(I am kind of stealing this idea from an old post of mine, but since many of you are new readers, it might be exciting. Maybe.)

At some point recently, we got to the age where we realized zoo’s are not as fun as we thought when we were kids. Actually, they are down right depressing. You can almost feel the sadness of the animals in their tiny cages. And lately many of the animals have been fighting back (tigers, lions, komodo dragons). But fear not, there’s still a pretty cool, adult way to enjoy the zoo, well, not exactly the zoo…

In Griffith Park, near the Los Angeles Zoo, lies ruins of the original location of the L.A. Zoo from the early 1900’s. Ok, when I say ruins, I mean pretty well preserved metal enclosures covered in graffiti. Anyway, you can still go roam around this abandoned zoo whenever you want. It’s pretty accessible (via Old Zoo Park) and not as secret as one might think, but surprisingly many don’t know about it. You can go inside the cages, where bears and mountain goats once hung out. Although now you might find litter and a condom or two. Yes, unfortunately this place is TOO accessible.

Sorry if I’m scaring you away, it’s actually a really cool place to hike to. My friends and I did it the rebel way and jumped a fence while no one was looking to take a more adventurous route to the site. It was a really pretty hike, Griffith Park is a lot prettier than you’d think. Plus, the art is a plenty in these cages. Some better than others, but there have definitely been some creative and talented street artists through these parts.

This site is also great for photography, which many high school kids in the valley take advantage of. There’s plenty of pictures on Flickr to flip through. So grab some friends, your camera, and a picnic, and head over to the abandoned zoo at Griffith Park for some early 20th century zoo fun. You can literally have a picnic in a lion’s old cage. Pretty cool.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 18th, 2009 at 4:38 pm and is filed under Never Too Old, adventure, outdoors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.