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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  1. Field of Light at Sensorio in Paso Robles

    Light This Way

    Hidden in the bucolic hills of Paso Robles lies one of the greatest light shows on earth. The lighted art exhibition, Sensorio, is as if the rainbow magic of the aurora borealis was plucked from the sky and planted in the fields.

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  2. Bikers and walkers on the Bay Area Ridge Trail with the Golden Gate Bridge behind them

    National Park City Walk

    See San Francisco the way locals do by hiking the Presidio, a national park right in the city! Wooded trails, secluded beaches, and epic views of the Golden Gate Bridge feature on this 5.5-mile out-and-back on the Bay Area Ridge Trail. It’s a lovely slice of the City by the Bay.

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  3. Bucks Up!

    Come on in, the water is beautiful. Whether you like swimming, kayaking, stand-up paddling, or heading out on a bigger boat, Bucks Lake is a high mountain haven that’s easy to access, blissfully uncrowded, and surrounded by sandy beaches, picnic areas, pines, and aspens.

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  4. Surfboards and tents for shade are set up on the beach at Cull Canyon Regional Recreation Area in the Swim Lagoon Area

    Switchbacks and Swimming Holes

    Hike hard, play hard! This 7-mile out-and-back in Cull Canyon Regional Recreation Area is a great workout with payoff vistas and a relaxing post-hike picnic and dip in the water.

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  1. Bear Hug

    This 5.5-mile loop through Coyote Lake-Harvey Bear Ranch County Park explores one of the newest segments of the acclaimed Bay Area Ridge Trail, one redolent with trees ranging from madrone and manzanita to buckeye and blue elderberry (with a bubbly post-hike bonus).

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  2. Two kayakers on Upper Klamath Basin on tour with Sky Lakes Wilderness Adventures

    Zen & the Art of Kayaking

    It’s the most meditative and relaxing experience you’ll ever have on a kayak. Yes, you read that right, a Zen experience on a kayak. It all happens in beautiful Klamath County when you head out on a guided tour with Sky Lakes Wilderness Adventures.

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  3. A Rose in the Pines

    A crackling fire, a bottle of wine, a bubbling Jacuzzi tub with a waterfall … now the big question: Marvin Gaye tunes or not? In the morning (ahem) it's breakfast in bed and a leis

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  4. Alex Villicana, Villicana Winery and Re:Find Distillery

    Locals' Feature: Alex Villicana

    Tech booms, AI revolutions, okay that’s all fine, but you wanna know what else is really cool? Being a pioneer in a world-famous industry that—in Paso Robles—remains solidly down to earth. When Alex Villicana established Villicana Winery in 1993, he clearly had grape expectations...

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