How to Hike to the Hollywood Sign Legally, and Where to Park

The Hollywood Sign Trust's three authorized trails run 3 to 6 miles and keep Griffith Park's sunrise-to-sunset hours.

You can hike to the Hollywood Sign for free, any day of the year. You can't touch it. The closest anyone's allowed to get is behind and above the letters, on the far side of a fence.

That's the short version of the visitor guidance from the Hollywood Sign Trust, which runs the Sign's official site. It lists three authorized trails, keeps them on Griffith Park's clock and shows no trail closures.

Nobody sells an official tour, either. The Trust says there aren't any, and every hike or viewpoint visit is self-guided and free. Here's how to do it without a ticket or a run-in with security.

1. Pick one of three trails. The Trust ranks them from easy to hard. The Mt. Hollywood Trail runs 5.3 miles and takes about 2 hours 28 minutes. The Brush Canyon Trail is also rated easy, at 6 miles and about 2 hours 45 minutes. The Cahuenga Peak Trail is the shortest, 3 miles in about 1 hour 45 minutes, and it's the only one the Trust calls hard. Short doesn't mean easy here.
2. Count backward from sunset. Authorized trails open at sunrise and close at sunset, the same as Griffith Park, all 365 days a year. Add your trail's estimated time to your start time. If the answer lands after dark, you'll be finishing on a closed trail, so start earlier or pick a shorter route.
3. Park where it's legal. If your trail has a lot inside Griffith Park, parking there costs nothing, the Trust's FAQ says. Some residential streets near the trails are permit parking only, with no public parking at all, and parking enforcement patrols them. Read every sign before you walk away from the car. Parking at Griffith Observatory may cost money; the Trust sends drivers to the Observatory's website for current details.
4. Or leave the car home. The Trust recommends the DASH Observatory bus, run by LADOT Transit, from the Vermont/Sunset Metro station to Griffith Observatory, then hiking from there. Its page lists the fare at 50 cents, or 25 cents for seniors and riders with disabilities. Before 10 a.m. on a weekday, the bus doesn't go to the Observatory or the Greek Theatre at all, though it still comes every 20 minutes. From 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day, they run every 15 minutes on the full route. The last bus leaves Vermont/Sunset at 9:45 p.m., hours after the trails have closed.
5. Pack water and leave the lighter. The Trust tells hikers to bring lots of water. Open flames are banned in the park, and that includes cigarettes. The Trust rates the fire danger extreme, and a 2007 wildfire hit these trails hard enough that some stretches still haven't recovered. Dogs are welcome on a leash, but some trails are partly paved, and that ground gets hot in summer.
6. Stop at the fence. The Sign sits in a restricted area on Mount Lee, and getting close to it or touching it is prohibited, the Trust says. It's fenced and watched by security cameras around the clock, and an LAPD officer is stationed nearby. Trespassing is illegal. Your view from behind and above the letters looks out over the whole city, and that's as close as it gets.

Source: hollywoodsign.org, retrieved October 19, 2026. Other sources: hollywoodsign.org (2), hollywoodsign.org (3), hollywoodsign.org (4).