One Park, One Museum, One Stamp at a Time
UPDATE: The Woolsey Fire in November 2018 has swept through the area and burned a large portion of the NPS land in the Santa Monica Mountains. On top of this, Paramount Ranch has been completed destroyed. This is unfortunate but seems to be the way things are headed in California with increasing wildfires each year. I am glad I spent this day in the area prior to these fires.LA's National Parks LandThe Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area stretches along the coast just north of Los Angeles inland toward the city itself. I have been hiking in the area multiple times over the years in the Malibu area but had never really explored any other areas of the NRA. As part of my goodbye tour of Southern California I wanted to spend a day in the Santa Monica Mountains and visit all four of the areas with passport stamps. We started the day with an early morning drive to the Calabasas area to start at the Anthony C. Beilenson Interagency Visitor Center. We arrived about 30 minutes before the visitor center opened so we went on a brief hike in the hills over looking King Gillette Ranch. The visitor center was built out of the former stables for the mansion and is a "net zero" sustainable facility. When the center opened, we took a look around the beautiful facility and gathered some information on the trails at our next stops. From the visitor center we headed to Paramount Ranch, a short drive away. Paramount Ranch dates back to the 1920s when Paramount Pictures leased the ranch to use as a filming location. Western films and TV shows have been shot at the ranch through today. "Westworld" is a popular modern show that has been filmed at Paramount Ranch. The area features an entire western town and a number of light hiking trails and some horse trails. We wandered through the western town and had fun checking out the different building sets. There was a large group of people, most likely from an art class, spread out through the ranch sketching pictures of the antique sets. A hike into the wildernessOur third stop was our longest of the day. We drove further north on the 101 into Ventura County where we visited Rancho Sierra Vista and Satwiwa Native American Indian Culture Center. The area features a few decent length trails starting at the parking lot or near the Culture Center. The trails also connect with those from Pt. Mugu State Park which you can take all the way to the ocean or deep into Boney Mountain State Wilderness. We stopped by the Culture Center and watched a few minutes of the video they had playing. They have had a recreated village on the site in the past but it had been destroyed in a storm and they had not been able to rebuild it as of yet. After the Culture Center, we set off on our big hike for the day on the Waterfall Trail. This trail takes you on a loop of the Rancho Sierra Vista area and then connects with Danielson Road in the Boney Mountain Wilderness. The "waterfall" isn't all that impressive but the hike was enjoyable and a good workout. The entire area has been hit with drought over the last decade so any water was nice to see. The Santa Monica Mountains are part of the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail, which runs up and down California and in Arizona. The Rancho Sierra Vista area features 1.2 miles of the actual historic trail as part of their Wendy Trail. Our final stop for the day was the final stamp location for the Santa Monica Mountains NRA, Franklin Canyon Park. This park is in the Beverly Hills area and is surrounded by residential areas. The canyons in the hills north of LA are full of hidden natural areas, including Franklin Canyon. The park begins at the end of a residential street but opens into a large natural area that includes a decent-sized lake and feels very secluded despite being just minutes from the hustle and bustle of LA. We made our way to the nature center only to find that it was closed for a staff event. At this point in the day we were pretty exhausted so we skipped the hiking trails in the park. We settled for a brief driving tour to take in the area and then headed home to brave the traffic on the 405. New Units Visited: 1
Santa Monica Mountains NRA Total Affiliated Areas This Year: 6 Total Units: 20
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