Beacon Hill Loop Trail

The Beacon Hill Loop Trail is 5.8 miles and includes The Coolidge Trail and the Fern Canyon Trail and a view from the heliport landing pad. An elevation gain of 700′ and a final mile along the loud, unshaded Lower Beacon Trail pushes the difficulty up to an 8/10. Views from Beacon Hill and the landing pad of downtown LA over to Griffith Observatory are spectacular unless, of course, smog.

The Parking – Remember the pony rides right off of Los Feliz Blvd. off of Crystal Spring Drive? You can still do the train ride there but that parking lot is the perfect lot to being this trail. Decent bathrooms, water fountains. Easily 50 paved spots.

The Best Thing – The view from Beacon Hill. Downtown LA from this spot is different than most photos you will ever see and honestly, even Glendale looks nice from here.

The Route – From the Pony Parking you will cross Crystal Springs Drive northbound and southbound as if we were visiting the Golf Academy but to the right of that driveway you will see the Coolidge Trail and a decent sign to go along with it. After a brisk uphill the trail forks so take that to the left along the driving range fence. You will soon see another fork.

To the left is a connector trail that comes from the local neighborhoods. Explore if you wish, but come on back here afterwards and take the trail to the right and continue uphill. You will arrive at a 5-way intersection. Hard right heads steeply uphill to the top of Beacon Hill. It’s awesome. Check that out and then come back down.

Now take the hard left trail uphill and you will arrive at the Joe Klass water stop. It’s seen better days but the water fountain is usually working to some degree. Turn right, uphill, on the asphalt Vista Del Valle Drive. Around a couple turns you will hit the helipad viewpoint. Look around. Nice view. Now turn around and you will see a dirt trail that appears to go up to a water tank on the hill. Take that.

The Trail does not go to the water tank but instead heads down hill to that 5-way intersection you hit recently. At the intersection turn hard left and you are now on the long, and surprisingly steep, Fern Canyon Trail. When you arrive at the bottom and you see the enormous Merry Go Round parking lot turn right and stay on the dirt path.

Soon, the Lower Beacon Trail heads back uphill to your right so take that. It’s a decent uphill just when you thought you were done with hills. Not much shade and just high enough up to hear and see all of I-5. My least favorite Griffith Park Trail. But it does end back at the Coolidge Trail where you split off behind the driving range fence. So turn left there and back down to your car. 5.8 miles. Boom.