Our hike will consist of traveling along the Dean’s Cut trail connecting the underbelly of Las Virgenes and Cheseboro Canyons. The star of this hike is Mt Basura, known for its year-round snow-less skiing. We’ll take or break here.
Note: this hike was a VIP hike. Now my overgrown secret trail is wide open and named “Dean’s Cut.”
Cheeseboro Canyon is located in the northernmost section of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. It is from these hills that water in the canyons flow to the Pacific. The Chumash Indians lived in these canyons for thousands of years. Many trails within the canyons were original Chumash trails before they were expanded by cattle ranchers. In this large expanse of habitat, deer, bobcats, coyotes and rabbits roam.
Today, a great diversity of plants and animals live in the canyons. Wide-spread oaks and outcrops of sedimentary rock provide excellent nesting sites for owls, hawks and other raptors. The abundance of raptors indicates a large prey population, especially small mammals and reptiles. In more rugged areas where cattle didn’t graze, we can still find a variety of native plant communities, including chaparral, coastal sage scrub and riparian woodlands.
A couple of unique facts regarding these canyons:
• Cheeseboro Canyon has the largest concentrations of birds of prey nesting areas in the U.S. outside of Alaska.
• The Valley Oak tree, the largest oak native to the United States and possibly the world, live in these canyons in what might be the largest southerly stand of trees left.
HIKE IS ABOUT 8 MILES WITH ABOUT 1,400 FT TOTAL ASCENT AND IS RATED DIFFICULT DUE TO TERRAIN. SEE THE HIKE RATING GUIDE
Post Hike Lunch
La Paz Restaurant
4505 Las Virgenes Rd.
Calabasas, CA 91302
Directions to Trailhead
To get to trailhead take 101 and exit Las Virgenes Rd. Turn north (away from beach) to end of road. If you are coming up from PCH, drive up Malibu Canyon to the end (Malibu Cyn changes its name to Las Virgenes Rd). Park on the street.
