Just in time for a weekend heatwave, LAist reminds us to prepare for the Big Parade. This is Silver Lake writer and urban hiker Dan Koeppel's pedestrian tribute to both a city infamous for being a place where no one walks, and to the stairways that people have built over the last century or so to tackle its hills and slopes. Koeppel is using this unorthodox marathon to underscore how walkable — and sociable a town L.A. is. As Adah Bakalinsky and Larry Gordon wrote in their guide, Stairway Walks in Los Angeles, “Walking the stairways in Los Angeles provides a good introduction to unofficial and folk history of the neighborhoods.”

Here's how Koeppel's Web site describes the nuts and bolts of his epic project:

“The Big Parade is a two-day walk through Los Angeles that will start in downtown, at the famous Angel's Flight Stairway, and finish with six stairways leading up from Beachwood Canyon to the Hollywood Sign. The walk will cover approximately 40 miles and 135 stairways, and will include a camp-out at the mid-point.”

Check his site for in-depth descriptions of the topography to be

traversed and the physical requirements demanded by the trek. One sad

fact related to this Long March narrative is that Koeppel's wish to have

people cross Echo Park Lake in paddle boats has been thwarted, thanks

to city cutbacks. And, yes, participants will confront the 218 steps

made famous in Laurel and Hardy's The Music Box. Bring your own piano.

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