Walking In L.A.

If there is a place on Earth that I fell in love with at first sight, it is Los Angeles. From the first trip I ever took there in 1993 when I explored the Hollywood Hills looking for Frank Lloyd Wright houses, I've been smitten by the City of Angels. It was the first exception to the "I've been there once, I don't need to ever go back!" rule that I use to push myself to seek out new sights and experiences. L.A. is an exception quite simply because there's so much to do out there. And because there is, I keep going back. I arrived at LAX earlier this month on my fifth trip and I'm still picking things off my wish list. I absolutely LOVE Los Angeles.

One of the unchecked boxes on my L.A. list was to see the Hollywood Sign closer than I ever had before and as it turned out, 2016 was the year to start working on that. I know, what's the big deal, right? In its simplest form, the Sign is a series of nine long-ago, hastily erected 45 foot high plain white letters sitting on a hill without much of a flat spot which causes the word to look a little crooked. But on the deepest of deep levels, the Hollywood Sign represents the City of Los Angeles and symbolizes the hopes and dreams of everyone who's ever moved out west to make it big and become a star. The Hollywood Sign IS the city. It's some pretty complex stuff.

Now I had for sure seen this thing before on one or more of my vacations to the left coast but I never really spent much time trying to get near it or give its history much thought. Yes, I knew it was originally a sign that read "Hollywoodland" to advertise a housing development somewhere in the hills north of town and I could maybe pinpoint the date of its creation to sometime in the first half of the twentieth century, but I'd struggle to tell you much more than that. Now I can tell you a whole lot more (and will, if you read on) including how to get a spectacular view of the front of the Sign without a whole lot of effort.

The story of the Sign began in 1923, when Los Angeles Times publisher Harry Chandler dropped $21,000 to have sheet metal, pipes, telephone poles and 4,000 20-watt bulbs hauled up the top of Mount Lee by a series of mules to cobble together a lighted sign that would spell out Hollywoodland. At night, the sign flashed alternately "HOLLY", "WOOD", "LAND", "HOLLYWOODLAND" and those bulbs burned out frequently so Chandler and his partners hired someone who lived nearby to go change the bulbs whenever they kicked. Good gig if you can get it I guess.

Of course, once the Sign was up, it needed maintenance, especially considering the flimsy nature of the materials used to put the thing together in the first place. And maintain it the owners of Hollywoodland did. Well, until 1939 when they just stopped altogether. Something had to be done.

In 1949, the ownership of the Sign was transferred to the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce (which still owns the licensing rights to this day) and they tore down the last four letters to make it into the first true Hollywood Sign. They also restored the "H" a little bit and then let it sit for a couple of decades. By the early 1970s, it was in sad shape. The last "O" was gone, the first "L" looked like an "I" and a few of the other letters were looking pretty ragged. 

Enter Hugh Hefner, Andy Williams, Alice Cooper, Warner Brothers, Gene Autry and a couple of other characters who banded together to save the Sign and make it what it is today. Each paid for the complete reconstruction of a single letter. First the Sign was on the edge of collapse, then it was gone and then it reappeared looking shiny and new. The Hollywood Sign Trust was formed to make ongoing repairs to make sure the sign never looked anything less than brand new from then on.

When I first contemplated getting a closer look at the Sign, I of course turned to the internet. And found relatively little in the way of good directions. Sure, there are a series of amateur bloggers like me who have written about their personal quests as well as the odd newspaper article that gives some tips for a good view. But everything I read either seemed to show a whole bunch of contextless photos of dirt trails and trees; close up pictures of signs; or two dimensional maps of a place on this planet which is decidedly not two dimensional. Hopefully this post can be clearer than most of the other advice I combed through before heading west.

If there was a consistent theme about how to get a better look at the Sign, it was take a hike in Griffith Park starting near the Griffith Observatory. That was perfect for me: even if my journey didn't get me a good look at some letters, I'd never been to Griffith Park and I'd also never taken a hike in Los Angeles. Who knew you could even do that? Nobody walks in L.A., right?

The detail behind the advice I read about Griffith Park was pretty consistent: walk up Mount Hollywood starting at the Charlie Turner Trailhead for a view of the Sign and get there early to find parking. The Hollywood Sign, funnily enough, is not on Mount Hollywood; it's on Mount Lee, which is one hill over to the west (or left if you are at the Observatory parking lot looking toward the Sign). And the advice about getting there early is correct. Very correct. We got there at about 6:45 on Saturday morning and the lot was already full. We only got a parking spot because someone was leaving, having already finished their morning hike or workout, I guess. Get there early is very good advice. You can park further down the hill but a couple of hours later, all those spots will likely be gone too.

Once you find a place to leave your vehicle, it's time to find the trail and start walking. This, I thought, might take some searching. The only directions I'd found to the trail, which I imagined as a barely visible path marked only by a small blue sign, was that it was somewhere towards the north of the parking lot. Well, it is in the north end of the parking lot but it's impossible to miss. As it turns out the Mount Hollywood Hiking Trail is the only trail we could find up at the top of Griffith Park and it's about fifteen feet wide, is glaringly obviously a trail and full of people. The north end of the parking lot, for those of you who might be directionally challenged, is where you enter the lot. Time to take a walk.

Roughly speaking, a walk to the top of Mount Hollywood up the very wide and very well used trail involves walking straight for a while; then hanging a hard left and walking uphill; pulling a uey then climbing straight to the top of Mount Hollywood. It's an easy hike so it's not really surprising so many people were out in Los Angeles early in the morning doing it. But even though that's exactly what we came to do and we were right there, we never did get to the top.

