Celebrities...

Los Angeles is an incredible city for hiking. Sure, sometimes you have to deal with smoggy vistas, but we’ve also got days when it’s 75 degrees in February and you can see straight to Catalina Island. We’ve got Angeles National Forest – a thousand acres of pristine wildlife 20 minutes from downtown LA. We’ve got Griffith Park sitting right on top of Hollywood, with 53 hiking trails threading through it. And canyons, canyons, we’ve got canyons – Fryman Canyon, Beachwood Canyon, Topanga Canyon.

And then there’s Runyon Canyon. Smack in the middle of the Hollywood Hills, Runyon is so cool that star tours would happily jam their buses up the fire road if the city would let them. This trail is filled with LA hikers eager to get their green on. So in honor of these committed, eco-folk, I present this top ten salute.

You Know You’re Hiking Runyon Canyon When:

10. You bring 40 plastic bags to put in the reusable dog-bag containers and find that 10 people have already filled it ahead of you.

9. You decide to take the “long hike” in regular sneakers and not industrial spiked togs. And you regret nothing as you fall head over heels down the front wall.

8. You spot so many celebrities on the trail that you begin to wonder where the cameras are. Then you notice several cameras shooting the trial.

7. You see most people picking up after their dogs. Then you dive out of the way while a Great Dane treats the trail like a sewage plant.

6. You watch a group decide to explore a nearly 90-degree chasm off the trail.

5. You watch the group shriek in terror as they realize they can’t climb out of the 90-degree chasm.

4. You watch the LAFD arrive in a helicopter to rappel into the chasm to rescue said group and their huge carbon footprint.

3. You refill your water bottle at one of the pumps and then realize you’re sharing it with a black lab mix.

2. You notice more shirtless man upon shirtless man. Then you notice one of them is Matthew McConaughey. (Props to Runyon hiker Kristin for the sighting!)

1. You can see the Hollywood sign, the Griffith Observatory, Hollywood Blvd, the Valley, and the Pacific Ocean in one Maria Von Trapp spin atop the mountain. And seriously wonder if there’s a city in the country that can beat that view.