Trail Review: Ascot Hills Park, West Ridge
Parking: Free parking in two lots in the park off Multnomah Street.
Distance: 1.9 miles
Difficulty: Easy to Moderate
Ascot Hills is a 93 acre park in the middle of a residential area between the Lincoln Heights and El Sereno neighborhoods of Los Angeles. It's a little nature oasis in a big city. The main entrance is off of Multnomah Street, although there is an entrance at the northern end on Kewanee Street as well. There are no parking lots on Kewanee.
There are two parking lots in the park. The first is a dirt lot immediately after the Multnomah entrance. The second is further in down the paved road, and features two public restrooms, water fountains, and is where this particular trail starts.
All the way at the north end of the parking lot is a vehicle gate. Go around this and start down the dirt trail. The first part of this hike is pretty flat and is a good warm up before the climb up the hill. The trail here is very wide, which is good because this is one of the busier parts of the trail since it connects to both the east and west ridges.
About a tenth of a mile in, you'll hit the major trail intersection. There is a nice trail map sign here if you want a better understanding of the layout of the park, but you'll want to continue straight on the wide, flat path to continue this hike.
The trail will soon hit the edge of the park and will be blocked by fencing. But before you get to the fence, there will be a short path to the left that will connect you to the a parallel path. Doing a little bit of a zigzag, you'll turn right on the parallel path before then quickly turning left and heading up hill.
This is where the trail significantly narrows and is only wide enough to go single file. So if any other hikers or bikers come down the hill, you'll need to step off the path. We had a couple of bicycles come down while we were headed up so keep an eye out!
At the next intersection, we went up and to the right, which is the shorter and steeper option. (The lefthand trail is another option that will eventually get you to the same place.) And then a short time later, the path connects to the wide trail along the top of the west ridge. This is where you want to end up. It's got the best views of Downtown Los Angeles and is especially nice at sunset!
We continued up the ridge trail for a bit longer until it started going downhill and turns into Kewanee Street at the north end of the park. At this point we turned around and followed the wide ridge trail all the way back down to the southern edge of the park. It's a nice view all along the ridge and you can see the surrounding neighborhoods.
As we got to the bottom of the hill, we followed the path to the left which turns into that parallel flat trail. The next right turn spit us out into that initial major trail intersection. From there, we just headed back to the parking lot!
Ascot Hills has so many paths that giving directions can be a little difficult. But the park is also contained; so really, many of the trails are interconnected and you'll have numerous options for getting up onto the ridges. It's like a choose your own adventure!
We've been to Ascot Hills Park at various times of the day and times of the year. After a big rain, you're likely to see lots of green grass and wild flowers. In the heat of the summer, it might be less colorful but the views at the top of the ridges are still worth it. I think the best time of day to hike here is at sunset because the sun goes down RIGHT behind Downtown Los Angeles. It can be quite beautiful!
Here's are drone photos from one sunset visit to the west ridge:
And here is some drone video of our recent visit. So green!
Bottom Line: A little, 93 acre urban oasis with wonderful views of Downtown Los Angeles. It's particularly great at sunset!
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