Historical hideout, hidden hollow, rustlers’ retreat. Whatever you want to call Dripping Cave in Laguna Nigel, it is truly a cool, compelling cavern. To reach the grandiose grotto, take a 5-mile (round-trip) out-and-back hike in Aliso and Wood Canyons Wilderness Park, a 4,50…

Little Backbone Creek Little Backbone Creek is known as nature’s waterpark for good reason. It’s a 20-minute hike up a creek in a canyon, passing boulders and ponds before arriving to the marquee attraction: a smooth rock waterfall that plunges you into the creek. Potem Falls…

Vanalden Cave in the Santa Monica Mountains is more a picture frame for landscape and sky than it is a hideaway hole in the ground. It’s just a 1.5-mile (round-trip) hike on an out-and-back trail to reach an impressively large sandstone chamber with holes in the ceiling that let…

The hike is short but the journey deep when you explore Hollywood history through hidden holes in the western end of Griffith Park. Your destination is Bronson Caves, which are actually man-made quarry tunnels from the early 1900s. Their function went well beyond granite…