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
	1	N 34° 06' 14.91"	W 118° 37' 41.45"	283 m	0.000 mi	0s	-
	2	N 34° 06' 17.49"	W 118° 38' 20.50"	334 m	1.005 mi	30m 20s	1.99 mph
	3	N 34° 06' 09.30"	W 118° 39' 00.41"	468 m	1.000 mi	22m 10s	2.71 mph
	4	N 34° 06' 45.43"	W 118° 39' 07.03"	644 m	0.999 mi	36m 50s	1.63 mph
	5	N 34° 06' 17.56"	W 118° 39' 03.06"	498 m	0.999 mi	26m 50s	2.23 mph
	6	N 34° 05' 48.32"	W 118° 38' 26.03"	656 m	0.999 mi	34m 30s	1.74 mph
	7	N 34° 05' 21.72"	W 118° 38' 13.69"	756 m	1.002 mi	54m 11s	1.11 mph
	8	N 34° 04' 48.79"	W 118° 38' 52.33"	727 m	1.000 mi	27m 20s	2.19 mph
	9	N 34° 04' 33.61"	W 118° 39' 28.75"	832 m	1.001 mi	45m 30s	1.32 mph
	10	N 34° 05' 00.03"	W 118° 39' 30.71"	683 m	0.995 mi	22m 00s	2.71 mph
	11	N 34° 05' 14.15"	W 118° 39' 24.82"	560 m	1.007 mi	22m 20s	2.71 mph
	12	N 34° 05' 34.51"	W 118° 39' 14.36"	407 m	0.995 mi	21m 30s	2.78 mph
	13	N 34° 05' 43.68"	W 118° 39' 04.21"	401 m	1.008 mi	29m 30s	2.05 mph
	14	N 34° 06' 09.73"	W 118° 38' 42.37"	396 m	0.993 mi	20m 20s	2.93 mph
	15	N 34° 06' 25.57"	W 118° 38' 04.61"	324 m	1.003 mi	33m 11s	1.81 mph
	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

]]> http://socalhikes.com/2009/02/hiking-the-santa-monicas/feed/ 0 http://socalhikes.com/2009/02/saddle-calabasas-peaks-topanga-lookout/ http://socalhikes.com/2009/02/saddle-calabasas-peaks-topanga-lookout/#comments Sun, 22 Feb 2009 21:11:16 +0000 Zé http://socalhikes.com/?p=1316

Final Stats:

Gain: 4000 ft
Distance: 15 miles
Ascent: 540 ft / mile

A good time in the Santa Monica mountains.

View Album

Others’ photos and Meetup link here

GPS track here

KML Google Earth file

We ventured out into the Santa Monica mountains for this hike, starting in Topanga. We parked at the beginning of Red Rock road at Old Topanga Canyon road, and hiked up Red Rock canyon up toward Calabasas Peak. 16 people showed up for this one.

I’ve never heard of this specific Red Rock canyon, and I’m not sure why…it is very nice. The smoothed rock all over allows for very cool shapes and small caves carved out of most rock formations. One can spend hours just bouldering / scrambling around these, and I plan on coming back to do just that.

We hit a saddle and headed up the fireroad to Calabasas Peak. Andy and I decided to take a fun route and veered off the fire road and ascended some long sections of tilted rock, then traversed over toward the peak. We hiked around a few other bumps in the area, then headed back down to the saddle.

At this point we took the use trail that traverses the ridge heading toward Topanga Lookout. This was one of the highlights of the hike as it involved a decent amount of scrambling mixed in with use trail. Views to the northeast gave a glimse of the entire San Gabriel range, including the very snowy eastern portion.

We hit Topanga lookout, ate lunch, then headed south toward Saddle Peak. Along the way we traveled along the Backbone trail, which happens to cross paved roads and traffic a few times. While the Santa Monica’s are definitely nice, the intermixing of nature and civilization leaves some solitude to be desired. Yet, it is still a great way to be outside.

Saddle Peak is quite anti-climatic as it has many antennae on top blocking some of the views, but still acts as a great overlook into the Pacific Ocean. From here, we headed down the Stunt High trail, passing up 3 or 4 groups of army reserves (I think) doing some sort of training. Well there weren’t doing really anything when we passed so I can’t say just what they were training, but I hope it involved capture of anyone littering!

At the bottom of the Stunt High trail, we picked up a fire road which took us back to the first saddle. From there, it was the final 2 mile decent into Red Rock canyon and back to the cars. Along the way we veered off trail to play on some the rocks.

Afterwards, we went to Abuelitas in Topanga for some great Mexican food. A great day in all.

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