On March 19th, it was a Friday afternoon, I had finished my online classes for the day and was getting pretty bored. It was around 5:00pm, I had just eaten lunch when my brother suggested we go hiking. My mom was on board with the idea and thought of where we could go. They decided that we’d go to Griffith Park. I was a bit bummed because we had been there multiple times already and I wanted to go somewhere new. We all got ready to go and my dad drove us to the hiking trail.

We got out of the car and put on backpacks that were filled with water bottles. We looked around and we found a trail that we hadn’t taken before and I got really excited. The trail began very steep but then almost immediately sank back down. That’s when we realized it led to a nearby parking lot that we drove past earlier. Luckily there was another unfamiliar trail right next to it. 

Finally, we began our walk and after a while we saw a skinny trail that branched off of the main one. The bushes brushed our arms as we walked through and cracks appeared beneath our feet. We emerged out of the bushes and found ourselves against a large water tank. We walked by and saw two paths, one was wrapped around the mountains and the other one went further up. We decided to ascend up the mountain.

By now, I was getting pretty thirsty, but I decided to limit the amount of water I was drinking. We stumbled across another water tank and my brother threw rocks at it which made loud bangs. We continued to push on forward and patches of concrete began to form. I noticed that we were walking on a road that had been closed off. The road had led us to a forked path. We took advantage of it and decided to take a break. We saw a sign on top of a stone wall reading “<— Mt. Hollywood 0.9 miles.” I was pretty tired by then and I wasn’t fond of the idea of walking another mile, not to mention the walk back. My mom and brother basically dragged me until I gave in and started to walk on my own. We were back on track and started to pick up the pace because it was getting darker. The path had become clouded by the bushes and the light began to dwindle. Dark had come by swiftly and the moon had appeared from behind the mountains. We kept on going and reached a turn unclouded by trees. We saw the city of Glendale. It was as though a sea of stars had materialized under the moonlight. I was astonished by the beauty of the city. The cars gave the sea motion as though it was flowing water. We all stood back for a moment to fully comprehend what we were seeing.

After a while, we continued to speed through the path, almost running. I was beginning to zone out for short periods of time to avoid thinking about the burning sensation in my legs. My brother and I got ahead of our parents so that we could have time to catch our breaths. Meanwhile we were waiting for them, my brother had sat on a cliff and it was a bit uneasy. After we found our parents, we finally saw the summit but I had laid down on a bench wanting to take a nap. Once we reached the summit we were greeted by a familiar view, but this time we could see all of Los Angeles twinkling brightly through the night. By this point we were all exhausted and wanted to go home. And soon our journey back had begun, we dragged our feet back with our heads pointed towards the floor. My glasses had started to fog from the cold and I couldn’t see anything in the dark. My brother began to hide within the bushes trying to scare me, but I knew where he was hiding everytime. We passed through the concrete road and were approaching the second water tank. As we threw our last rock towards the tank, we came back through the narrow path that had branched off earlier. Finally we were able to find the car and hopped right in. As we drove back home, all we could do was talk about how much fun we had.

The End.