Topline:
With 428 national parks in the country, it can be hard to find a national park to visit in the area.
We got your back: We have all heard of the big ones: Joshua Tree, Yosemite, Sequoia. But how about some that are not as top of mind that warrants a visit?
LAist spoke with experts from the National Park Services in SoCal to find out about some of these lesser-known gems.
Read on... to find out more about three recommended national parks to visit.
With 428 national parks in the US, it can be hard to determine which local one to visit.
We have all heard of the big ones: Joshua Tree, Yosemite, Sequoia. But how about some that are not as top of mind that warrant a visit?
I spoke with folks from the National Park Service to find out about some of these lesser known gems.
Here are three national parks, chosen in order of beginner-friendliness to ones that are for serious hikers.
Level: Easy
Factoid you can impress your friends with: Most people didn’t know there’s a national park in Greater L.A. So which is the closest one to the Los Angeles area? It’s the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.
About the park: The park consists of 500 miles of trails, where visitors can hike, mountain bike, camp, and rock climb.
Traveling: The mountains have multiple entrances, but only a few where parking is free.
The Mishe Mowka entrance has free parking and is less than a mile walk from Sandstone Peak. There is also free two-hour parking at the Santa Monica Visitor Center.
Recommended spots for beginners:
For beginners, National Park Service regional public affairs spokesperson Ana Beatriz Cholo recommended the trail at Will Rogers State Historic Park.
“It has great views of the ocean and Santa Monica Mountains. It's called Inspiration Point,” she said.
The mountains drop down directly into the Pacific Ocean, and Cholo said there are 41 miles of coastline available for people to take part in activities.
Another recommendation for new hikers is Paramount Ranch. It’s currently being rebuilt after suffering damage from the Woolsey Fire, but Cholo said don't let that keep you from visiting. The site is open, with trails for both hikers and equestrians. If you are a pop culture junkie, you can take a selfie at the chapel where Westworld was filmed.
Bonus: If you are up for the challenge, Cholo said the Sandstone Peak hike is a rewarding trail for experienced hikers. It reaches the highest point in the Santa Monica Mountains at 3,111 feet and offers breathtaking views.
Level: Medium
Factoid you can impress your friends with: We all know that Joshua Tree National Park is where you can see its namesake plant. But did you know that the Mojave National Preserve was estimated to have over 1 million Joshua trees?
Those in Joshua Tree National Park consist of mainly Western Joshua Trees while Mojave National Preserve has mostly Eastern Joshua trees. Sierra Willoughby, public information officer at the Mojave National Preserve, said that while the visual differences are few, the two trees are different species.
“Here at Mojave, the spiky leaves are a little bit shorter. The bark has a slightly different texture in the way they branch out; they tend to branch out more on the eastern Joshua tree species,” he said.
About the park: Created on Oct. 31, 1994, after the passage of the California Desert Protection Act, the Mojave is the third largest national park in the country outside of Alaska, with a size of up to 1.6 million acres.
Traveling: Willoughby said that many of the roads require four-wheel drive, it was possible to travel to some locations with just a regular car.
He recommended beginners take Interstate 40 and then the Essex Road exit. This will lead visitors to the Hole-in-the-Wall Information Center (yes, that's the name!). While the center is only open four days out of the week, brochures and maps can be found to guide new travelers.
Be sure to “drive like a tortoise” Willoughby said. The long stretches of road in the area can cause people to drive at incredibly fast speeds that often lead to crashes.
“If you're coming in, and you're expecting a national park experience that has a lot of visitor centers and paved roads, and a lot of exhibits and museums — this really isn't the place for that. It's for folks that are really self sufficient [and] that plan ahead really well,” he said.
He warned about the lack of gas stations in the area, so be sure to bring plenty of food, water, and fuel.
Recommended spots: Willoughby suggested that beginners stick to the area near the Hole-in-the-Wall. The location not only has a water fountain and public Wi-Fi, but has easier hiking trails.
