A Trip to Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook to Climb the Culver City Stairs

Over the weekend we had the chance to make our first hike up the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook, and we absolutely loved it!

We captured a bit of that experience below with some images taken throughout the morning, and we’ve shared a brief collection of those below if you want to get a little flavor of the overlook (and thanks again to those couple folks that joined us for the quick hike to the top).

In retrospect it seems like 6:30am may have been a bit ambitious to push a for We Like L.A. meet-up, but we’re definitely still going to be planning more events in the future, so if you want to keep in the know about what we’re up to, make sure to sign up for the email list below 😉

Cheers!

The good news is that with dense fog rolling in, it made the grind to the top a relative breeze. The stairs themselves pose a 300ft. elevation gain in the distance of about 0.2 miles, so it’s a fairly steep trek.

282 steps in all (I’m told), so if you do the stairs twice (or even once really), it’s an incredible leg workout.

The bad news was that with the grey clouds, you weren’t going to get much of a view.

When you get to the top, you definitely deserve a break. Christina, Betty, and Marta all enjoying a rest after a climb to the overlook. 🙂

 

There are bathrooms and a visitors center at the top, though the hours for the center are limited.

One of the great things about the overlook is that by landscaping the area with native plants, they actually save quite a bit of water (and money). It is estimated that the native plant usage curb potential annual landscape water use by about 4.2 million gallons (enough to supply 33 single-family households) through the use of water-efficient native plants and limited areas of irrigated landscape. This saves about $14,000/year in water costs.

Parking is free along Jefferson, but beware it does get VERY crowded, even in the early morning. Kind of a double edge sword because as a public park, it’s good that so many folks are enjoying it, but on the other, it will make it annoying to visit if you go at peak hours.

The park estimates during the summer they may be getting as many as 500 visitors per day going to the Overlook.

Overall, we really enjoyed it, and after discussing we’d definitely like to do it again when the weather might permit a more substantial view. Maybe we’ll see you there 😉