Los Angeles is a better city before nine. The light is soft, the hills are cool and the streets belong to dog walkers. These are the four walks the front desk sends people on most, all back in time for breakfast in the Garden Room.
Runyon Canyon
Ten minutes by car, and the walk everyone does. Go before seven, take the steeper eastern trail up to the ridge and come down the fire road. Allow an hour and a quarter. The desk will have a car waiting at the bottom if you ask the night before.
The stairs above Sunset Plaza
Straight from the front door. Walk west along Sunset for seven minutes, then climb the public stairways that zigzag up between the houses. It is steep and short, and the view back over the basin at the top is the reason to do it.
Every walk here ends where it started: at breakfast under the olive trees.
Two quieter ones
Lake Hollywood loop is flat, about three miles, with the reservoir on one side and the sign above you on the other. Franklin Canyon is a little further, a wooded park with a pond and almost nobody in it on a weekday. Both are a short drive; take a bottle of water from your room and the desk will send you with a map.
Whichever you choose, breakfast is served until half past eleven, so there is no need to hurry back.
