In the Outback of Los Angeles : Griffith Park Puts Nature’s Wonderland on Our Doorstep

Sunrise. In the deep canyon just west of the Griffith Park Observatory, the vegetation blooms with a sunrise song. Even the humblest sagebrush is atwitter.

Waking to the morning overture, a splendid red-tailed hawk launches from his roosting perch. With effortless flaps of his great rounded wings he soars up over the ridge, along which runs Mt. Hollywood Drive, until he feels the warm thermals rising over the top of Mt. Hollywood. There he hangs on the air.

To the south, where Vermont Avenue winds up to the park entrance below the Greek Theatre, the hawk sees a park ranger unlocking the main gate and swinging it open. Already a couple of cars are idling just beyond. Soon the real traffic will begin: swarms of sightseers, motorcyclists, joggers and picnickers, looping up the drive in the hot sun.

North to Travel Town

With eyes eight times as keen as any human’s, the hawk can see, several miles to the north, the early tourists lining up by the old steam engines at Travel Town and buying tickets for the zoo. The hawk dips his wings and wheels down toward the shadowed western valley where he is least likely to see humans, and most likely to find breakfast.

Arcing past the big Hollywood sign, the hawk banks, turning his broad tail like a rudder, and makes a reconnaissance run over the deepest, greenest part of the canyon. Even here, a couple of people are climbing the gravel path up to the Bronson Caves off Canyon Drive. Gardeners are cutting the grass in the picnic areas and emptying the garbage cans. But, all in all, it’s pretty quiet this side. Now for some serious hunting--a juicy young rattlesnake sunning on some out-of-the-way rock on the canyon’s sides would be a nutritious way to start the day.

Never had raw snake for breakfast? Well, you’re just not the gourmet Buteo jamaicensis is! He thumbs his hooked beak at your two scoops of raisins.

Too few Los Angeles residents fully appreciate the nature wonderland that is Griffith Park. We have a little Yellowstone of our own on our doorstep.

From Santa Monica or Sunset Boulevard, you cannot see the western canyon. You cannot see the red tail hunting, nor get any real idea of the wealth of wildlife the park contains. Only the famous Hollywood sign and the Griffith Park Observatory catch most viewers’ attention.

Most people think of the park as four golf courses, 28 tennis courts, a swimming pool, zoo, Travel Town, bridle trails, Greek Theatre, museum and a vast area for jogging or picnicking. But it is so much more. Most of the cultural amenities mentioned above are in what the rangers refer to as Area 1. That is, roughly speaking, the eastern half of the park. Area 2, the western half, is largely unaltered canyon, mountain and scrubland, where wildlife still flourishes in relative peace.

Dozens of Trails

Probably the wildest part of the park is the western canyon accessible by Canyon Drive off of Franklin Street. This area is crisscrossed with dozens of hiking trails and footpaths, many of which were originally rabbit trails and, as a consequence of that, coyote trails. At any rate, it is an excellent place for hiking during the daylight hours. And, though the mountain trails officially close at sundown, you may also hike them at night with special groups organized by the Sierra Club.

Virtually all of the footpaths in the western canyon connect at some point with the bridle path. This wide and walkable dirt road starts where the asphalt of Canyon Drive ends, just beyond the second set of park gates, past the picnic areas.

A sign says “No Motor Vehicles Beyond This Point,” and they mean it.

The bridle path follows the configuration of the rim of the valley (see map), making a big irregular U. At its end, the path forks, one fork leading down to the stables where horses may be rented; the other joins, further on, with Griffith Park Drive, up behind the Hollywood sign.

All footpaths to the valley proper exit from the west (or left-hand side) of the bridle path. These are well marked--often with steps cut into the earth where they begin--and maintained by the Girl Scouts.

From these footpaths, all of which run steeply downhill, many smaller trails diverge constantly. So feel free to explore.

Griffith Park’s topography ranges from near-desert at the higher elevations to thick scrubland of wild sage, thyme, mesquite and agave on the hillsides, and dense woodland in the deep, moist canyons. In these you can see stands of sycamore, live oak, castor bean and wild fennel.

