Del Cerro Park

★★★★☆

Incredible views of the Pacific Ocean, Catalina Island, and the coastal hills and canyons from the top of the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Calm and quiet, usually breezy, with a few benches out near the edge. High enough you can usually get above the clouds. Away from the edge there’s a large, flat lawn lined with trees, but no playground (much to my son’s disappointment when he was younger).

Looking down along a steeper hillside to a wide, shallow slobe with clusters of trees and dirt roads, and beyond that a coastline made of several coves and points. The hillside is lit up almost orange from the sunlight, and the trees (some darker green, some orange) case long shadows to the left. The ocean is calm, reflecting the pastel blues, yellows and pinks of a sky with feathery clouds, and a low island is silhouetted at the horizon. A tree branch green with leaves stretches over a view of a blue sky with wispy clouds, below it the silhouette of a wide, low, two-lobed island on the horizon of an ocean reflecting the colos of the sky. Near the horizon and to the right, yellow light can be seen from the late afternoon sun. Closer at hand, a cluster of rushes borders a drop to a valley, the plants and hillside lit up by that same golden hour sunlight.

I used to go up here more often because it’s easy to get to (just take Crenshaw uphill until it ends). It used to be easy to park too, but that got harder after a while, and now you have to reserve parking ahead of time. So you can find parking, but you have to plan ahead, and can’t go up there on the spur of the moment based on what the clouds look like 45 minutes before sunset.

Several groups of people stand on shadowed, rocky ground, silhouetted against the sky...the top of a rolling cloud layer visible below them. Above, the sky is crisscrossed by clouds variously shadowed gray or lit yellow or orange, fading to pale blue higher up, but showing little clue to where the setting sun must be.

The uppermost trailheads for Portuguese Bend and Filiorum Reserves are right next to the park. Most of Portuguese Bend (and part of Filiorum) is closed due to the ongoing landslide, but last I checked the trails nearest to the hilltops were open. I should get out there again while they still are.

Sadly, they’ve long since replaced the humorous danger signs with more boring ones. I much preferred the old “don’t even think about it!” version.

Two signs on a fence looking out at a hillside down to the ocean, separated by several years (and different seasons). The older sign is printed red on a white background, and says DANGEROUS CONDITION - DO NOT CLIMB ON OR OVER RAILING - DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT! The newer sign is white on brown, and just says AREA CLOSED - DO NOT CLIMB OVER RAILING. But hey, it's got the municipal code listed on it.

More info at Del Cerro Park.

View on OpenStreetMap.