We headed down the freeway to the city of Eagle Rock...
Ave 40 was our exit which would lead us to the neighborhood of Glassel Park...
I had read about dozens of "secret stairs" all over certain neighborhoods in LA. This particular walk seemed quite fun and a challenge. This would be the Glassel Park North route. We encountered a few other walkers besides us, some branching off into different directions. This was our starting point, where Ave 40 and Eagle Rock Blvd. intersect...
Decades ago, many of these neighborhoods in the hills had staircases for the residents to get around. Many were built before the advent of the car and were a convenient way for the denizens to traverse their hillside neighborhood. Some of the staircases were also wooden and quite old. This one was covered with greenery....
View at the top of the staircase.
I forgot which way we turned, but we kept walking and referring to an online map about where to go...We happened upon this staircase which I recognized from other bloggers' posts (linked at the end)...
That's TC making her way up...
Each landing of the steps had mini paintings...
View near the top.
View of LA from the top of this hill...
So sad. I don't know if Charlie was ever found. :(
A crazy looking cactus in someone's front yard. Some of the homes here were pretty neat looking, many of them hidden.
The next walkway was here. Now we were going down. As Bert and TC descended, I remembered that this was the part of the walk where you pass a house with two ginormous dogs (Great Danes they turned out to be) that liked to bark and hurl their bodies against the flimsy bamboo fence.
I heard the barking before I got to that point since I was a bit behind Bert and TC taking photos. The loud barking was scary at first but once we passed by, the dogs stopped and were just wagging their tails. They just wanted to "play". Awww.
There were wooden stairs at the bottom of the walkway..
View from across the street...
We kept walking down the hill, admiring the homes and even saw chickens in someone's front yard as well as a communal lending library. It was really neat wandering the neighborhood and seeing the individuality of each home.
We were almost near our car...
In all, this walk took us about an hour and a half. There were a few legs of the walk that we chose not to go on. It was getting quite warm and we were also getting hungry again.
Who else went to the Glassel Park North Hidden Steps?
ClimbingLA October 2010
LifeAbsorbed January 2013
LA-ClimbingtheHiddenStairways January 2014
StairWalkinginLA November 2014
Here is a cool video featuring the author of "Secret Stairs of LA", Charles Fleming:
...and another video about the history of the hidden steps in LA (which also features the Music Box Steps which we visited the previous day):
And I can't resist throwing this video in here:
Astroboi and I used to call Dale Bozzio's bra a "pair of fishbowls"! She was rocking the pink hair waaaaay before Gwen Stefani!
After all of this walking and exploring the neighborhood and enjoying the fantastic views, Bert chose our lunch destination, which was also in the neighborhood...
2 comments:
My friend lives nearby in that area, I wonder if she's ever encountered the secret stairs! I like the little paintings on that one set of stairs. It livens up the neighborhood a bit.
There are a bunch of secret stairs in LA according to what I've read. There's another set I want to try (forgot the name) but I will ha e to wait for a future road trip.
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