Griffith Park

Listen for a moment. Under your shoes, the trail gives a dry, gritty crunch. The air carries the sharp smell of sage and warm dust. Somewhere above you, a red-tailed hawk turns slow circles. And far below, almost like the sound of the sea, the freeways hum. That contrast, wild hillside on one side and a city of millions on the other, is the whole character of this place. You are standing in Griffith Park, and the city never quite disappears here. It simply steps back.

First, a little orientation. The park spreads across the eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains, the long ridge that cuts through Los Angeles. Officially it belongs to the City of Los Angeles. But its northern edge runs right up against Burbank and Glendale, while Los Feliz and Hollywood sit on its southern side. It covers more than four thousand acres. That makes it one of the largest city parks in the United States, many times bigger than New York's Central Park. You could walk here for days and still find a canyon you missed.

So where did all this land come from? It was a gift. In 1896, a man named Griffith J. Griffith gave around three thousand acres to the city. He was born in Wales, came to America as a young man, and made his fortune in mining before buying a large ranch here. He presented the land in December, and it is often described as a Christmas gift to Los Angeles. He said he wanted a place where ordinary working people could rest and breathe. That was a generous idea... and the story behind the man is more complicated.

Here is the part most visitors never hear. In 1903, Griffith shot his wife in a hotel room in Santa Monica. She survived, but she lost an eye. Griffith was convicted and served time in prison. When he came out, he offered the city more money, this time for an observatory and an open-air theatre. Many people in Los Angeles no longer wanted his name or his money. The city only accepted the gift after his death in 1919. So the park carries a generous name with a dark story behind it.

That gift became the Griffith Observatory, which opened in 1935 on the southern slopes of Mount Hollywood. Griffith had once looked through a telescope himself, and the experience stayed with him. He believed that if everyone could look at the sky, people might think differently about their place in the world. Today, the white building with its three copper-green domes is a landmark of Los Angeles. On clear nights, a long line of people waits to look through the public telescope. It is a democratic idea, built in concrete.

From many trails in the park, you can also see the Hollywood Sign. It stands on Mount Lee, at the western side of these hills. Up close, the letters are enormous, and the hillside around them is steep and fenced off. Most people never touch it. Instead, they find a viewpoint somewhere in Griffith Park and frame it with a camera. The sign began as an advertisement for a housing development in the 1920s. Back then it read Hollywoodland. The last four letters came down years later, and the shorter word stayed.

Now look at the plants around you. Much of this hillside is chaparral, a dense, tough scrub that grows across dry California slopes. You will see grey-green sage, dark coast live oaks, and pale sycamores in the shaded canyons. Look for a shrub called toyon. In winter, it carries bright red berries, and some people call it California holly. Locals like to say that the name Hollywood came from this plant. It is a popular tale, but historians are not certain. Still, it is a nice thought on a winter walk.

These hills also had a famous wild resident. A mountain lion known as P-22 lived in Griffith Park for about ten years. Scientists believe he crossed two major freeways to get here, which is an amazing journey for a big cat. A photograph of him walking beneath the Hollywood Sign travelled around the world. He died in 2022, and thousands of people mourned him. His story helped push forward a large wildlife bridge over a freeway west of the city. So keep your eyes open. Coyotes, deer and owls still share these hills.

The park has another surprise, tucked away in a quiet canyon. This is the Old Zoo. The original Los Angeles zoo stood here until 1966, when the new zoo opened in another part of the park. The old animal enclosures were never fully taken down. Today you can walk into stone caves and behind iron bars that once held bears and lions. Families now use these spaces for picnics. It feels a little strange, and a little wonderful, to eat your sandwich inside an old lion den.

Not far from the southwestern edge of the park, there is a short tunnel in the rock called Bronson Caves. It was once part of a small quarry. Later, film and television crews discovered it. If you watched the Batman television series from the 1960s, you have already seen this place. It was the entrance to the Batcave. Countless westerns and science fiction films used it too. Walk through it today, and the light at the far end looks like a scene waiting for a camera.

Then there is the old merry-go-round, with its painted horses, near the centre of the park. According to an often-told story, Walt Disney sat on a bench here while his young daughters rode it. As he watched, he started to imagine a park where parents and children could have fun together. That idea later became Disneyland. The story is told so often that it is hard to separate fact from family legend. But the horses still turn, and children still choose their favourite, just as they did long ago.

The northern side of the park, closest to Burbank, has a different mood. Here you find the Los Angeles Zoo, the Autry Museum of the American West, and Travel Town, an outdoor collection of old trains and railway cars. Children climb onto steam engines that once carried freight across the West. Nearby, horse trails wind along the flatter ground, and riders still pass by. You may notice the smell of hay and leather. It is a reminder that this was ranch land before it became a park.

These hills are beautiful, but they are also fragile. Chaparral is built to burn, and fire returns to this landscape again and again. In 2007, a large fire burned hundreds of acres here. The city closed trails, and many people feared the hills would stay black for years. Instead, the plants came back. Many chaparral shrubs grow again from their roots after a fire. Some seeds need heat or smoke before they can sprout. If you see burnt stumps with green shoots around them, you are seeing that recovery up close.

Before you move on, stand still for one more moment. Look out across the ridges and notice how the light falls on them. In the morning, the canyons hold cool blue shadows. By evening, the hills turn gold, and the city below starts to glow. Somewhere a dog barks. Someone on the trail laughs. A hawk is probably still circling overhead. Griffith wanted a place where people could breathe. Whatever you think of the man, take a breath here. Then walk on slowly, and listen to the gravel under your feet.