Baldwin Hills

I went for a hike on the morning of American Thanksgiving (a pre-emptive calorie burn) at the Kenneth Hahn recreational area, which is a state park in the Baldwin hills.  This park is only around a 10 minute drive south of where I live.

Like most hikes around L.A., this park's trails go up a hill.  The Baldwin hills are not as high as the Hollywood hills, but still have amazing views of the city, and from a different vantage point.

Here are a couple of photos of the hill on the way up- it's mostly grassy and open.

This I think is part of the "Olympic forest" but I'm not certain.  When L.A. hosted the Olympic games in 1984, they planted a tree from each participating nation in this park.  True to L.A. custom, nothing in this park is well signed, so I'm not sure if this group of trees is part of that forest or not, but it probably is.

The trail has great views in almost 360 degrees in places.  This is looking northeast towards downtown. You can see snow caps on the San Gabriel mountains in the distance.

Here's a closer-up of downtown with the mountains behind.

The photo below is looking north and slightly west.  The taller buildings in the right background would be Century City.  Santa Monica is in the left background, with the Santa Monica mountains behind.

Looking north, Hollywood hills in background, San Gabriel mountains behind.  See that tall building in the right middle ground?  I live near that.

Looking west and slightly north.  Malibu would be in the distant background.

To the south, oil wells!  Still pumping.  I think the land this park is on was part of the oil fields, and I think the park hopes / plans to take over the oil field that is still pumping once it's pumped out.  Not sure what that timeline would be.

I think this is part of the same park, but it's geographically separated at the east, and it and is irrigated and much more manicured.

The next three were taken on a minor trail at the top of the hill.  Some nice trees up there.

I liked this park, I'll go back.  There's another park a little south of it with a 300-step staircase, I want to go try that soon too.