“That's where there's a really beautiful one-mile loop trail that goes around and you can see some great petroglyphs and then go up a narrow canyon," he added. "And for folks that are agile enough, [they] can climb up a kind of a dry waterfall where these steel rings are bolted into the side of the mountain and the canyon.”
Bonus: For those looking for a more challenging workout, visitors can hike the Kelso Dune trails up the sand dunes.
Besides hiking, there are other popular activities, including camping, bird watching and stargazing.
Willoughby said there is currently a $12 camping fee that people can pay online, but there are no reservations except for large parties.
Willoughby said that one of the best experiences at the preserve is to see the sunrise or sunset.
“Those are really great life experiences to see a desert sunrise or a desert sunset,” he said.
Level: Hard
Factoid you can impress your friends with: The islands are also known as the “Galapagos Islands of North America,” according to Channel Islands National Park public information officer Jasmine Reinhardt.
“What makes them really unique is that there are nearly 150 endemic species found on the Channel Islands, [that] means they're found nowhere else on Earth,” Reinhardt said.
One such species is the Island Fox. The animal grows to be four or five pounds and about double the size of a house cat.
About the park: The islands are remote. To give you an idea, NPS’s Cholo jokingly calls it “Catalina Island with nothing on it.”
The archipelago consists of eight islands, but only five of the islands are protected as part of the Channel Islands National Park.
The islands are the ancestral homelands of the Chumash people, and home to more than 13,000 years of history.
Traveling: It can take between one to four hours to travel by boat each way, depending the the island you are visiting. Prices start at $66 roundtrip for adults. Check here for prices.
Reinhardt said conditions are constantly changing and that backpackers should make sure to check the weather before traveling.
Before visiting the island, visitors should clean their belongings to prevent the introduction of invasive species, like seeds and bugs.
Recommended spots:
For beginners looking to visit one of the five islands, Reinhardt recommended Scorpion, a site on Santa Cruz Island.
The location had bathrooms, potable water, and picnics with shade near the campgrounds.
There are also two one-mile roundtrip hikes that are not “too rigorous” according to Reinhardt. Plus, there's access to a variety of activities, from scuba diving, to snorkeling to visiting the sea caves along the island.
“It is also a world class destination for kayaking. So there's a lot of people who come out and they will bring their own kayaks, or the park also has an official kayak concessionaire,” Reinhardt said.
Bonus: More experienced travelers can try backpacking. One recommendation from Reinhardt is to visit the Painted Cave, one of the largest sea caves in the world.
“It's this really large and spectacular cave that when you are coming back from Santa Rosa Island, depending if the conditions are right, sometimes island packers will go close and into just the entrance of the cave,” Reinhardt said.
Reinhardt recommended visitors “dress like an onion” when visiting the islands, with an emphasis on bringing sun-protection.
“Most of the islands are pretty exposed," Reinhardt said. "There's very limited shade available depending on where you're at. So wearing a hat, wearing some type of long sleeve, and pants, that's lightweight, that's going to protect your skin is really important.”
For more information to plan out your next trip to a national park, visit the NPS website.
Topline:
California clocked its second-worst snowpack on record Wednesday, a potentially troubling signal ahead for fire season. It’s an alarming end to a winter that saw abnormally dry conditions briefly wiped from California’s drought map in January, for the first time in a quarter-century.
What happened? Though precipitation to date has been near average, much of it fell as rain rather than snow. Then March’s record-breaking heat melted most of the snow that remains. The state’s major reservoirs are nevertheless brimming above historic averages and are flirting with capacity, and a smattering of snow, rain and thunderstorms are dousing last month’s heat wave.
Why it matters: Experts now warn that California’s case of the missing snowpack could herald an early fire season in the mountains. State data reports that California’s snowpack is closing out the season at an alarming 18% of average statewide, and an even more abysmal 6% of average in the northern mountains that feed California’s major reservoirs. “I think everyone's anticipating that it will be a long, busy fire season,” said Lenya Quinn-Davidson, director of the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources Fire Network.
