Hiked May 28, 2026. Hike 22 for the Year. My hiking pace took a dive this month, but I managed to get a few in at the end of the month, keeping me on pace for this year's target of 52 hikes. I got a boost by cloudy weather and forgetfulness. For this hike, it was the former.
I was scheduled to work a lawn telescope, but the clouds made showing anything problematic for the night, though there would have been some brief peeks at the moon, had I stuck around all night. Most of the time would have just been standing around, or showing city sights, which is allowable, but not much fun, to me. So I put in my hour, then went hiking.
I have obviously been hiking in Griffith Park since the year this blog began. Looks like I last hiked to the top of the sign about two years ago. But I think it's been a while since I was at the bottom of the sign, so I figured I would do that, and get an idea of the hiking distance and time from the Observatory.
Turns out the answer is, "A lot." The problem is, from the Observatory, the trails you need to take to get to the base are very windy, weaving along contour lines that turn in and out of various erosion creases. It was about 8.5 miles, roundtrip. And since I hadn't gone on any longer hikes in a while, I found it pretty tiring.
It was longer than it needed to be because I don't like having to cross West Observatory Road, down near the Vermont Tunnel, and I don't like walking up or down West Observatory Road, because of the foot traffic. So either staying up from the Charlie Turner trailhead, or returning over the tunnel, both add a lot of distance and altitude gain to the hike. But I usually find that preferable to the foot and car traffic, down below.
So, on this trip, I walked past the Berlin Children's Forest, then dropped down to West Observatory Road, cross West Observatory Road and Western Canyon Road then walked up the paved but gated road that is Mount Hollywood Drive. I then took Mulholland Trail over to paved Mount Lee Drive, then turned down, to the left.
Then it was west, on and along Mulholland Highway (passing on the pedestrian bypass for a gate that otherwise blocks Mulholland Highway), to a lot that is signed as 6101 Mullholland, and has a steel sheeted placesaver and a "No Tressspassing" sign on the stairs leading up to the sheet metal outline of a home. I assume the intent is to one day build there, and so to preserve their private holding, no right of public access until they do. Google maps calls the place, "The Last House on Mulholland."
Of course, if you buy and build, there, I would expect an awful lot of foot traffic around your house, and you'd probably have to grant an easement of some kind, to preserve the view of the sign.
I returned to the Observatory via the "three mile" trail, back up to near Mount Hollywood, then took the east side trail around Mount Hollywood, then back down to the Observatory, via the Charlie Turner trailhead.
A screen shot of my Alltrails recording is here: 8.79 miles, 1,053 feet of vertical. I was pretty tired, the next day, and the day after.
Unlike national park areas, dogs are permitted. No smoking is allowed anywhere in the park. You may need to share the trail with horses, and you'll definitely see horse poop and smell horse urine. Also, there's a lot shorter way to get here, if you park down near Lake Hollywood Park. Parking is free, down there. But because I'm me, I almost always park near the Observatory for my hikes in Griffith Park.
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