After a long day at Disney, what would a normal family do? Maybe take a rest day? HA! We scoff at you, theoretical rest day! In truth, I wanted to do our lazy beach day, but it was cold, cloudy, and staying close to the house seemed like a good idea. Plus we hadn’t made our grocery run yet, and my tummy was not liking all the restaurant food. Keith suggested we go hike to the sign, pick up some healthy food options afterwards, and call it a day.
Getting to the sign is both easy and difficult. You can see it from almost anywhere so it isn’t really necessary to hike up, but we are not the sort who take the easy route. Everyone voted for hiking, but we really didn’t have a good concept of what that meant. Thankfully, the weather saved us. Cloudy and cool was absolutely vital for our success!
After winding our way towards the area, we decided to attempt the Canyon Drive Trail. From looking at the maps, it seemed like just under 2 miles to make it to the first viewing area. This is a reasonable amount of hiking for us, we’ve done 4 miles most weekends. What we didn’t consider was spending all day on our feet the day prior at Disney and the sheer amount of elevation gain on the hike. Oh, and to top it off, the first viewing area listed was ‘closed’. We decided to keep going to the second. After tracking our distance back, the total distance ended up being 5 miles. It was rough, but absolutely felt wonderful to know we pulled it off. We need to get our butts in shape anyway, because if the Hollywood Hikes slay us, we shouldn’t even attempt the Canadian Rockies in July!
The video below will give you a small taste of the experience. I put some of Keith’s shaky GoPro video in to give you a feel for the long and bumpy road.
Cost: FREE! Parking was free at the Canyon Drive Trail head, which is not common in Los Angeles. We hiked during off season, on a cloudy Monday, so we had no issues finding a good spot. It was not easy, but it was absolutely worth the pain.
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