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This quaint little view is known as the Los Liones Trailhead in Pacific Palisades. This trail, all I can say, is alllllllll upwards incline. It’s not hard, you’re literally just climbing inclines for about 3.5 miles to reach the Parker Mesa overlook. Okay… I’m lying, it was hard and I forced us to take so many breaks. But it was so worth it. The paths do get a little narrow so watch your step, but for the most part, if you wanna take it a little slow, do so!

The view was amazing. You had a clear view of both the beach and of the city. We probably spent an hour or so just relaxing at the top, since it didn’t actually take us very long to reach the outlook. Save this hike for a sunny day because you wouldn’t want to miss how great the view looks!

There is also a parking lot that leads right up to the entrance of the trail, but I would recommend packing light–aka your phone and a water bottle.

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Okay, it’s actually called Escondido Falls, but by the time I had visited this trail in March, it was merely just a trickle impossible to even get on camera. Escondido Falls is located in Malibu, but when navigating, don’t trust Siri to get you there. She got us all confused and we drove onto a dirt path that wasn’t even meant for cars (eye roll emoji). Listen to what the people instruct on Yelp, and you’ll be good to go!

There is a lot you can park in but you have to go through a neighborhood to get to the trail itself. You can also follow this how-to on how to navigate the trail in case you get lost or confused. Not gonna lie, I already found myself pretty winded from just walking the hill to the trail, but it’s a good pre-workout I suppose. The hike itself wasn’t too bad, it was covered for a large portion of it (pictured top row, middle), and it was cloudy so it wasn’t too bad.

When we arrived at the “falls” it was a mere trickle at that point, but it could also be the season we had decided to visit. The grotto-ish area was really beautiful though, it was so lush and lively. You can attempt to climb up to the cliff area but it’s a little more dangerous and there can be a lot of debri/rockslide action. The swing obviously isn’t naturally a part of the trail, but it made for some super cute pics!

I’d actually recommend bringing a few snacks so you can eat and chill by the creek before you embark on the walk back. Can this California drought get it together so I can actually reward myself with a waterfall view?! Hehe.

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This hike was done a while ago but it’s a place I’d definitely recommend paying a visit if 1) you want some cool Instagram pics, 2) you want a kickass workout. It’s called the Murphy’s Ranch Trail, which is supposedly a Nazi sympathizer camp hidden in the mountains of a Brentwood neighborhood. You can go to this awesome page that tells you every single step to get to the trail/compound, because it’s not something I think you’d figure out on your own.

I went on Easter day and it was actually so hot and not particularly crowded on the trail. My brother and I took the stairs down (meaning we’d have to take the stairs on the way up too…) and let me tell you, even just going down the stairs made my legs wobbly. We probably descended about some 6-7 sets of stairs with maybe 100-200 steps each. I have a fear of going down stairs so you can only imagine how slow I was going down those worn, steep steps.

The first thing you’ll encounter is a water tank, pictured in the top left photo. Every time I look through the geotag for this trail, the water tank is covered in different graffiti so it’s always changing and that’s super cool. You pass a couple more graffiti’d water tanks, accidentally take a few wrong turns, and crawl under a mesh fence and you’ve arrived at the graffiti’d house! It was actually super sketch but one of those “yolo, doin’ it for the gram” moments. Getting on the roof was no easy feat (just ask Kendrick, who hoisted me up) but it was definitely super cool.

We spent a lot of time exploring the building which is graffiti’d inside as well (pictured bottom right). They were having a photoshoot inside though so we didn’t get to take a bunch of photos in there. There is also a basement but it reeked of spray paint cans so we opted out… and it looked pretty scary even during the daytime, so no.

THE WALK BACK. OMG. THE STAIRS. THE FRICKIN STAIRS. As far as we knew, there was no other quick way to get back up to the car besides going up the stairs. You could follow the trail that wraps around the mountain but we didn’t wanna get lost since the sun was going down. But oh my, I have never huffed and puffed, sweated, and cussed as much as I did on the climb back up that day. It was a sad sight according to Kendrick, but I made it out alive (barely). I heard they were trying to get rid of the compound but I’m not so sure if that’s been done yet, but if not, I definitely recommend checking it out IF YOU’RE UP FOR THE PHYSICAL CHALLENGE.