Monkey Hill – Audubon Zoo

Drinks are nice and strong bartenders are nice. Clean relaxed environment. Good place to drink and have good time.

Remember when Monky Hill was just a hill and it wasn’t inside the zoo and you could just roll down it with your siblings. And your uncle told you it was the highest point in New Orleans and you believed him? Well I do.
Now it’s all super fancy with water for you (or y’know kids) to play in and for once something from childhood actually seems bigger than your memory. BUT you do have pay to go inside the zoo. And it has concrete paths, so don’t try rolling down.
Maybe I should just get a waxed chunk of cardboard and sled on the levee instead.
Psst…also this is review #950 for me!

The Monkey Hill of today is much different than I remember. I remember an actual hill with nothing more than grass on which one could roll and slide. Today’s monkey hill is a giant play area for kids.
There is a stairway of rocks leading to several bronze statues of animals at the top. Around the side is a large rope walkway for kids to run and play. These additions are a significant improvement to the old plain hill. Sure it may have been the highest point in New Orleans (I always doubted that fact). But now parents can sit and relax while their offspring wear themselves out. I highly recommend the rail across from the spider web area for relaxing.
if you come to the zoo, you must see monkey hill. If you’re with kids, let them go wild.

No trip to Audubon Zoo would be complete without a visit to Monkey Hill. When I was a kid the Hill was just that. There were no structures on top of it, just a slight path you could take to the top, or you could walk right up the face of it. And then roll down, of course. I don’t know when the tower and rope bridge were installed and it may not be the same as I remember from when I was a kid, but it’s still a fun spot for the younger generations to play.

I’m not going to put down the 18,000 foot peaks I saw in the Peruvian Andes, and, admittedly, the Grand Canyon has its moments of spectacular beauty, too… but they were carved out of millions of years of nature’s hard work, so they had it easy. In comparisonn, Monkey Hill was made in a week or so, and, therefore, is so much more awe inspiring.
In just a few days, the hard working Americans of the depression era WPA, were able to put together New Orleans most massive mountain… a peak that commanded a view of Audobon Park, and gave the children (and adults) of our city a chance to see what a hill was really like. You can only get so much a feeling from reading about how amazing a 20 foot pile of dirt is… the powers that be of the city had to offer more, a real dirt pile of our own. The bulldozers came in blazing and Monkey Hill was born.
It’s still there, although a few unneeded modern touches were put in recently, like a viewing tower and a rope bridge… kind of spoiling the pristine natural look our dirt pile had during the previous century, but if you really are up for a local hiking challenge, this is the pace.
As a special bomus, after paying to visit Monkey Hill, you get free admission to the pretty cool zoo that surrounds it. If you feel like you have what it takes, climb up, knock some kids down and proclaim yourself «King of Monkey Hill». It’s a thrill everyone in the city should enjoy at least once.
I was going to dock a star because you can’t bike on it, then I remembered that I don’t remember how to bike up hills anymore, so I’d never make it to the top anyhow.
5 stars to our most massive semi-​natural wonder.