Hiking the Santa Monica Mountains near Malibu

With an afternoon to spend near Thousand Oaks, California, we decided to take one of the several trails we found on the National Park Service sites in the Santa Monica Mountains. We chose Cheseboro Canyon over Paramount Ranch based on a recommendation from the Visitors Center. While Paramount Ranch would have been interesting for its role in American cinema, we wanted fewer tourists and to get off the beaten track. Cheseboro Canyon turned out to be the perfect way to achieve both.

Getting there

The trailhead is quite close to the 101 Freeway, on Cheseboro Road. We were at the trailhead very quickly and noticed that this was a favorite place for horse riders and mountain bikers. Not always the best combination with hiking, it worked out well as the trail users were polite and gave good warnings to slower moving people.

There isn’t a great deal of shade on this trail, as it winds through a hilly area to the north of the highest of the Santa Monica Mountains. It was a breezy and warm day, perfect for hiking but we could assume this is a very hot place in the Summer.

Water and shade

The best advice about water is to bring what you’ll need and more. There were composting toilets at the trailhead and a few picnic tables along the trail, but this is a very dry area. Even with recent rains, the stream that flows through the Canyon was completely dry. Bring plenty of water for both yourself and, in our case, for dogs.

The benefit of dry hikes in sunny canyons is how great the shade feels when you find it. And not just for us. Gwenn and Mitch know how to ‘flop’ at the right moments when they’ve found shade.

Pack mules?

We often get comments when we hike about the packs that our dogs wear. On this hike, a woman asked, “Are those dogs or pack mules?” Of course, we asked, “Why would you think they are dogs?” In reality, we enjoy hiking and so do Mitch and Gwenn. There’s a great symmetry to having everyone carry their own essentials, like water and food. It also allows us to go further than if we had to carry everything in our own packs, considering that the dogs drink as much or more water than we do.

The Santa Monica National Recreation Area is a great Southern California resource. The trails are well signed, well maintained and a great break from the popular routes that are so jammed on the weekends. Sharing with horses and bikes is a small price to pay for solitude. This is yet another great hike in Los Angeles.