101 Hikes in Southern California. Jerry Schad

the period between the emergence of tender green grass (December or January) and the shift from green to gold (April or May) is the very best time to visit Cheeseboro and Palo Comado Canyons. July through September brings midday temperatures in the 90s, making this area unpleasant for all but perhaps mountain bikers, who may enjoy the benefit of evaporative cooling if they move fast enough.

      To Reach the Trailhead: From US 101 at Exit 35 in Agoura Hills, take the Chesebro (sic) Road exit, go north about 200 yards on what is signed Palo Comado Canyon Road, then turn right on Chesebro Road. Drive 0.7 mile north to the main entrance to the Cheeseboro and Palo Comado Canyons site, on the right. Gates to the trailhead parking lot swing open at 8 a.m.—often earlier on weekends, when volunteers sometimes staff a National Park Service information booth here. A fenced trail into Cheeseboro Canyon bypasses the parking area, and hikers, bikers, and equestrians use it even when the gates are shut. Be aware that soggy trail conditions may close the park.

      Description: From the trailhead parking lot, follow the wide Cheeseboro Canyon Trail, which goes briefly east and then bends north up along the wide, nearly flat canyon floor. Stay on the broad main path; disregard narrow trails branching off either side. Two kinds of oak trees dominate the Cheeseboro landscape: evergreen coast live oaks cluster along the canyon bottoms, and deciduous valley oaks, widely spaced, strike statuesque poses in the meadows and on the hillsides. It looks like typical California cattle-grazing land, and indeed it was for a period of about 150 years. Now that the cattle have been removed, oak seedlings are taking root in increasing numbers, and native spring wildflowers are returning to the hillsides, creating splashes of color across the grassy hillsides.

      At 1.6 miles on Cheeseboro Canyon Trail, near the Palo Comado Connector joining from the west, you come upon a pleasant trailside picnic area. Stay on the main, wide trail going north through the canyon bottom. At 3.0 miles you pass Sulphur Springs. Let your nose be your guide for locating the springs. There’s not much to see—mere seeps if they are flowing at all.

      As you continue, the oaks clustering along the canyon bottom thin out, and you can gaze upward, to your right, at the whitish sedimentary outcrop known as the Baleen Wall. The trail narrows and becomes rocky in places. At 4.1 miles, reach a T-junction at Shepherds Flat. Pause here for a picnic, perhaps, before resuming your trip.

      From the corral continue west on the narrow Sheep Corral Trail through the brush. This is a segment of the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail, a 1,200-mile trail commemorating the Spanish captain’s famed 1775 expedition leading 240 people across the desert to found San Francisco. You pass over a saddle and briefly descend to meet the graded-dirt Palo Comado Canyon Trail (5.2 miles). Turn left now, and commence a short mile of crooked descent on the wide dirt road. You look down on a lovely tapestry of canyon-bottom woods and slopes adorned with dense patches of chaparral and sandstone outcrops. Soon you are amid those woods, which are mostly live oaks and sycamores. The going is easy for another 2 miles as you proceed almost imperceptibly downhill along the canyon bottom.

      At 8.2 miles, there’s a forced left turn out of the canyon (off-limits private land lies ahead) and onto the Palo Comado Connector. You meander uphill and across two minor canyons for 1.0 mile to a rounded ridge, where you meet the Modelo Trail on the right. It and the Modelo Spur Trail are the most expeditious route back to the trailhead.

      HIKE 14

      Placerita Canyon

      Location: Santa Clarita

      Highlights: Wooded ravines, waterfall, and historically interesting features

      Distance: 5.0 miles (out-and-back)

      Total Elevation Gain/Loss: 700'/700'

      Hiking Time: 2½ hours

      Optional Maps: USGS 7.5-minute Mint Canyon and San Fernando

      Best Times: October–June

      Agency: PCP

      Difficulty: Moderate

      Trail Use: Dogs allowed, good for kids

      Barely 10 minutes’ drive from northern San Fernando Valley and the sprawling suburban city of Santa Clarita, Placerita Canyon Park nestles comfortably at the foot of one of the more verdant slopes of the San Gabriel Mountains. A very civilized nature center housing exhibits on local history, pre-history, geology, plants, and wildlife complements the park’s wild backcountry sector (the subject of this hike).

      Placerita Canyon’s fascinating history is highlighted by the discovery of gold there in 1842. That event, which touched off California’s first (and relatively trivial) gold rush, predated by six years John Marshall’s famous discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in Northern California. By the 1950s, Placerita Canyon had become one of the more popular generic Western site locations used by Hollywood’s moviemakers and early television producers. First the state and then county eventually acquired the canyon as parkland.

      To Reach the Trailhead: Take Exit 3 for Placerita Canyon from Antelope Valley Freeway (Highway 14) at Newhall, and drive east 1.5 miles to reach the park’s main gate, which is open from sunrise to sunset. Nearby lie the nature center and a paved path leading under Placerita Canyon Road to the Oak of the Golden Dream, the exact site (according to legend) where in 1842 a herdsman pulling up wild onions for his after-siesta meal discovered gold.

      Description: This trip begins at the signed Main Trailhead near the Nature Center and parking lot. Go straight ahead on the Canyon Trail, which soon veers left. Pass an unsigned junction on the right leading to a water tank, and continue east up Placerita Canyon.

      Bigleaf maple leaf

      The canyon’s melodious creek flows decently about half the year (winter and spring), caressing the ears with white noise that echoes off the canyon walls. During the fall, when the creek may be bone-dry, you make your own noise instead by crunching through the crispy leaf litter of sycamore and live oak. Down by the grassy banks are wild blackberry vines, lots of willows, and occasionally cottonwood and alder trees.

      Soaring canyon walls ahead tell the story of thousands of years of natural erosion, as well as the destructive effects of hydraulic mining, which involved aiming high-pressure water hoses at hillsides to loosen and wash away ores. Used extensively in Northern California during the big Gold Rush, hydraulicking was finally banned in 1884 after catastrophic damages to waterways and farms downstream. At Placerita Canyon, several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of gold were ultimately recovered, but at considerable cost, effort, and general messiness.

      Cross and recross the creek. In 1.85 miles, you reach the scant remains of some early-20th-century cottages hand-built by settler Frank Walker, his wife, and some of their 12 children. The area is now used as a group campground, and it has drinking water.

      Our way lies ahead, along the Waterfall Trail, which leads into Los Pinetos Canyon. Don’t confuse this trail with the Los Pinetos Trail on the right. The Waterfall Trail momentarily slants upward along the canyon’s steep west wall, and then drops onto the canyon’s sunny floodplain. Presently you bear right into a narrow ravine (Los Pinetos Canyon), avoiding a wider tributary bending left (east).

      Continue past and sometimes over water-polished, metamorphic rock. Live oaks and bigcone Douglas-firs cling to the slopes above, and a few bigleaf maples grace the canyon bottom. Beware of the poison oak that abounds along the trail and near the waterfall, especially in the winter when its bare twigs are difficult to recognize. About 0.2 mile after the first fork in the canyon, there’s a second fork.

      Go right and continue 50 yards to a small waterfall and a sublime little grotto, cool and dark except when the sun passes almost straight overhead. As you listen to water dashing or dribbling down the chute, enjoy the serenity of this private place and contemplate that it lies only 3 miles—but a world away—from