reason why you can't start telescope observing at 5:30pm or 6pm, instead.
One thing that has changed since the last time I hiked here is they have gated off what used to be an official trail that avoids the long switchback that is the Charlie Turner trail. It knocks at least ten to fifteen minutes off the descent time, which was good, if I wanted to hike up to Mount Hollywood and back, but was short on time. Going the long way, it's now pretty close to an hour (about 3.5 miles) roundtrip. But because of my early arrival, I did have time to finish that hike.
I got my start somewhat before sunset, and had som enice alpenglow on the San Gabriel Mountains on the way up. Not a lot in the way of flowers this time of year, though.
Got my nice workout in -- hiking here is different from just walking in town, because there's a climb involved, which works the cardio and the leg muscles. I really need to do this more often.
After coming back down, I changed my shift and worked my shift. But the moon picture down below was actually from Friday, December 5, 2025, my previous shift. That was the night of a confluence of events: A roughly full moon near a perigee approach, and near the period of major lunar standsill.
Major lunar standstill is when the moon rises or sets unusually far to the north or south, because an extreme point in its orbital wobble causes it to rise or set about five degrees further north or south than it normally would.
A full moon near the winter solstice would mean the moon would already be rising and setting unusually far to the north, and the extra five degrees makes it even more extreme. In this case, it rises near Mount Wilson, as seen from Griffith Observatory, rather than farther east, like near Mount San Antonio, or more or less due east, as during the equinoxes. Rising over the distant mountains means it's a little higher in the atmosphere as it becomes visible, and the seeing that night was exceptionally still, so, even rising, the moon showed some decent detail. And, being a little closer than average to earth in its eliptical orbit, it appeared a little larger than normal.
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