6 min
Overview
Please pardon this brief personal anecdote. I promise it is relevant to the hike. Agoura Hills – this author’s hometown. Ladyface is the mountain on the left. Sandstone Peak and Boney Mountain are in the distance on the right. I spent a considerable part of my childhood and early adulthood living in Agoura Hills. During that time, I developed a pretty strong attachment to the place, even though I outgrew the specific charms of this quiet bedroom community by early adulthood. A regular feature of my childhood was playing alongside the local creek, catching crawdads, building forts in an oak grove, riding bikes along old fire trails, or climbing up the big hill behind my parent’s house. This was a regular feature of my life, and this experience is a considerable factor leading to why I still like to do the same things at age 36. Over the years, much of this land has succumbed to development to the point where place names like Thousand Oaks, Woodland Hills, Sherman Oaks, and Encino (Spanish for oak tree) now seem quaintly irrelevant. The place where I built forts is now a Costco, and much of the creek is now fenced off as part of private property. As the town has changed, so have I. I now reside in San Diego County, and I usually cover that region, Orange County, and southern Riverside county for Modern Hiker. However, I go back up to Agoura to visit friends and family often, and when I do, I usually hit the old favorites, such as Sandstone Peak, La Jolla Valley, Topanga Canyon State Park, Sycamore Canyon, Danielson Monument, Castro Crest, and Malibu Creek State Park. However, the one old favorite that stands out above all others is the northern extension of the Santa Monica Mountain Recreation Area that protects Cheeseboro, Palo Comado, and Las Virgenes Canyons. These canyons still preserve the classic image of coastal Southern California. Gently rolling hills that turn a vivid Irish green after a rainy winter divide long, tranquil canyons containing beautiful woodlands of coast live oak, sycamores, willows, and
Trail Stats
17.1 km
304 m
543 m
302 m
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Photos
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