“When I take school kids on nature walks,” park ranger Kenneth Kendall said, “I let them taste the fennel. It smells and tastes like licorice. And there’s always one kid who says ‘This is the black kind; do you have any of the red?’ ”

But don’t attempt to taste the beautiful seeds of the castor bean plant, whose big trifoliate leaves make it look like an overgrown rhubarb. These are poisonous and three of them, Kendall said, can kill a man.

Snakes are found throughout the park. But if you encounter any at all they will be young ones. After a year or so they learn not to hang around the footpaths where they might be stepped on.

It’s a good idea to carry a walking stick. This enables you to negotiate steep trails without chancing to put your hand on a prickly pear cactus or, worse, a velvet ant. These lovely scarlet and black insects are quite common in the rockier areas of the park. Though they look like large furry ants, beware. The velvet ant is actually a flightless female wasp, the walloping pain of whose sting has earned it the colloquial name of Cow Killer.

Wildlife Everywhere

It is well to be observant in the park, not just for safety’s sake but for the pleasure and information it affords. Though mountain lions and bears disappeared from the region many years ago, the observant hiker may still see deer, coyotes, rabbits, ground squirrels, hummingbirds, California quail, red tailed and Swainson’s hawks, peregrine falcons, turkey vultures, ravens, sage thrashers, towhees, kinglets, finches and warblers, several species of lizard and snake and a myriad of insect and plant life. Many of these animals are extremely shy, and to see them requires no little effort and patience. You might pass within a few feet of some of them and never be any the wiser.

Take the California quail, for example. Waterfowl aside, most birds can be divided roughly into three categories for field identification: Those most visible in the sky, such as hawks and vultures; those who inhabit trees and the tops of bushes, and those who skulk around in the undergrowth.

The quail is definitely a skulker of the first water. Reluctant to take flight unless closely threatened, the California quail spends most of its time creeping around under the sage brush and mesquite, grazing on succulent young shoots and the occasional slow black beetle. And none too quietly, either. You can locate them by the rustling, scratching and general commotion they raise while feeding, and by the urgent, accusing “I see you!” they utter when they do.

Should you be lucky enough to spot a cock quail on a bit of open ground, you will immediately mark him as a dandy. Attired in sartorial splendor of gray, green-brown and deep chocolate with white stripes about his face and flanks, and a velvety black bib and curlicue crest, his plumage, frankly, verges on bad taste. Yet you can be within a few feet of a whole covey of quail and never see the blasted birds.

What appears out of context to be decorative excess actually breaks up the outline of this plump, tasty game bird, rendering it next to invisible in its natural habitat.

But there are exceptions to the rule of wariness. The beautiful little Anna’s Hummingbird, by far the most common of the four species in the park, is a pugnacious and territorial little jewel. Because of this it’s easy to spot sitting high on some bare twig, it’s ruby-red gorget and crown sparkling in the sunlight. This couple of grams of potential hat decoration is fearless, buzzing like a tiny fighter bomber at anyone with the temerity to approach his nest.

Strange, Wonderful Creatures

Parts of the park are home to other strange and wonderful creatures. At the bottoms of little moist ravines, if you have the patience to sit still for half an hour or so beside the path, you may be rewarded with a glimpse of the brightly colored Southern Alligator Lizard. Larger than its dusky brown cousins that bask on the rocky cliffs of the higher ground, it is anywhere from 8 to 16 inches long, with a deep yellow back traversed with blue-black stripes.

And somewhere in a secluded canyon, in a crevasse in a face of gray stone overgrown with clinging vines and rootlets (I’ll not tell you exactly where--you can find it if you take the time), is an enormous hive of wild honey bees. This architectural wonder, which looks like some miniature alien city built of translucent wax is, at a guess, about four feet across, two feet high and I don’t know how deep. I’ve never had an urge to get close enough to find out, really.

