Hiking Photos

Located in the dense cityscape of Los Angles is the Ernest E. Debs Regional Park (Debs Park), a relatively undiscovered park, hidden to most people who drive by on the adjacent 110 freeway. However, to the people of the nearby homes and the surrounding culturally diverse neighborhoods, this park is their backyard. Over the years, Debs Park has represented many different things to many people: a place for gathering food and ranching, a place for residential development and sporting competitions, and today a place of natural habitats and recreation. The park is host to abundant groves of native woodlands and shrubs giving shelter to numerous birds and animals. The attentive observer may chance a glimpse of a soaring Cooper’s or Redtailed Hawk, the Great Horned Owl, a desert cottontail, or the secretive broad-handed mole. With its expansive open space, and sounds and sights of nature, the park is an inspiring experience. It is also the home of baseball leagues, and a place for family gatherings, picnics, walking, camaraderie, and solitude among shaded trails. Vistas from the park’s high spots are breathtaking in their clarity of form, revealing the world around us.

This combination of natural and recreational qualities makes Debs Park a unique and special place — a place worth investing the time and effort to preserve and enhance.

Balanced on the easternmost edge of the City, Debs Park is located in Highland Park, five miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles on the south side of the Arroyo Seco Parkway (110 Pasadena Freeway) (Figure 1). It is nestled within the Repetto Hills and is part of the Arroyo Seco Watershed that drains via the Arroyo, to the Los Angeles River. The Park has an irregular perimeter that roughly resembles the shape of a key. The longest park distance is north to south, approximately 1.2 miles (6,250 feet) and the broadest is located in the northern half (east to west), approximately 0.66 mile (3,500 feet).

A locally prominent ridgeline, which is generally north-south trending, forms the backbone of Debs Park. This central ridge and its spur slopes divide the park into ten separate catchment basins, with drainage courses radiating north, east, south, and west.

Elevation ranges from 884’ at the highest point, to 425’ feet at the lowest point, found near the northwest boundary along the frontage with the Arroyo Seco. The varied terrain creates a 459-foot change in elevation, often felt by the hikers that traverse the hill-bound trails . Slope gradients vary throughout the park, with the majority of the park having slopes that are steeper than 50% (a ratio greater than 2:1). Active play and picnic areas of the park with terrain less than 10% slope were created by artificial fill in the southern half of the park during the 1970s. Filling this area was responsible for creating approximately 34 acres (11 percent of the total park area).

Audubon Center at Debs Park
4700 North Griffin Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90031
(323) 221-2255

Hours:
Tuesday - Saturday
9 a.m to 5 p.m.

The Audubon Center at Debs Park opened in 2003 as an environmental education and conservation center for the communities of northeast Los Angeles. The Center is located in the third largest park in the city of Los Angeles. More than half of the park is covered in walnut-oak woodland, grassland, and coastal sage scrub, a remnant of the native habitats that once rimmed the Los Angeles Basin. Over 140 species of birds have been recorded here.

The Center’s mission is to inspire people to experience, understand and care for the local natural world. The nature-based education and community programs at Debs Park are designed to engage children and their families in the outdoor world, and to give them a personal stake in its protection by making environmental issues relevant to their lives. The Center is operated by Audubon California, a state field program of National Audubon Society, and is a vital part of Audubon’s national outreach initiative to engage Latino audiences. The Center, which is surrounded by predominately Latino neighborhoods, is a unique gathering place and dynamic focal point for outdoor recreation, environmental education and conservation action. 

Ernest E. Debs Regional Park

4235 Monterey Road

Los Angeles, CA 90032

Phone: (213) 847-3989