Imaan Jalali

Southern California’s unique topographic contours have allowed for not only several “secret” outdoor stairways, but ones that wrap around, descend along hike paths, and surprise in sinuous fashion. Up until now, there have been eight stairwells in particular that were usually encountered by only land explorers, though are now revealed for all to revel in.   * La Mesa Public Stairs Located in La Mesa, CA on Windsor Drive (between Canterbury Dr. and Normal Ave.), this stairwell will test your endurance and leg/calf strength. It provides such a lower-body workout that personal trainers are known to bring their clients here….

  Situated on the Cahuenga Peak Trail in Griffith Park, the “Wisdom Tree”—which resembles a bashful sprout of broccoli—should have been one of Mother Nature’s tragedies, but it has turned out to be a rousing success story.   For all intents and purposes, the tree should have succumbed to not only an unmerciful fire in 2007, but a land sale in 2010 that would have seen it felled without forethought. However, the inferno, though unrelenting as it was in destroying most of the vegetation around it, spared the limbs of the tree. And the potentially disastrous real-estate transaction was countervailed…