The closest you can get to the Hollywood Sign on the Mount Hollywood Trail is at the spot where you make a U-turn, which is sponsored by Tiffany & Co. (it is officially the Tiffany & Co. Foundation Overlook). Our objective that day was to get as close to the Sign as possible. If we kept going to the top of the hill, we would be a lot further away than we were at the Overlook and that didn't seem to make a whole lot of sense. So we didn't do it. Looking north from the Griffith Observatory, you can just about make out the trail and the point where it doubles back. I've highlighted that spot with a blue arrow in the photograph above.

When you get to the blue arrow in real life, it's pretty obvious that you shouldn't keep going to get closer to the Sign. In fact, it looked like the best spot to get a great view was a rocky peak much lower and directly in front of Mount Lee. That peak, which is accessed via a path which looks exactly like what I thought I'd be looking for when I got to the Observatory parking lot (i.e. about two feet wide and not in any way flat), is really just a rocky outcropping. But it's probably the best closest view of the Sign you can get in Griffith Park. It's shown using a red arrow both in the photograph above and below.

Getting over to the red arrow takes some doing. The path that the two dudes in the photograph above are walking down runs along a ridge; it's narrow and uneven and ends in a pretty big slope (shown below) that features a chain link fence to catch rock slides (I guess although it might also catch you). We made it fine but we were careful going down and back up the slippery slope. Before you descend, remember you have to go back up.

From there, all you have to do is cross a paved road (watch out for traffic); walk around a chain link fence which is clearly in place to keep people out but which people have clearly found an obvious way around; make your way along a slightly more treacherous ridge; and finally up a gap in the rocks to the graffiti tagged top of the hill. Your reward is the view of the Hollywood Sign in the second photograph above and a spectacular look at Los Angeles to the west (shown below).

If all that seems like a lot of effort for not much of a payoff, you'd be correct. If you want a walk in Griffith Park and an amazing look at the city of L.A. drive to the Observatory, park and take a walk up to the top of Mount Hollywood. If you want a close look at the Hollywood Sign without a lot of effort, don't do what I've written above. There's a way easier way to get an awesome view. And it's so simple.

Folks living in the Hollywood Hills aren't exactly crazy about Sign seekers. Depending on how hard you are willing to look, you'll find signs like the one at the top of this post or makeshift barriers stretched across residential streets with "Road Closed Locals Only" signs and gaps barely wide enough for a single car. I guess I can understand that to a certain degree. You don't want tourists traipsing around your neighborhoods in their cheap rental cars. On the other hand, don't buy a house in this part of town if you want to get away from tourists.

But there's one spot really close to the Sign that they can't keep you out of: Lake Hollywood Park and the roads leading to it. It's a public park, after all.

The original gates to Hollywoodland.

Type "Lake Hollywood Park" into Google Maps or whatever (less effective) mapping program you opt to use and the spot pops up easily. Getting there from Griffith Park (where we happened to be) involves a quick 5.8 mile drive, although for the best views of the sign, you actually want to park before you get to the Park and walk a little bit back the way you came. Hang a right on Los Feliz when you exit Griffith Park and merge onto Franklin before making another right turn onto Beechwood Drive. Now you are heading for the Hills.

Stay on Beechwood for a bit and you'll pass through the original gates to Hollywoodland, two masonry structures on either side of the road just before it jogs left a bit and starts the climb. The structure on the left is a simple arch; the more elaborate tower with a plaque describing the historic significance of the place you have just passed through is on the right. Stop if you want and if you can find parking; it's kind of cool but you aren't going to be hanging out here too long. Besides, the real prize is coming up.

Take a left off Beechwood onto Canyon Lake Drive and things get really good. If you've never driven throughout the neighborhoods in the hills surrounding Los Angeles, you are in for a surprise. Even if you have but have not been on these roads, you might still be in for some treats. Roads and houses shouldn't be in these hills. It's completely unnatural. They are far too twisty and narrow to make any sense at all and around every other bend are views of housed perches precariously on some tiny spot of flat ground or more often than not on some silly looking columns braced nine ways to Sunday to prevent the whole enterprise coming crashing down in an earthquake. All this for a great view and a place away from riff raff like me.

After what seems like a crazy amount of twists and turns, you'll finally see the Hollywood Sign. And it's really really close. It's about three times closer than the closest point we stood in Griffith Park. Unfortunately, when you first see the Sign this close, there's nowhere to pull off and park. After all, you are still driving on a street probably a bit too tight even for two way traffic.

Keep going. About a half mile further just before you reach Lake Hollywood Park, there are places to dump the car in a parking lane on either side of the road. And there's a sidewalk heading back up the hill. Pull over, take a quick pic like the one above and start hoofing it. It's a really easy walk and pretty soon, you'll be standing in front of what you have traveled however far you have traveled to see.

From our spot on the side of the road, we got an amazing view of the front of the Sign. It's in some ways not very impressive at all. It is, you might say, just nine letters. But I'm a believer in symbolism and objects meaning way more than they appear to be. From the location we walked to we were close enough to see the letters in detail and the structure behind. We could also see far better the crazy way the letters are arrayed over the otherwise untouched slope of Mount Lee. More than all that, we were standing in front of an American icon. And that's what we came for. All of this was way worth the three or so hour investment. One more Los Angeles box checked!

From our spot on the side of the road, we could see people above the Sign looking at its back. There's an official way to hike there and probably a few more non-official ways but we didn't have time on this trip. Maybe next time we'll do that or just ignore the Locals Only signs in the roads. If you are fascinated with the Hollywood Sign and don't have a lot of time to spend finding it, I'd suggest you do what we did and head to Lake Hollywood Park. It's the best, easiest way to get a great look.

The money shot!