At noon, most of the creatures of the park, two- and four-footed, take a rest, retiring to some shady spot to wait for the cool of late afternoon and evening. Only the hardy, hungry red-tailed hawk seems not to mind the blazing heat. It continues to spiral in ever-diminishing circles above the canyons, keeping a fierce eye on things.

Griffith Park is interesting-looking from the air as well. From up there you can see that the area, which forms the eastern side of the Cahuenga Gap, is one of the far-flung arms of the San Gabriel Mountain range which, in turn, is part of the Sierra range. Like the nearby Simi hills and Santa Ana and Verdugo mountains, the rugged topography of the park area was the result of a cataclysmic upheaval that created these ranges some 12 million to 16 million years ago. If you scan the cliffs of the park carefully, you may find in the red and gray metamorphic rock pockets of whitish stone composed of shells--remnants of the great Miocene sea bed which once covered this entire coast, inland as far as Arizona.

As with any other out-of-doors activity, certain precautions must be taken when hiking or bird watching in Griffith Park. Though your chances of, say, stepping on a rattlesnake are pretty slim, there are of course other dangers to look out for in a 4,107-acre city park, not so much animal or vegetable as human. In my experience of hiking in the western canyon, you can easily spend four or five hours on a weekday without encountering a soul. Because Griffith is a municipal park, however, the same elements who cause trouble in the city proper are responsible for occasional incidents in the park and warrant certain safety measures.

Ranger Kendall has been with the park since 1966 and has seen all there is to see of the less considerate side of human nature. It seems that most crimes take place in Area 1.

“We’re not the LAPD,” Kendall said, “so we don’t keep crime reports. But we do keep Special Occurrences sheets.” Happily, most of the occurrences documented are fairly innocuous: a dog challenges some horses on one of the bridle paths; a fist fight in the Observatory parking lot. Though there is the more serious side to crime in the park. Those crimes, according to Kendall, “usually occurs at night,” when the park is closed.

‘Go With a Group’

“We advise that if you hike in the park you go with a group or at least take a companion and pay attention to the trail markers and the numbers on the yellow hydrants.”

The trail markers are small green signs bearing white numbers. These numbers correspond to points on a map at the Ranger Station which, in case of a reported accident or other incident, allow the rangers to pin-point the location. The yellow fire hydrants throughout the park area are similarly numbered to correspond to a location grid.

Motorized vehicles, except on main arteries or where otherwise indicated, are strictly forbidden in the park. Nevertheless, inconsiderate juveniles of all ages still manage to sneak in unobserved and terrorize legitimate foot traffic on the trails, indigenous, equine and human. No wonder the animals in this park remain wary and furtive.

Of incidents of visitors running afoul of natural hazards, the most common, according to Kendall, are hornet stings. But these, too, occur most frequently near the concessions stands where the insects are attracted by the ice cream and soft drinks.

Evening approaches and the slanting light casts long shadows across the western canyon. The creatures become briefly animated once again. It’s time for dinner which, of course, must be accompanied by an evening chorus. Once again birds twitter and sing, the throaty mocking bird foremost among them. Frogs croak and crickets fiddle and scrape. It is a magical time to be in the western canyon. Most humans have headed home for the evening, down to the vast city which has sprawled sullenly beneath the park all day long, forgotten. But as darkness falls, it suddenly springs to glittering life with a million points of light, tinting the sky a dull yellow. At last, you are reminded that you have been in Los Angeles all day.

But then, close at hand, a coyote yips, re-establishing a sense of remoteness. With the gloaming he has roused himself; stretched and yawned, and taken a good long look and listen to the nocturnal bustle of the canyon. He’s hungry, and it’s time to be out hunting furry groceries. As the rangers begin to herd the remaining visitors toward the exits and lock the gates, the night shift gets into gear, a whole new symphony of rustles and squeaks, murmurs from the undergrowth.

Overhead the high-pitched chittering announces that bats are on the wing. And something else is, too.

With a deep, resounding “Hoooo!” the ghostly gray form of a barred owl floats silently over the now silvery-looking trail, climbing up to take the place of the vigilant red tail; the nighttime watcher over the nature world of Griffith Park.