Hiking the Santa Monica’s
With all the snow in the ANF limiting our options, Zé decided to plan a hike in the Santa Monica mountains. Here we didn’t have to fear ice, snow, or cold. The only thing missing though are the substantial gains found in the ANF and San Gabriel front range. Our destination, Saddle and Calabasas Peaks.
We started at Red Rock Canyon and headed up along the fire road until we got to the split. We made a right here and headed up to Saddle Peak. The road leads all the way up to Saddle Peak which has a pretty good incline, but is otherwise a not too exciting route. You can take the ridge up to Saddle Peak or skip it and take a small shortcut up which cuts a good 50′ or so of incline.
After Saddle Peak we followed the road back to the saddle and headed up the ridge which takes you all the way to the Lois Ewen Overlook. But the ridge was pretty fun. Decent incline with a good variation of trail and rock hopping. We continued up a good ways until we got to “make out” peak. Here we had lunch and just generally sat around and chatted.
From Make Out peak, we followed the trail a short ways until we got back to a fire road. This fire road connected to an actual road where there were a bunch of cars and motorcyclists hanging about.
We took the road down about 50 yards and then took the Saddle Peak Trail. This trail leads all the way up to Saddle Peak and the towers which I feared would have exposed me to harmful radiation.
From here it was pretty much downhill. We took another trail back down to complete the loop. We also ran into a bunch of JROTC members from UCLA going over skirmish exercises along the trail. This was not really a normal sight along the trails.
We followed the fire road back down and along the way we did a little rock maneuvering up about 50 feet above the road. This was a pretty nice way to end the hike. Once back at the car, we decided to have dinner at Abuelitas
Check out Zé’s trip report for videos and more pictures.
More reviews from the hikers there.
More photos from the day.
| # | Latitude | Longitude | Elevation | Distance | Time | Avg Speed |
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1 | N 34° 06' 14.91" | W 118° 37' 41.45" | 283 m | 0.000 mi | 0s | - |
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2 | N 34° 06' 17.49" | W 118° 38' 20.50" | 334 m | 1.005 mi | 30m 20s | 1.99 mph |
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3 | N 34° 06' 09.30" | W 118° 39' 00.41" | 468 m | 1.000 mi | 22m 10s | 2.71 mph |
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4 | N 34° 06' 45.43" | W 118° 39' 07.03" | 644 m | 0.999 mi | 36m 50s | 1.63 mph |
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5 | N 34° 06' 17.56" | W 118° 39' 03.06" | 498 m | 0.999 mi | 26m 50s | 2.23 mph |
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6 | N 34° 05' 48.32" | W 118° 38' 26.03" | 656 m | 0.999 mi | 34m 30s | 1.74 mph |
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7 | N 34° 05' 21.72" | W 118° 38' 13.69" | 756 m | 1.002 mi | 54m 11s | 1.11 mph |
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8 | N 34° 04' 48.79" | W 118° 38' 52.33" | 727 m | 1.000 mi | 27m 20s | 2.19 mph |
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9 | N 34° 04' 33.61" | W 118° 39' 28.75" | 832 m | 1.001 mi | 45m 30s | 1.32 mph |
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10 | N 34° 05' 00.03" | W 118° 39' 30.71" | 683 m | 0.995 mi | 22m 00s | 2.71 mph |
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11 | N 34° 05' 14.15" | W 118° 39' 24.82" | 560 m | 1.007 mi | 22m 20s | 2.71 mph |
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12 | N 34° 05' 34.51" | W 118° 39' 14.36" | 407 m | 0.995 mi | 21m 30s | 2.78 mph |
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13 | N 34° 05' 43.68" | W 118° 39' 04.21" | 401 m | 1.008 mi | 29m 30s | 2.05 mph |
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14 | N 34° 06' 09.73" | W 118° 38' 42.37" | 396 m | 0.993 mi | 20m 20s | 2.93 mph |
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15 | N 34° 06' 25.57" | W 118° 38' 04.61" | 324 m | 1.003 mi | 33m 11s | 1.81 mph |
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16 | N 34° 06' 15.20" | W 118° 37' 42.15" | 306 m | 0.618 mi | 14m 59s | 2.47 mph |
| Summary | 4678 ft | 14.624 mi | 7h 21m 31s | 1.99 mph | |||
This entry was posted on Sunday, February 22nd, 2009 at 2:59 pm and is filed under Trip Report. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
