Bonelli Park

Social Distance Hikes & Bike Rides

Well, can you get outdoors? From what we understand going on a hike is okay as long as it's not busy and you can maintain six feet of distance from others. And staying local in your community. So we’ve rounded up a few of our favorite easy hikes and bike rides around Southern California. Due to the changing dynamics of the Covid-19 health emergency, please be sure to thoroughly check the official websites of all outdoor places and spaces to learn about and updates in status, such as closures, or parking lot closures. We’ll get through this—be safe, healthy, and kind!

Week: 03.19.2020
Regions: Southern CA

Well, can you get outdoors? From what we understand going on a hike is okay as long as it's not busy and you can maintain six feet of distance from others. And staying local in your community. So we’ve rounded up a few of our favorite easy hikes and bike rides around Southern California. Due to the changing dynamics of the Covid-19 health emergency, please be sure to thoroughly check the official websites of all outdoor places and spaces to learn about and updates in status, such as closures, or parking lot closures. We’ll get through this—be safe, healthy, and kind!

1) Message from Weekend Sherpa's Founder

2) Glow Up

Tucked in the southeast corner of Griffith Park, Beacon Hill is an example of how you don’t have to travel far or aim high to reach one of the best panoramas of LA’s skyline.

3) Garden of the Gods

When a film location is known as “the most shot-up location in movie history” you know you’re in for an adventure. A 1-mile out-and-back trail in 23-acre Garden of the Gods threads through sandstone boulders that were natural icons of Hollywood’s Golden Age, back when this site was known as the Iverson Movie Ranch.

4) Bike the Back Bay

Biking the 10-mile Newport Beach Back Bay Loop Trail is a great way to see the quiet side of Newport Beach—the side that isn’t beach. Instead you’ll ride through 1,000 acres of coastal wetlands known as the Upper Newport Bay Nature Preserve and Ecological Reserve.

5) Bounty of Bonelli

The 6.3-mileBonelli Park Loop Trail is proof you don’t have to go far to escape the city. In San Dimas, the park's nearly 2,000 acres of rolling hills surround 250-acre Puddingstone Lake with views of the towering San Gabriel Mountains just to the north.

6) Ride Open Spaces

This five-mile fat-tire cruise in the Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve is what mountain bikers call a middle-chainring ride—no extremes, nothing technical, but rather a gentle climb into the Simi Hills and a gentle descent on the return through an oak-studded landscape. More about nature than rad biking.

7) Sonny & Share!

The Sonny Bono National Wildlife Refuge doesn’t get many human visitors, but more than 30,000 birds make it a point to visit this hidden gem every year. It consists of 2,200 acres of wetland, farm fields, and desert across two separate units on the Salton Sea’s sparsely populated south shore.

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    From Beach to Summit

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    Canal Contemplations

    With its incense-scented boardwalk, bohemian shops, skateparks, and abundance of body builders, Venice is happily eccentric, and artistic. Exhibit A: Its network of European-style canals with charming bridges, offering a tranquil tour of the town’s history.

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    The fertile soil around Washington State's Lake Chelan is ripe for more than just the amazing apples. Vineyards here yield high quality grapes, and some of the country’s best less-discovered wineries. Locals know it, and you will too when you start choosing from the more than 30 wineries in the region.

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    Planet of the Oaks

    Let us count the number of oak tree species in the Volcan Mountain Wilderness Preserve near Julian: coast, scrub, canyon, black, and Engelmann. Five! The preserve’s Five Oaks Trail is a 3.2-mile hike that boasts all five.

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