0 min
Overview
It is no secret that Los Angeles is a fairly park-poor city. In the Trust for Public Land’s annual rankings of the park access of major cities, Los Angeles consistently ranks low on the list. This year, we placed 45th – behind Dallas, Las Vegas, and Cleveland. Sure, we’ve got the Santa Monica Mountains and Griffith Park, but if you don’t happen to live near those places it can be depressingly difficult to find some neighborhood green space. Thankfully, that is changing. Over the past few years, Los Angeles has made some baby steps toward rectifying that problem. While some of the parks are nothing more than converted empty lots or “pocket parks,” Vista Hermosa Park is a shining example of a reclaimed urban park done absolutely, 100% correctly. Vista Hermosa almost didn’t even happen. The area was slated to be part of a massive educational complex, but the fact that it sits over both an old oil field AND a fault line put an end to that. But the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority stepped in, held extensive meetings with the neighborhood to find out what they wanted, and hired a top-notch local landscaping firm to deliver their vision. The end result is a gem of a park – one that manages to fit soccer fields, meadows, playgrounds, picnic areas, and stunning native plant landscaping in its 10 and a half acres. It’s just a stone’s throw from downtown Los Angeles – and in fact features one of the best views of downtown you’ll ever get – but a slow stroll through this park feels like you’re miles away in the Santa Monicas or San Gabriels. The first thing you see when you arrive at Vista Hermosa is a welcoming entry gate that is absolutely covered in green. I had the chance to tour the park with the MRCA staff, who explained the landscape architects designed the entry way with a mix of native and popular local non-native plants, then as you get deeper into the park it becomes overwhelmingly native. It’s done this way so that new visitors to the park – who in many cases have never been to a park before, let
Trail Stats
0.6 km
13 m
122 m
110 m
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