Griffith Park Training Grounds

“Griffith Park Training Grounds” Watercolor & Ink. © 2023 Linnie Aikens Lindsay

“Head out, girls,” were Dad’s predictable words each time we began a hike or backpacking trip.  I think I had hiked every inch of the 53 miles of trails in Griffith Park, all before I was 14. This is the largest urban-wilderness municipal park in the U.S. and bordered our house in Los Feliz.  Dad would use this park as our “training grounds” for the annual family back-packing trips we would take into the Sierra Nevada or Teton ranges.  We dreaded those weekly late-afternoon hikes. We felt like one of those dog teams, you know, “mushed” about by our dad.  “Move those legs! Lift your feet! Get focused! Keep your eyes on the trail!  Get with it!”  It’s no wonder why most of my friends and co-workers through life complained that I walked too fast. 

            Despite our pace and our professed dislike of the outings, I still noticed the beautiful wildflowers along the trail and the orange parasitical sticky moss, that would drape over the trees as if trying to suck the very life out of them.  I was often fascinated by nature’s struggle to conquer or either survive in life, and here was just another example. I would scour the trail to spot the stinkbugs, with their little heads buried in the dusty ground, as we’d leap over them with the appropriate amount of drama that only four little girls could produce in unison.

Sometimes, our trail would overlap some of the original L.A. Zoo that stood deserted and spooky.  Dad would encourage the mood with his ghost stories of animals that had died there or those that had escaped and were hiding in secret lairs in the area, waiting for unsuspecting little girls.  He’d pretend to go on ahead to scout the area in order to protect us, then, as we were busy peering into every  darkened brush area, the four of us huddled together and moving as slowly as we thought Dad would allow without noticing. Meanwhile, he’d double back in the brush, and sneak out from behind us and leap out at us with a ferocious growl around the next bend.  We scream in almost mock terror and race back to mom.  I must have I learned my eye-rolling habit from her, now that I think about it!!

Pranks and teasing were a staple growing up. Dad often played pranks on us and come up with a sundry of “fun” things to do on our hiking outings.  I think he was just a big kid at heart!  We loved that about him, even while we “hated” hiking!  It was one such afternoon that we were lined up at the trailhead, four stoic faces doing our best not to pout.

(my dad) Graphite on Paper.  9” X 12” © 1980 Linnie Aikens Lindsay

Suddenly he brightened up like a kid, “Hey you girls, I have a present for you!”  He handed us each a safety whistle on a bright orange neck chord.  We looked up at him skeptically, fairly experienced enough to know by now that this “present” could not mean anything good at all.  We waited for the boom to drop.  With a huge grin he announced, “Today you are going to each take turns getting lost, and we will find you!”  Where did he come up with this stuff? Groans covered any sound caused by the increase in our heartbeats.  “This is going to be fun!“ he added enthusiastically as he continued to explain how we’d each be left somewhere for 20 minutes, and then we had to remain calm and figure out what to do in such a situation.  After one of my sisters had her turn, only to end up with Dad yelling at her for not remaining calm and using her whistle instead of screaming at the top of her lungs, none of the rest of us were too anxious for our own turns. 

Still, when it was my turn, they left me on a ridge.  I stood there, alone for a bit, determined to show them. Then I began to wonder how long 20 minutes was.  None of us had a watch.  I was the oldest, so I better not cry, I told myself.  I kept looking around me and noticed that I could just barely see the tiny line of the roadway, a grey ribbon wrapping around the mountain. I thought, worse comes to worse, I could just hike downhill.  Eventually I would hit the road and people, right? 

I observed everything around me and planned for as many possibilities as I could.  If a snake bit me and I couldn’t walk, I still could just roll down the hill.  Then I started to worry about how dense the chaparral was and how it might be easy to get lost once I got off of the ridge.  Maybe it would be better just to stay on the ridge and build a signal fire.  I knew how to rub sticks together to start a fire.  I had remembered one of the guys in the high school group my dad led had done that.  Of course, he almost caught his long hair on fire too.  But I was smarter than that.  I thought the signal fire was a good idea because there were always a lot of helicopters flying over this part; well, I thought that was a good idea until I remembered that those helicopters were always hunting for criminals and serial killers who would hide out in the mountains of the park like Charles Manson or the Hillside Strangler, who were in the area. 

Then I started to get scared because anyone in Los Angeles knew that even more ‘crazies’ hid out in this park, especially in the water towers.  What if Dad didn't find me?  What if he left me here too long and a ‘crazy’ found me first?  How long was 20 minutes anyway?! The sounds around me, nearly silent while we walked, suddenly seemed loud and ominous in my ears.  Finally, I just went back to the trail and started walking back down the way we came.  I figured I would just wait by the car.  Even getting scolded for not obeying Dad was better than standing up on that ridge all scared I thought.  That was just dumb.  About half-way down the trail, I blew my whistle a few times and the whole family joined me, supposedly after ferreting me out by listening to the whistle.  None of us were very impressed with Dad’s new “present” or his game.

