Urban Mountaineers See City From Debs Park

Many urban residents view this park from their homes in Lincoln Heights and from the heights of Mt. Washington, from Highland Park and from South Pasadena.

Thousands of motorists whiz by it on the Pasadena Freeway. And yet this park, glimpsed daily by so many, is surely one of the most overlooked parks in Los Angeles.

Debs Park is the name of this county park located in the heart of the metropolis. It offers the urban mountaineer a great place for exercise and terrific clear-day city views.

“The sunsets are great from a viewpoint near the park’s lake,” reports Curt Robertson, a county parks department employee and one of the very few neighbors living near Debs who visits the park. “When I walk, sometimes I spot more quail and coyotes than people.”

Debs Park was not named for the Socialist labor leader and presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs, but for Ernest E. Debs, a former Los Angeles County Supervisor.

Governmentally speaking, the park is something of an orphan. It’s Los Angeles city land, but in 1967 the city gave it to the county on a 25-year lease. The county contracts with a private firm for the park’s maintenance and has not been gung-ho about developing the park with a lot of facilities.

Officially known as Ernest E. Debs Regional County Park, it occupies a small range of hills called the Montecito Hills. The 300-acre park is on the east side of the Pasadena Freeway, more or less opposite Mt. Washington. Subdivision maps of the last century showed the Montecito Hills divided into lots, but developers apparently opted for the more buildable neighboring areas of Mt. Washington and El Sereno.

The park includes a family picnic area with barbecue facilities and plenty of lawn for play, but the greater part of it is brush-covered hillsides. Trails and fire roads loop through the park. Sunrises and sunsets are particularly dramatic when viewed from the park’s high points.

Next time you’re in the neighborhood, get off the freeway and drop in on Debs Park. If you hike Debs on weekdays, you’ll likely have the park to yourself.

Directions to trailhead: From downtown Los Angeles, take the Pasadena Freeway (110) to Highland Park, exit on Marisol Avenue and head right (east). Marisol Avenue separates Debs Park on your right from Arroyo Seco Park on your left. When you reach Monterey Road, turn right and proceed 3/4 mile to the park entrance. Turn right into the park and follow the park road 1/2 mile past picnic sites to its end at a parking lot.

The Hike: At the north side of the parking lot, join the asphalt fire road, which leads steeply north up a hillside to the park’s high point. Views from the road include downtown, Elysian Park and Mt. Washington. The front range of the San Gabriel Mountains--including Mt. Baldy as well as much of the San Gabriel Valley--is also part of a clear-day panorama.

Just left of the road is the park’s small man-made lake. Continue on the road, which soon passes a huge graffiti-covered shade shelter. You’ll pass a junction with a dirt fire road on your left, then approach a turnaround at road’s end. Join a dirt fire road on your right and follow it along the top of the ridge.

Next pick up a trail (marked with a blue arrow on an oak), which at first descends through some eucalyptus trees toward Monterey Road. The trail soon swings north and drops to a fire road, where an upside down ’59 Chevy reached the end of the road. The fire road offers views of the Arroyo Seco, Pasadena Freeway and Pasadena as it turns west. Another good view of the arroyo is offered at a viewpoint on the westernmost curve of the fire road. That striped stretch of asphalt you see below you, the one closest to the hillside, is an old soapbox derby track.

Stay on the fire road, which brings you back up to the park’s paved road near the shade shelter. If you’re hiking at day’s end, the park lake is the place to watch the sun set over the metropolis.