Kenneth Hahn Park is a no-brainer for the first in my series of trail reviews. It's a hop, skip and a jump away from my apartment and there's plenty of parking.
Kenneth Hahn Park is located at 4100 S. La Cienega in Baldwin Hills. There are many different areas within the park including picnic areas, a lake, a Japanese garden, basketball courts and trails. To access the trails, head to the top of the park from the entrance, past the community center. Basically, keep driving until you can't drive any farther--there are lots of places to park.
There is a large green space called Janice's Green Valley that is encircled by a walking/running path a little under a mile in length. From this path you can access several other trails.
The trail I took first leads down to Boy Scout Trail and eventually runs parallel to La Brea. Be prepared for a steep downhill at the start of this trail. Most of my energy was spent trying to maintain my balance and avoid breaking an ankle on the way down. After about 3/10 of a mile you'll reach a trail marker for Boy Scout Trail and you'll be faced with the option of taking one of two paths. The path to the left ends rather quickly while the path to the right extends for about a mile or so before it ends at a turnaround point. There are lots of other walkers/hikers/runners out on this trail so I felt very safe. I always have that panic moment when I wonder if anyone could hear me scream if I got hurt, but here that wasn't a concern. The weird thing about this portion of the trail is that it runs parallel to La Brea, so if frolicking in nature made you forget you were in LA, you'll be reminded soon enough.
While this particular trail is short (about 2.3 miles round trip) it is not easy. The constant changes in elevation make the trail challenging and I struggled with some of the steep inclines. You know how sometimes you work really hard to run up a steep hill and feel like you're making no progress? Then you start walking instead and realize you can go much faster with less work? I did that a few times on this trail.
See?
After reaching the top again I headed around the bowl (Janice's Green Space) to another trail. This trail was not marked, so I'm not sure what it's called. This second trail was my favorite of the two. While it still had some challenging hills the changes in elevation were not so extreme, so I felt like I actually got to run more and at a faster pace. Also, there are several great lookouts along this trail that provide great views of the city. Follow this trail to its end and you'll reach one of the playground areas at the bottom of the park, from there you can begin the climb back up to the bowl.
The Good:
- Convenient location
- Safe park with lots of visitors
- Good hill workout
- Great views
- Nice green areas for stretching
- Limited distance and trail options--I combined the two longest trails and got in just under 5 miles. I suppose you could do the same route again but that's not very fun.
- Difficult to plan in advance--maybe there are more trails here, but I couldn't find them! The best I could find was here, but there are no maps to guide your planning.
- I will definitely be running this trail again--it's so close to where I live it would be silly not to! Adding this route once a week would be a great way to add hills to my weekly running.
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