This week my friends Al and Bridget took me to Echo Mountain in Pasadena, one of the coolest hikes I’ve experienced since moving here.

We started our hike late in the day, so we had a pretty clear trek up, encountering few fellow hikers along the way. And, since it had rained for a few days prior, within about 15 minutes we already had clear views of the city unfolding into the Pacific.

Al, our local horticulturalist, gave Bridget and me a little lesson on local flora; on our hike we collected black and white sage, wild rosemary, and wild buckwheat. It smelled like we were hiking through an herb garden the whole way up.

The best part of the hike is a lower peak that has an abandoned hotel foundation, complete with a stairway to nowhere. It’s like this awesome, above water, mountain-top Atlantis… or something awesome and mythical.