California clocked its second-worst snowpack on record Wednesday, a potentially troubling signal ahead for fire season.
It’s an alarming end to a winter that saw abnormally dry conditions briefly wiped from California’s drought map in January, for the first time in a quarter-century.
Though precipitation to date has been near average, much of it fell as rain rather than snow. Then March’s record-breaking heat melted most of the snow that remains. The state’s major reservoirs are nevertheless brimming above historic averages and are flirting with capacity, and a smattering of snow, rain and thunderstorms are dousing last month’s heat wave.
But experts now warn that California’s case of the missing snowpack could herald an early fire season in the mountains.
On Wednesday, state engineers conducting the symbolic April 1 snowpack measurement at Phillips Station south of Lake Tahoe found no measurable snow in patches of white dotting the grassy field.
“I want to welcome you call to probably one of the quickest snow surveys we’ve had — maybe one where people could actually use an umbrella,” joked Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources. “We’re getting a lot of questions about are we heading into a hydrologic drought? The answer is, I don’t know.”
State data reports that California’s snowpack is closing out the season at an alarming 18% of average statewide, and an even more abysmal 6% of average in the northern mountains that feed California’s major reservoirs.
Only the extreme drought year of 2015 beat this year’s snowpack for the worst on record, measuring in at just 5% of average on April 1st, when the snow historically is at its deepest.
“I think everyone's anticipating that it will be a long, busy fire season,” said Lenya Quinn-Davidson, director of the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources Fire Network.
“Without a snowpack, and with an early spring, it just means that there’s much more time for something like that to happen.”
In the city of South Lake Tahoe, which survived the massive Caldor Fire in the fall of 2021 without losing any structures, fire chief Jim Drennan said his department is already ramping up prevention efforts.
“It's pretty bizarre up here right now. It really seems like June conditions more than March,” Drennan said. “People are already turning the sprinklers on for their lawns.”
Without more precipitation, an early spring may complicate prescribed burning efforts. But Drennan said fire agencies in the Tahoe basin can start mechanically clearing fuels from forest areas earlier than usual.
“That means we can get more work done,” he said.
It also means homeowners need to start hardening their homes now, said Martin Goldberg, battalion chief and fuels management officer for the Lake Valley Fire Protection District, which protects unincorporated communities in the Lake Tahoe Basin’s south shore.
Goldberg urges residents to scour their yards for burnable materials, create defensible space and reach out to local fire departments with questions. The risks are widespread — from firewood, wooden fences, gas cans, plants, pine needles — even lawn furniture stacked against a house.
“In years past, I wouldn't even think of raking and clearing until May,” Goldberg said. “But my yard's completely cleared of snowpack, and it has been for a couple weeks now.”
Battalion chief David Acuña, a spokesperson for Cal Fire, said fire season is shaped by more than just one year’s snowpack.
Climate change has been remaking California’s fire seasons into fire years. And California’s recent average to abundant water years have fueled what Acuña called “bumper crops of vegetation and brush.”
“Most of California is like a haystack. And if you’ve ever seen a haystack fire, they burn very intensely because there's layers of fuel,” Acuña said.
Like Quinn-Davidson, Acuña wasn’t ready to make specific predictions about fires to come.
But John Abatzoglou, a professor of climatology at UC Merced, said the temperatures and snowpack conditions this year offer a glimpse of California in the latter decades of this century, as fossil fuel use continues to drive global temperatures higher.
How this year’s fires will play out will depend on when, where and how wind, heat, fuel and ignitions combine. But it foreshadows the consequences of a warmer California for water and fire under climate change.
“This,” Abatzoglou said, “is yet another stress test for the future in the state.”
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.
Topline:
The Santa Monica Airport will close in 2028 and become a sprawling public park that city officials say will improve quality of life and boost green space.
What we know: The city is in the very early stages of planning how to transform the 192 acres into a park. The preliminary report shows some potential amenities of the park, such as gardens, biking trails, art galleries, a community center and much more.
