5 epic outdoor adventures that will make you feel powerful in 2025

Extremely long walks, steep trail hikes and cave kayaking: Take on these unique SoCal fitness challenges in 2025 to feel powerful.

1. Take an extremely long urban walk

Perhaps because Los Angeles is such an auto-dependent city, walking long distances through congested urban areas can feel sort of gleefully illicit, an iconoclastic journey that inevitably has urban pioneers navigating thickets of construction, crossing sun-scorched asphalt and trudging underneath freeway overpasses. Which can be a challenge — and kind of the point here.

Los Angeles is home to extraordinarily long and historic boulevards that crisscross our pop cultural landscape, popping up in films, song lyrics and novels. There’s Sunset Boulevard (21.75 miles, according to Google Earth), Sepulveda Boulevard (42.8 miles), Vermont Avenue (23.3 miles), Mulholland Drive (21.13 miles), Ventura Boulevard (18 miles). Pick one and make it a DIY adventure. Vow to walk the length of the street in a day — or over several days, picking up where you left off.

Step count aside, it’s a wonderful way to connect the cultural dots in the city, meandering through diverse neighborhoods, happening upon little-known shops and restaurants, passing sidewalk food vendors, tucked away public art and garage sales, not to mention a prism of people-watching.

2. Conquer the SoCal trifecta — with a twist

The goal here is to surf in the ocean at dawn, ski in the mountains in the afternoon and — here’s the twist — rock climb in the desert at sunset. There are myriad ways to do this challenge, considering SoCal’s many beaches and surrounding terrain. But here’s an especially efficient route.

Start at Santa Monica’s Bay Street Beach, at Bay Street and Oceanfront Walk. Paddle out just before dawn and watch the sunrise from the water. After about an hour of surfing (say, from 6:30 to 7:30 a.m.), jump on the nearby 10 freeway and head east.

If you hit the road by about 8 a.m., you can reach Mt. Baldy Resort, the closest ski destination to L.A., not to mention the most affordable, by about 9:30 a.m., traffic depending. Half-day lift tickets run $30 to $80, depending on how much of the mountain is open due to weather conditions. Mt. Baldy Resort is open seven days a week during ski season, and the main lodge is at the top of the first chair lift, which has views of the Pacific, making it a destination unto itself. You can be on the slopes by 10 a.m.

Ski for about two hours and, with time for lunch, you can be on the road again by 12:30 p.m.

3. Hike the Trans-Catalina Trail in three nights

This is a 38.5 mile thru-hike that traverses the entire island of Catalina. Generally, the hike takes about three nights, camping along the way, but it can be done faster or slower. The terrain here is especially diverse, spanning urban sidewalks at the start and paved roads later to manicured gardens, a pine forest and dirt trails with ocean views. Catalina has more than 60 endemic species of plants and animals, so be on the lookout for Catalina Island fox and Catalina live-forever succulents, among other unique wildlife.

The elevation gain also fluctuates greatly on this hike — from sea level to more than 1,700 feet. The mostly dirt trail is well maintained but features near-constant ups and downs, many of them heart-poundingly steep.

Take an early boat from Long Beach, San Pedro, Dana Point or Newport Beach. The trailhead, at 708 Crescent Ave. in Avalon, is walking distance from “the Mole,” where boats arrive. If you’d prefer to wake up on the island, stay at the Hermit Gulch campground in Avalon, where you can camp or rent cloth tent cabins. It’s on the trail, so from there you can walk straight up, farther into Avalon Canyon.

4. Tackle L.A.’s most brutal stairway walks

Charles Fleming’s 2010 book, “Secret Stairs: A Walking Guide to the Historic Staircases of Los Angeles,” is something of a classic by now. When it first came out, I went down the rabbit hole, exploring a chunk of the 42 walks — including about 300 staircases — that Fleming maps out. Favorites? Walk No. 22, in Silver Lake, with its craggy succulents and lush foliage providing plenty of shade; and the silent film era-allure of the Music Box Steps, which Laurel and Hardy immortalized in the 1932 “talkie” film “The Music Box” — the duo comically hauls a piano up the narrow staircase in the movie.

I purposely skipped several chapters in Fleming’s book altogether. Too much of a challenge, despite majestic views, notable surrounding architecture and the promise of a strenuous, brag-worthy workout.

