The greatest delight of spending some of my time in Pasadena, LA from autumn 2016 to 2019 was the chance to walk, most weekends, in the beautiful wildernesses of the San Gabriel Mountains, which frame Los Angeles to the north, rising steeply up from Pasadena’s palm-treed streets. Here are some photos and descriptions of the walks James Anderson and I did together there. We didn’t plan on this blog from the start of our hiking adventures, so we didn’t necessarily record all the information that would have been most helpful if you want to try them yourself, but maybe they’ll serve as appetisers nonetheless.

Where we give hike numbers, they’re from the classic hiking book Trails of the Angeles, by John W. Robinson and Dough Christiansen (we’re using the 9th edition). We give the metadata for each hike, but you can find descriptions and route instructions in the book. We also find Modern Hiker a useful complement to the book, often providing much more detailed descriptions. You can also find large-scale (1 inch to half a mile) maps for some of the hikes (those which coincide with the Pacific Crest Trail) via the Halfmile Project (you want California Section D).