Background: After a long legal battle between the city and the Federal Aviation Administration, a settlement was reached that ruled that the city could close the more than 100-year-old airport. The park was controversial among residents because of air quality and noise concerns, and was the subject of many legal battles in recent decades.
What’s next? The city wants to hear from residents. You’re encouraged to review the framework and fill out this survey. Feedback will be accepted until April 26.
Topline:
Thousands of immigrants who are lawfully in California are set to lose their food assistance benefits, known as CalFresh, starting this month.
What’s new: The changes apply to certain immigrants who are here lawfully, including refugees and asylees. It also applies to people from Iraq and Afghanistan who have special visas for helping the U.S. military overseas.
Why now: The new restrictions stem from H.R. 1 — also known as the “Big Beautiful Bill” — which Congress passed last year.
What’s next: Officials estimate 23,000 people in Los Angeles County will be affected. State officials say noncitizens who are currently receiving benefits will continue to get them until it’s time to renew their benefits — adding that people might be able to receive benefits again if their legal status changes to lawful permanent residents.
Thousands of immigrants who are lawfully in California are set to lose their food assistance benefits, known as CalFresh, starting this month.
The new restrictions stem from H.R. 1 — also known as the “Big Beautiful Bill” — which Congress passed last year.
The changes remove eligibility for certain noncitizens, including people with refugee status and victims of trafficking. It also applies to immigrants from Iraq and Afghanistan who have special immigrant visas for helping the U.S. government overseas.
”These are folks … many of whom have large families that we have a commitment to as a country because we welcomed them and invited them here to find a place of refuge,” said Cambria Tortorelli, president of the International Institute of Los Angeles, a refugee resettlement agency. “They’re authorized to work and they’ve been brought here by the U.S. government.”
The federal spending bill, H.R. 1, made sweeping cuts to social safety net programs, including food assistance and Medicaid. In signing the bill, President Donald Trump said the changes were delivering on his campaign promises of “America first.”
Officials estimate 23,000 people in Los Angeles County will be affected. The state estimates about 72,000 immigrants with lawful presence will be affected across California.
CalFresh is the state’s version of the federally funded Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. Undocumented immigrants have not been eligible to receive CalFresh benefits.
State officials say noncitizens who are currently receiving benefits will continue to get them until it’s time to renew their benefits — adding that people might be able to receive benefits again if their legal status changes to lawful permanent residents.
Topline:
Nearly every student in the California State University system has used artificial intelligence tools, but most don’t trust the results, are worried about how AI will affect their future job security and want more say in systemwide AI policy.
CSU AI survey: CSU polled more than 94,000 students, faculty and staff, making it the largest survey of AI perception in higher education. Nearly all students have used AI but most question whether it is trustworthy. Both faculty and students want more say in systemwide AI policies. Faculty are divided about the impact of AI on teaching and research.
The results: Educators want a say in how and which AI tools are used. Students across the CSU system want to be included in those discussions. Some professors teach students how to use AI and encourage students to use it, while others forbid its use in the classroom. In addition to clarity around use of AI policies, students in this year’s survey said they want training that will be relevant to their careers. “I want to learn AI tools that are actually used in my industry, not just generic chatbots,” a mechanical engineering student responded. “Show me what engineers are actually doing with AI on the job.”
Nearly every student in the California State University system has used artificial intelligence tools, but most don’t trust the results, are worried about how AI will affect their future job security and want more say in systemwide AI policy.
That’s according to results of a 2025 survey of more than 80,000 students enrolled at CSU’s 22 campuses, plus faculty and staff — the largest and most comprehensive study of how higher education students and instructors perceive artificial intelligence.
Nationwide, university faculty struggle to reconcile the learning benefits of AI — hailed as a “transformative tool” for providing tutoring and personalized support to students — and the risks that students will depend on AI agents to do their thinking for them and, very possibly, get the wrong information. Educators want a say in how and which AI tools are used. Students across the CSU system want to be included in those discussions.
