Most of the "peaks" are just bumps on a large ridge, but there were a dozen of them so...
Due to one reason or the other, my last real peakbag was Mt Bliss. I'd wanted to do a DPS peak on the Mecca Hills trip, but that didn't work out. Then I had the failures and the weekend after that my car was in the shop.
So, to end my drought, despite temps being in the low 80s, I decided to do the Griffith Park 12 Peaks Challenge (link). I've been to each of the peaks many times. In fact, I've probably hiked Mt Hollywood over 200 times. I've hiked several of them at a time. But, I've never done a dozen of them, and today was the day.
I started by taking the use trail that heads from the Lower Beacon Trail and goes up to about 1/10th of a mile from Beacon Peak (it's the junction before the LBT starts going up). After heading up Beacon - and being warned about a rattler that I didn't see - I headed in the other direction towards the helipad.
Behind the maintenance shed at the very beginning of the Hogback trail there's a steep scramble up to Glendale Peak. I'd hiked that peak many times but I'd always taken the trail and I'll probably continue to do that. The scramble has no real interest either as a challenge or a training exercise. If it was loose dirt or solid rock that'd be one thing, but it's compressed dirt steps that are covered with ball bearing-sized pebbles. The "crux" is where you have to go sideways a bit and trust that your boots don't slip on those ball bearings because if they did you'd definitely scratch yourself up and maybe gets some bruises. A pic from up above is below, and a pic from the trail is here.
Glendale Peak done, I hiked up the Hogback Trail. The next peak is supposedly a bump on the ridge with the original name of Hogback Peak. Except, if that's a peak, then so too is the other peaklet that comes before it. I'm counting both.
Four peaks down, I made a mistake by heading right for the four western peaks. I went up the fireroad to Mt Chapel and took the use trail to the top of it. Then, I took the use trail that heads on the top of the ridge. That use trail is a narrower, more direct alternative to dirt Mulholland below. Thankfully, it wasn't anywhere near as brushy as I've seen it in the past.
The use trail intersects with the asphalt road (open only to residents and maintenance workers) that heads up to Mt Lee (aka the Hollywood Sign). I saved Mt Lee for later and went over Cahuenga Peak to the Wisdom Tree atop Burbank Peak. You might notice that the background image at this site is the Wisdom Tree. There's some minor Class 2 to get up Cahuenga but, just for fun, I did that as Class 1.
After backtracking over Cahuenga I did Mt Lee and then came back on the ridge trail. Then, crossing Mt Hollywood Road again, I went to Baby Bell. It's not much of a peak but it's a nice little side trip. After that I did Bell which, like the ridge trail, was thankfully not that brushy. It involves a little scrambling. Then, I went up and over Taco Peak.
If you're familiar with the area, you've spotted the mistake I referenced above: I now needed to double back to get to Mt Hollywood. I should have done that on the way up. But, anyway, after doing Mt Hollywood for about the millionth time, I came back the same way but went down towards the Vista del Valle Drive (asphalt, closed to vehicles). Then, I walked down the road to Bee Rock, a prow-shaped rock. Unfortunately for me (but not for falcons) it's closed right now due to falcon nesting so I wasn't able to get it on this trip. But, it's not like I haven't been there before.
After heading down the Bee Rock Trail to the parking lot that was the end of Mr Goal's wild ride. I may do this again but the next time I'll optimize the route and just use the trail to get up to Glendale Peak. I will also continue to count both humps on the Hogback Trail. If you don't like that, fight me.
