Balboa Park

06/28/09

Great park

by daddylawbucks at Citysearch

There were hundreds of people biking and skating on the paths parallel to Burbank each of the three times I was there this month. Golfers were ignoring the coyotes that were ignoring them. A path roughly 3 miles long around the golf court has exercise areas, then follows the LA River and turns down Balboa. West of Balboa there are soccer fields, east of Woodley is a sewage plant with a full on Japanese garden

( no %^*@ ) and more exercise areas. Watering is done with recycled water.

Great place to people watch too.

• Pros: great park, great lake and BB area
• Cons: it can be very warm during the summer

06/18/08

Very poor trail for cycling and inline skating

by MrT65 at Citysearch

The park is nice and pleasant with all the ducks, the geese and all those things some parents like to show their kids. It is fairly easy to park except on weekends unless you are there early enough.

However, if you are a cyclist or an inline skater, it is pretty much an awful venue. I pretty much stopped going there as it had become a waste of time. The area that goes through the golf course parking lot is atrocious (for skaters it borders into the dangerous as besides paying attention to the deep holes and cracks you need to keep an eye on cars as well. The section along Burbank Blvd has many uneven concrete slabs that, for skaters in particular could cause a fall. In the east section (towards the headquarters) the trail has been half eaten away and is full of debris. And people toss weird things on it. I found a fork, once and a broken spoon.

In addition, they are always watering the golf course or the grass hence, sections of the trail is often wet big time. Once I found a section that was literally flooded. Hopefully, they will also be forced to do some better water management.

Be warned that the general public is quite clumsy and they cross the trail without paying attention to bicyclists or skaters, they alwasy walk side by side and use all the trail or walk/jog with music sets and never hear you if you yelled "passing on your left", Basically, most people who attend the park are illiterate when it comes to trail etiquette.

So, if you plan to use the park for picnicing, taking your kids to a green spot, or feed the ducks/geese/etc... you are fine. But, if you plan to use the park for some exercise, you must be really in bad shape to have some use from it. I think that the cyclists' average age must be 70 (younger than that and they are too fast to get any workout done) and skaters have pretty much disappeared since it has become a war zone to handle. Sorry.. I went there for two years, but enough is enough. Please fix it. It has potential.

• Pros: it is a decent green space in an otherwise very busy area
• Cons: Poor trail etiquette, poor trail conditionss for cycling or inline skating

08/15/02

Duck duck goose goose

by lloomis36 at Citysearch

Balboa Park has it all: a lake, river, picnic areas, jogging trails, wildlife, and more. Watch the geese migrate or see the many varieties of ducks on the lake. There is also boating on the lake.

• Pros: good jogging trails, Bikepaths, wildlife galore
• Cons: Parking goes quickly