Some professors teach students how to use AI and encourage students to use it, while others forbid its use in the classroom, said Katie Karroum, vice president of systemwide affairs for the Cal State Student Association, representing more than 470,000 students.
“Both of these things are allowed to coexist right now without a policy,” she said.
Karroum said that faculty practices are too varied and that what students need are consistent and transparent rules developed in collaboration with students. “There are going to be students who are graduating with AI literacy and some that graduate without AI literacy.”
In February 2025, the CSU system announced an initiative to adopt AI technologies and an agreement with OpenAI to make ChatGPT available throughout the system. The system-wide survey released Wednesday confirms that ChatGPT is the most used AI tool across CSUs. The system will also work with Adobe, Google, IBM, Intel, LinkedIn, Microsoft and NVIDIA.
Campus leaders say the survey and accompanying dashboard provide much needed data on how the system continues to integrate AI into instruction and assessment.
“We need to have data to make data-informed decisions instead of just going by anecdote,” said Elisa Sobo, a professor of anthropology at San Diego State who was involved in interpreting the survey’s findings. “We have data that show high use, but we also have high levels of concern, very valid concern, to help people be responsible when they use it.”
Faculty at San Diego State designed the survey, which received more than 94,000 responses from students, faculty and staff. Among all responding CSU students, 95% reported using an AI tool; 84% said they used ChatGPT and 82% worry that AI will negatively impact their future job security. Others worry that they won’t be competitive if they don’t understand AI well enough.
“Even though I don’t want to use it, I HAVE TO!” wrote a computer science major. “Because if I don’t, then I’ll be left behind, and that is the last thing someone would want in this stupid job market.”
Faculty are divided about the impact of AI on teaching and research. Just over 55% reported a positive benefit, while 52% said AI has had a negative impact so far.
San Diego State conducted its first campuswide survey in 2023 in response to complaints from students about inconsistent rules about AI use in courses, said James Frazee, vice president for information technology at the campus.
“Students are facing this patchwork of expectations even within the same course taught by different instructors,” Frazee said. In one introductory course, the professor might encourage students to use AI, but another professor teaching the same course might forbid it, he said. “It was a hot mess.”
In that 2023 survey, one student made this request: “Please just tell us what to do and be clear about it.”
Following that survey, the San Diego State Academic Senate approved guidelines for the use of generative AI in instruction and assessments. In 2025, the Senate made it mandatory that faculty include language about AI use in course syllabi.
“It doesn’t say what your disposition has to be, whether it’s pro or con,” Frazee said. “It just says you have to be clear about your expectations. Without the 2023 survey data, that never would have happened.”
According to the 2025 systemwide survey, only 68% of teaching faculty include language about AI use in their syllabi.
Sobo and other faculty who helped develop the 2025 survey hope other CSU campuses will find the data helpful in informing policies about AI use. The dashboard allows users to search for specific campus and discipline data and view student responses by demographic group.
The 2025 survey shows that first-generation students are more interested in formal AI training and that Black, Hispanic and Latino students are more interested than white students. At San Diego State, students are required to earn a micro-credential in AI use during their first year — another change that was made after the 2023 survey.
Students in this year’s survey said they want training that will be relevant to their careers. “I want to learn AI tools that are actually used in my industry, not just generic chatbots,” a mechanical engineering student responded. “Show me what engineers are actually doing with AI on the job.”
The California Faculty Association, which represents about 29,000 educators in the CSU system, said in a February statement that faculty should be included in future systemwide decisions about AI, including whether the contract with OpenAI should be renewed in July.
“CFA members continue to advocate for ethical and enforceable safeguards governing the use of artificial intelligence,” the CFA said in the statement, asking for “protections for using or refusing to use the technology, professional development resources to adapt pedagogy to incorporate the technology, and further protections for faculty intellectual property.”
EdSource is an independent nonprofit organization that provides analysis on key education issues facing California and the nation. LAist republishes articles from EdSource with permission.
