Mishe Mokwa Trail

Sandstone Peak, highest peak in the Santa Monica Mountains, is one of the highlights of a visit to Circle X Ranch, 1,655 acres of National Park Service land on the border of Los Angeles and Ventura counties. The park boasts more than 15 miles of trail plus a much-needed public campground.

Half a century ago the land belonged to a number of gentlemen ranchers, including movie actor Donald Crisp, who starred in How Green was My Valley. Members of the Exchange Club purchased the nucleus of the park in 1949 for $25,000 and gave it to the Boy Scouts. The emblem for the Exchange Club was a circled X--hence the name of the ranch.

Zuma-Dume Trail

Zuma Beach is one of Los Angeles County's largest sand beaches and one of the finest white sand strands in California. Zuma lies on the open coast beyond Santa Monica Bay and thus receives heavy breakers crashing in from the north. From sunrise to sunset, board and body surfers try to catch a big one. Every month the color of the ocean and the cliffs seem to take on different shades of green depending on the season and sunlight, providing the Zuma Beach hiker with yet another attraction.

During the whale-watching season (approximately mid-December through March), hikers ascending to the lookout atop Point Dume have a good chance of spotting a migrating California gray whale.

Trestles Trail

This was the pledge of Norwegian immigrant Ole Hanson, who began the town of San Clemente in 1925. It was quite a promise from a real estate developer, quite a promise in those days of shameless boosterism a half-century before the California Coastal Commission was established.

In 1904, George Hart purchased 700 acres of land on the cliffs east of the entrance to Newport Bay and laid out a subdivision he called Corona del Mar (“Crown of the Sea”). The only way to reach the townsite was by way of a long muddy road that circled around the head of Upper Newport Bay. Later a ferry carried tourists and residents from Balboa to Corona del Mar. Little civic improvement occurred until Highway 101 bridged the bay and the community was annexed to Newport Beach.

This hike explores the beaches and marine refuges of “Big” and Little Corona del Mar beaches and continues to the beaches and headlands of Crystal Cove State Park. Snorkeling is good beneath the cliffs of “Big” and Little Corona beaches. Both areas are protected from boat traffic by kelp beds and marine refuge status.