Bird Sanctuary Trail

Great trail. Easy to get to, and fairly a good, challenging climb to the top.

Beyond the bird sanctuary, past the miniature footpath, all the way to the sudden upslope on the left lies one of the more difficult* routes to the top of Mt.Hollywood.
Why one would consider this the ideal route to the top, I know not, but I do know that many people do; it is always busy, often crowded, and is thusly the perfect place to step in a giant pile of dog crap.
It is these things, however – the fairly steep incline, the constant pedestrian traffic, the lack of used condoms strewn about the footpath – that make it a pretty good workout (except, of course, the dog crap. Unless you’re, you know, into that.)
Having written that (the part before the dog shit part), I continue to be suspicious of folks who make this their trail of choice; anyone who loves this path enough to put up with it more than rarely must hate him or herself, at least a little – the whole thing is, after all, covered in dog crap.
Still, I’ve got to give it up for the Bird Sanctuary Trail and hand it an extra star. Whatever for? No, it is not because I am not «into that.» Curse you for thinking it. The extra star is for the fact that it’s a fastest way to the top of Mt. Hollywood that probably won’t end up killing you.
Three stars.
*the most difficult route is, of course, the stupid vertical one that starts between FernDell and the place that is on the same level as FernDell, but nearer the Observatory. Sure, it will get you to the top in, like, fifteen minutes if you do not first kill yourself sliding down the the eighty nine or whatever it is degree incline**. I do not condone this path and thusly refuse to review it but for the insignificant mention here, upon which I have just detailed, thereby rendering it’s insignificance, well, insignificant.
**an eighty nine degree incline being slightly less than the ninety degree incline of the y-​axis of the following figure– |_​–which is to say, pretty steep, but also slightly impossible to climb without equipment, and thusly nonexistent in Griffith Park, at least in the capacity that I have described it. You see? I know how to make jokes, too!

This is a nice little footpath that takes you from the top of Vermont Canyon Drive (In Griffith Park, just before it bends to climb up to the Observatory from above the Greek Theater, just to the left of the Bird Sanctuary) up to the fire trails that circle Mt. Hollywood, via Captain’s Roost and Dante’s View gardens. A decent hiker can do the round trip from the Bird Sanctuary to Mt. Hollywood and back in about an hour.