If your glutes are braver than mine, consider taking on the five most brutal staircase walks of them all. They are, according to former Times staffer Fleming:

Pacific Palisades, Giant Steps

• Distance: 3.6-mile walk, with 1,117 staircase steps.
• What makes it especially difficult: Beyond the sheer number of steps — one staircase alone is 500 steps — they’re also really long staircases with no breaks between them.
• Expect: “A stunning walk, a classic California space,” Fleming told me. It’s also a particularly fragrant walk, thick with oak and eucalyptus trees, a few pines and a ton of wild sage on the ground. So as you climb what he calls “the monster step walk,” take comfort in that small sensory delight as you huff and puff your way to the top.

Highland Park, Southwest Museum

• Distance: A 3.2-mile walk, with 568 steps.
• What makes it especially difficult: In addition to one very steep staircase, to get there you have to walk up Eldred Street, considered the steepest road in California. “By the time you get to the stairs — a long two blocks worth — you’re already exhausted,” Fleming told me.
• Expect: The walk includes the longest wooden staircase in Los Angeles, at 196 steps. Passing a portion of the historic, now-closed Southwest Museum of the American Indian is a highlight of this walk, as is the stretch along Sycamore Terrace, the views of Sycamore Grove, the coast live oak trees and beautiful old Craftsman homes.

Avalon-Baxter Loop, Echo Park

• Distance: A 3.5-mile walk, with 695 steps.
• What makes it especially difficult: It includes two long and very steep staircases — back to back — the Avalon steps and Baxter steps. In addition to other staircases.
• Expect: Stunning views of Elysian Park and downtown to Westwood. The walk traverses an area known as Red Hill, nicknamed for its history of left-leaning residents, writers and artists such as Woody Guthrie and Upton Sinclair.

Swan’s Way, Silver Lake.

• Distance: A 1.5-mile walk, with 369 steps.
• What makes it especially difficult: It’s one continuous, three-tiered staircase — “Some of the longest, steepest staircases in the city,” Fleming says. It’s all glutes and calves on the way up and quads on the way down.
• Expect: Painted murals on the staircases and interesting architecture along the way. Also: wonderful views of the Silver Lake reservoir.

Beachwood Canyon, Hollywood.

• Distance: A 2.6-mile walk, with 861 steps.
• What makes it especially difficult: It’s a longer walk, with more than half a dozen staircases, and they’re particularly long . One is 143 steps, another 148.
• Expect: “The most beautiful staircases in the city — artfully designed,” Fleming told me. They traverse what used to be the development of Hollywoodland, which debuted in the early 1920s, and they feature granite and wrought iron handrails. The route also features multiple tree overhangs providing shade along the way — so it’s doable on very hot days — and it offers stunning views from downtown L.A. to the ocean. But the most dramatic view is of the iconic Hollywood sign, nestled in the hillside and presiding over the historic neighborhood.

5. Kayak to hidden sea caves. How many can you find?

Who wouldn’t want to search out the so-called Painted Cave — one of the largest, deepest sea caves in the world — along Santa Cruz Island in a kayak? Consider it a maritime adventure.

Santa Cruz is one the easiest Channel Islands to get to, with more boat trips headed there per week than most of the other islands. And its craggy, rocky perimeter features tons of sea caves brimming with hidden wildlife. Many are easily accessible while paddling along the coastline. But a good number are tucked away, around jagged rock walls or hidden within larger caves. The four or five hours you’ll spend paddling to seek them out, however, will be well worth it.

From Ventura Harbor, it’s about an hour to Scorpion Landing — the only harbor on the island managed by the National Park Service and open to the public. Rent a kayak ahead of time at Channel Island Kayak Center or bring your own; as long as you reserve transport space ahead of time, Island Packers will take you and your kayak there.

From Scorpion Landing, paddle to the left, heading north along the coast of the island — a larger number of caves are in that direction, and you can explore caves for several hours. Start early in the morning; you’ll have a better chance of the wind being with you at the start and at your back upon your return. Be sure to check the weather, wind currents and tides ahead of time, all of which determine level of difficulty (weather.gov). At high tide, the cave entrances are harder to get into as the passage area is smaller; at low tide, there may not be enough water to get to the back of the cave.