At 7:30 a.m. on April 28, 14 friends and I set out from the Fern Dell Western Stairs beneath Griffith Park to walk Western Avenue, all 28-plus miles o

Walking all 28 miles of L.A.’s longest street in a day tested our limits

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2024-05-07 20:30:07

At 7:30 a.m. on April 28, 14 friends and I set out from the Fern Dell Western Stairs beneath Griffith Park to walk Western Avenue, all 28-plus miles of it. Twelve hours later, we reached its southern end, overlooking the ocean from San Pedro’s White Point Park. As the sun set on our outlandish odyssey, we deliriously descended down the bluff to the Pacific.

We took more than 60,000 steps. We toured five cities, numerous neighborhoods and a couple of unincorporated communities. We passed establishments and vendors offering the cuisines of Armenia, Belize and countless other countries. We overheard so many religious services. To walk Western was to forcefully remember how disparate and disconnected our city can feel, even on one straight line. All this life exists on the same street?

This was our third annual attempt to trek the length of a Los Angeles thoroughfare on foot. In February 2022, we walked all 16 miles of Wilshire Boulevard. In March 2023, we scaled all 25 miles of Sunset Boulevard.