Parker Mesa Overlook

This past weekend, I went to Vegas, but I rushed back by 6pm on Sunday so I could still make it hiking.  My friend was training to climb Mt. Whitney and asked if I wanted to join his hike, so I thought it would be good to get in some exercise after how much I ate this past weekend.

We went to the Parker Mesa Overlook Trailhead in Topanga State Park/ Santa Monica.  I believe there’s two ways to get up there: the Los Leones Trail and the Eagle Rock/ Will Rogers hike which I hear is an extra 4 miles.  We took a shortcut up some residential area since we were short on daylight.  It was 7:15pm by the time we started and I think we made it up by 8.  It was mostly an incline on the way there, not too steep but enough that I felt sore the next morning.  As I got closer to the top, I realized I’ve done this hike before, maybe 4-5 years ago.  I never knew what trail it was back then, but it started to look familiar and I realized we were definitely on the same mountain.  Once you get to the top, the whole hike is worth it.  The view was absolutely gorgeous!  & I’m a sucker for views.  The sun was setting, the city lights were twinkling, no one else was there….. it was nice, romantic.  Haha ya for how amazing I felt like it was, the only adjective I could think of was “nice.”  We stayed up there for maybe a good 45-60 mins just taking it all in.  Santa Monica always has nice views.  Anyways, by the time we headed back down, it was dark.  I’ve never done night hiking before but my friend has and came prepared with flashlights.  I was nervous at first just cause I’m kinda scared of the dark… I mean you never know what might come jumping out at you…!  It went well though, didn’t fall or trip, all good. =)

We got back around 9:45pm.  Hiked roughly 13k steps, 5 miles, and burned 1500 calories.  This was one of those firsts that I’ll never forget… not just the first time hiking at night, but there were just some other things that made this one for the books.  If only you knew…