The weather was absolutely perfect for a hike today. The recent cold weather finally broke and the rain went away. By "cold weather," I mean 45F during the day, which is positively balmy for some of you. I admit it: I'm a weather wimp. Whenever I'm getting nostalgic for home and think of moving back to live in the UK again, one trip in January is enough to convince me of the utter ridiculousness of that idea.
Anyway, back to hiking. Our favorite place to hike is Will Rogers State Park in Pacific Palisades. It's mostly fire roads that are wide and flat, but there are narrower trails leading off from these. We usually go up to Inspiration Point, which is about 2 miles round trip with an elevation of about 300 feet. If we're feeling sufficiently inspired, we continue up a butt-buster trail that takes us even higher.
Not today, though. It wasn't really a "feel the burn" kind of hike. More of a "mosey, chat and try to avoid the holiday baking" kind of hike.
Here's the view from Inspiration Point:
Pretty cool, huh? Note the distinct lack of brown haze hovering over the area. The air quality in Los Angeles is a lot better than it used to be, but in summer it can still be a little, well, thick. Not today, though. Today you could see for miles.
The recent cold weather also brought snow to much lower elevations than usual. Hell, it even snowed in the California desert! It came down to about 1000 feet, which is only a couple of hundred feet higher than the San Fernando Valley basin.
OK, so there's a bit of brown haze in this photo. But there's snow, too. Just to prove that it is indeed possible to visit the beach and the ski slopes in a single day. Not that I've ever done that. I'm not much of a skier, having taken my first skiing lesson very late in life and with a broken tail bone (horse-related injury, of course). It LOOKS like it should be fun, but whenever I try it, I find myself standing at the top of a bunny slope whimpering about my imminent death while kamikaze two-year olds zoom between my legs.
No, hiking is much more my cup of tea. And on a day like today when everything's green and the air is clear, hiking in Los Angeles feels like paradise.