I still have that whistle, and I think of this story every single time I see it. My sisters threw away that reminder just as fast as they were able to do so without Dad finding out.  It has been our secret ever since.

One of our weekly hikes was the “Hike to Mt. Hollywood”.  Sometimes we would start at the Griffith Park Observatory and hike up; that was the easy one, and other times we’d start on the other side of the mountain, on the other side of the 4200 acre park. Dad would always devise new routes, adding in opportunities for us to gain additional outdoors skills, such as the “what to do if you are lost skill”, the “outwitting a wild animal skill”, or the “walk leaving no trace skill”, and the “tracking skill”. We had to learn to spot poison oak, nettles and other dangerous plants, and how to identify and use mugwort to rub on an area where we might have been exposed to such. We didn’t always stay on the trail either, although he explained that you never leave the trail so that you protect nature and don’t get lost. The few times he made us leave the trail were to teach us a skill he felt we should have.  “Walking on a trail is a piece of cake,” he’d say, “but what do you do if it’s washed out by a storm or slide?  You have to know how to ‘scramble’.” Then he’d make us climb up hillside gullies left by heavy rain that were nothing but boulders and roots left exposed by the elements.  He’d found a good one to suit his purposes on the way up to the Mount. We’d have to practice that time and again until our speed was “acceptable”.  We also had to learn to use our compasses to keep from getting lost. 

“Griffith Park with Observatory & Mt. Hollywood” Watercolor & Ink. © 2024 Linnie Aikens Lindsay

Other times, he’d take us on night hikes and we had to learn to use the stars to navigate. All of these were simulations of course, because we’d done so many hikes there that we all knew we couldn’t get lost there even if we tried.   The best one was the “how to escape bandits skill” by hiding from would-be muggers in the Bronson Caves, where we were rewarded with smoked sardines from roll-top cans and liverwurst on crackers. We girls muttered to ourselves that being taken by bandits would be better than that “reward.” The best part of Bronson Caves was watching the first Batman shows being filmed there because they used the cave as the “Bat Cave” and brought the original “Bat Mobile” up there in the mid to late 60’s.

Mt. Baden Powel Training Grounds

After we graduated from the Griffith Park Training Grounds, we began a new training program in the San Bernardino Mountains.  Dad bought us all backpacks. Originally, we’d all had “training backpacks” which resembled the day packs, or a smaller version of the backpacks kids wore to school 20 years later. Those first packs were small and red, just big enough to hold an extra pair of clothes and 3 pair of underwear and socks.  Our early 1970’s REI down bags in stuff sacks and insulite pads were strapped to the bottom. After a few Sierra trips with those, Dad had decided to upgrade our packs to build our endurance (and lighten the load of his own pack more likely). He bought four old beige canvas army backpacks on aluminum frames from the Army surplus store.  Then he cut each frames down and rewelded them back together to fit our smaller backs.  He’d make us load them up with first 25 lbs, then 30lbs, then 40 lbs and practice hiking with the weight, learning to balance ourselves on the trail, crossing creeks on logs, scrambling through boulder areas, and bending over at a stream to fill our Sierra cups without toppling head-first into the water. 

Mount Baden Powell was one of his favorite training hikes, mostly because we’d invariably run into a group of Boy Scouts huffing and puffing up the trail, “complaining and whining” (to hear Dad describe it) as each time we’d pass the whole lot hiking up to the mount. The mount had been named in honor of Robert Baden Powell, the founder of the Boy Scouts, and later the Girl Guides, which became the Girl Scouts.  Why did Dad like running into the Boy Scouts on these hikes, you wonder?  He loved showing off how strong his little girls hiked and liked hearing every troop leader berate his boys by comparing them to little girls who could hike faster and better than them.  Dad would then brag about it with his friends after we returned.  Once we’d pass the Boy Scouts, Dad would then hook us all up together on a long climbing rope with carabiners and make us practice techniques for catching each other and breaking a fall as one or another slipped on a sandy or pebbly slope.

  “Really, Dad?” became the one-eyebrow-raised regular response from us girls at his announcement of each “training” hike challenge.  None of us hold any fond memories of these brainstorms of Dad’s, although they’ve become good fodder for storytelling when we’re teasing Dad as adults.

"Mt. Baden Powell Training Grounds”  Watercolor  © 2020 Linnie Aikens Lindsay

Even so, today I am grateful for the time and energy Dad had put into to our "training exercises." While my sisters were never as gung-ho as me, using the skills Dad had taught me, I would go on to experience many more backpacking, hiking and camping trips, for the next 50 years.

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Note: All artwork, stories and observations posted within should be credited to the author, Linnie Aikens Lindsay (unless cited in the post). Permission is required for any use of my words or artwork. Taken from my work, "My Life As Wallpaper Art".