Customer Reviews

Moon Take a Hike Los Angeles: Hikes Within Two Hours of the City (Moon Outdoors)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Los Angeles has a lot of neat countryside to explore if you know where to look. When I first came to the LA basin from Idaho, I was overwhelmed by the suburban sprawl, but I quickly found lots of nice outdoor experiences nearby. This book will help anyone else looking to escape the city for a few hours (or days). It features over 80 hikes all within 2 hours of LA.

I've hiked about a third of the trails described in this guide and all are nice. With time off in April, I expect to explore more. By way of a warning though, you will need to be reasonably fit to do many of these hikes. Most are 5 to 10 miles long, often with substantial elevation gain. Several are shorter, but a few are quite challenging. Happily, the authors also provide options for shortening (and sometimes lengthening) your walks. The bulk of the hikes listed are in the San Gabriel Mountains and Santa Monica National Recreation Areas. A few selections from Orange County, Palos Verde and Catalina Island round out the book. On the whole, this book is an excellent investment in fun and exploration.

Overall this is a great book, with easy to understand directions, maps, elevation profiles, etc. The trails are all organized in an extremely useful way, and the writing style is very approachable.

My only gripe, and the reason it's 4 stars instead of 5, is that some trails are missing. If you go to the National Park Service website, you can get maps which are more comprehensive and show where multiple trails mentioned in the book intersect - for even longer, more interesting hikes.

But that said, this book is a great entry-point, to introduce you to an area and provide some great insight into the terrain. From there, a little online research only adds to the experience.