Visit California's 9 Wildly Underrated Mountain Trails With Breathtaking Views And Peaceful Vibes

California confidently flaunts some of the most legendary hiking paths in the United States. Scratch that: California flaunts some of the most legendary hiking paths in the whole world! This is the home of the truly iconic Half Dome, the pinnacle of Mount Whitney, and a whopping 1,691 miles of the famed Pacific Crest Trail. The catch? All of the above draw thousands of hikers every year and now require permits. If you want solitude, you'll likely have to look elsewhere.

Cue this guide, which highlights nine of the state's underrated mountain trails. They're each truly breathtaking, offering everything from rugged canyon views amid the sun-blasted lands of Death Valley to alpine lakes perched high up in remote Klamath Mountain wildernesses. More than that, these are generally seen as hidden-gem options that attract far fewer people than California's more blockbuster routes.

Some of the options here are hiking paths I've completed myself on Californian adventures, where I've specifically gone looking for underrated, unknown trails that offer solitude in the mountains. Others come from recommendations from past hikers and travel writers, having been featured on leading blogs, outdoor hiking blogs, or travel forums.

On my first ever full day in the great state of California, I visited the Skyline Ridge Preserve, and boy was it a doozy. The gorgeous landscape is laden with sweeping views of wildflower meadows and green peaks. The 2.9-mile Sunny Jim and Ipiwa Loop boasts visions of majestic forests on the tops of the Santa Cruz Mountains just outside of San Francisco. There's also a lake and sightings of the mist-covered Pacific Coast in the distance. It left me wondering if all the trails I'd encounter would be quite so empty — I think I saw two other hikers! Spoiler: Not all are.

The ultra-popular Yosemite is the sixth most-visited national park in the U.S., so it might not immediately spring to mind when looking for mountain hikes that have low foot traffic. But many don't know about Hetch Hetchy, "Yosemite's secret valley" of soaring granite domes and waterfalls. The 5-mile Wapama Falls Trail skirts the north side of the reservoir (made in 1923), passing towering granite walls. According to YosemiteHikes.com, it's the way to one of the most uncrowded falls in the whole park. 

If you search for hike options that begin at the campsites of the Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park, you don't have a whole lot to pick from — mainly some short trails through redwood groves. Then there's the Pine Ridge Trail, a mighty 20.6-miler that will eventually take you to hot springs deep within the Ventana Wilderness. 

Dodging poison oak on an almost deserted path, I just saw a few backpackers returning from their camps. The great selling point has to be the sweeping view of peaks and valleys in the heart of the 240,000-acre reserve. It opens right in front of you just after passing the turnoff to Ventana Camp.

Death Valley's Golden Canyon usually tops the bill for hikers looking to conquer the trails of the hottest place on Earth. But Desolation Canyon offers an immersive experience, walking between the marble-tinged, rust-dappled rocks, only with what the folks over on The Weekly Camper blog say is roughly 10% of the crowds at Golden Canyon. 

I'll vouch for that. I completed Desolation Canyon early one morning and passed just two other hikers in total. I was also alone for the grand finale: A scramble up a scree slope where you get broadside views of Telescope Peak rising to the west.

If you have a real urge to lay eyes on the cloud-shattering Mount Whitney (the highest peak in the Lower 48), then head to the old-school American West town of Lone Pine to see it looming on one side. To go to the top, you'll need a sought-after permit. However, a lower-elevation route links the Inyo National Forest campground in Lone Pine to Whitney Portal, the traditional base camp for the summit. It's not as hardcore as the permit hike, but it has head-on views of the mighty mountain through thick forests above a rushing river. The best part? Not a single other soul on the route.

The Modern Hiker blog lists this short-ish route to an observation point above Topanga Canyon among the most underrated hikes in Los Angeles. So it could be a great pick if you're keen to escape the sprawling cityscape of over 3.8 million people. The trailhead is along Saddle Peak Road, just over an hour's drive from downtown LA. The path curves 1 mile along a ridge to a spot with panoramic views, encompassing Catalina Island, the peaks and troughs of the Santa Monica Mountains, and the sprawling metropolis in the distance.

The outdoors blog CleverHiker.com lauds the vast Trinity Alps Wilderness — the second-largest wilderness area in the Golden State — as perhaps the perfect place to find yourself alone in the mountains. AllTrails lists the Canyon Creek Lakes Trail as the finest within its borders. It's rated 4.8 out of five stars, with just over 1,000 individual reviews, meaning that it's far less visited than, say, Yosemite's Half Dome (which has over 17,000 reviews on the same platform). Expect 15.6 miles of hiking through spruce forests, past waterfalls, and under jagged mountains.

The High Peaks to Condor Gulch Loop is a hard trail through California's youngest national park, Pinnacles. The San Francisco Standard already touts Pinnacles as a great place to escape the hordes of Yosemite, and this route has been specifically picked out as an underrated option by past hikers on Reddit. Don't let the relatively short 5 to 6 miles fool you — it's a challenging path that dips into dank caves and scrambles up exposed talus rock formations. Views reach a zenith in the High Peaks section, where sculpted volcanic hoodoos rise among wildflower-covered mountains.