California flaunts more natural treasures than perhaps any other state. Okay, so it’s not quite the frontier that is Alaska, America’s least-visited state, and a land of breathtaking parks and mountains. But it is the state with the most national parks in total, which include totemic things like the iconic natural wonder of Yosemite’s Half Dome and the sun-scorched canyons of Death Valley, the USA’s largest national park. What’s more, you don’t even have to venture that far from big cities in the Golden State to meet Mother Nature. Take the Angeles National Forest, which sits around 30 minutes from the star-studded boulevards of Hollywood on the north side of big old LA.
Close as it is to the great sights and sounds of the City of Angels, the Angeles National Forest is a world away from the metropolis. In the time it takes to dust off a classic Dodger dog, you can swap the downtown streets for the peaks of the San Gabriel Mountains. Within, there’s a plethora of hiking paths that conquer canyons and soaring summits alike. There are scenic highways that showcase sweeping vistas of chaparral-clad ridges, and oodles of campgrounds for those longer stints in the wild.
The Angeles National Forest sprawls across 700,000 acres, which means there are multiple access points on different sides of the reserve. Coming from Los Angeles, you can access the southern sectors via Interstates 10 and 605 in under an hour, though it takes around a full hour to come in from the big airport at LAX. You can also enter from the east via Mountain Top Junction, some 35 minutes north of San Bernardino, or off State Route 14 in the north via the scenic Angeles Forest Highway.
Hiking to a backdrop of breathtaking mountains in the Angeles National Forest
There are stacks of hiking to be done in this reserve. According to the National Forest Foundation, the federal organization that manages state forests across the U.S., there’s a whopping 557 miles of maintained trail on offer, not to mention one huge section of the world-famous Pacific Crest Trail. But it’s not just the sheer number of miles that makes it a tempting destination for trailheads. There’s variety, too, it seems — the outdoors app AllTrails lists everything from canyon walks to waterfall trips to summit treks on its list of the top 10 paths in the Angeles National Forest…