Most people who’ve hiked in Griffith Park have never actually stood on top of Mount Hollywood. That’s the summit — 1,625 feet, the highest point in the park — and the trail that gets you there quietly passes behind the Observatory without much fanfare. No sign out front announces it as a destination. No influencer queue forms at the trailhead. And yet the view from the top is, without exaggeration, one of the finest in Los Angeles County.
I want to be specific about why I keep going back, because there are a few distinct things this hike does well that most trails in the city don’t.
First, the approach. The most satisfying route starts from the parking lot just above the Griffith Observatory and picks up the trail heading north and west toward Dante’s View, then continues on to the Mount Hollywood summit. It’s roughly 3.5 miles out and back, with about 500 feet of elevation gain — enough to feel like you’ve worked for something, not so much that your knees hate you afterward. The path winds through chaparral and live oak, and on weekday mornings in particular, you can go a solid twenty minutes without seeing another person.
Second, the summit itself. When you get to the top, the city opens up in every direction at once. Downtown to the southeast, the Pacific visible on clear days to the southwest, the San Gabriel Mountains stacked behind Pasadena to the east. It’s the kind of panorama that resets something in your brain. I’ve taken at least a dozen people up here — family, friends visiting from out of town, a date that needed rescuing — and nobody has ever been underwhelmed.
Third, the timing. Go early. I mean it. The trail is at its best between 7 and 9 a.m., when the light is still low and the city hasn’t fully woken up. The air is cooler, the coyotes are finishing their morning rounds, and the views are cleaner before the marine layer burns off or haze builds. Parking near the Observatory is free before 10 a.m. on weekdays, which matters if you’re trying to keep this free, which you should — the whole hike costs nothing.
A few practical things worth knowing: the trailhead near the Observatory is easy to find, but you can also access Mount Hollywood from the Charlie Turner Trailhead off Vista Del Valle Drive, which adds mileage but avoids the Observatory crowd entirely. Bring water — there’s none on trail — and wear something with actual grip. The dirt gets loose in spots, especially after a dry stretch.
Dogs are allowed on leash, and you’ll see plenty of them. The trail is exposed in places, so summer afternoons are brutal; stick to the cooler half of the day. In spring, the wildflowers on the upper slopes are genuinely worth the trip on their own.
What I love most about this hike is how easy it is to feel like you’ve discovered something in a park that 10 million people visit every year. The Observatory gets all the attention, the lawn fills up, and meanwhile the trail behind it climbs quietly to the top of everything. That’s Los Angeles doing what it does — leaving the best stuff sitting in plain sight, waiting for the people who bother to look up.
