Trail Description
>DISTANCE Less that 5 miles
ELEVATION GAIN 500 feet(ish)
PARKING Plenty of dirt parking if your car can handle some bumpy dirt roads
SPF 69. Lots of sun and yes… we wrote 69 – heh, heh.
CHANCE OF INJURY None. Everything was gradual.
WEIRD SMELLS Bobcat and a little Goldthwait.
TIME 2 to 4 hours
FEATURES Cold war radar site, Location of “Modern Family” filming, Flood control gates.
ANIMALS Dogs and Monkey Eggs
CELEBRITY SIGHTINGS If Ryan Gosling was a 12 year old Asian girl, we would have seen him.
DOG SHIT Medium.
ANYTHING ELSE? Rumors of co-ed pillow fights on the trail are unconfirmed.

Directions

DRIVING

You get off the 101 and head south on Havenhurst. Don’t expect a Starbucks or AM/PM right there. You’ll have to peel off down Ventura if you forgot water or need to get more Skoal. Going up hill south of Ventura Blvd, Havenhurst twists and turns so watch the signs. Then, it turns into CALDERNA. It’s a left turn, but not that hard to notice. Then, at the top of the hill you turn right on Mulholland. Remember – Douche-bags turn left, you turn right (lot’s of rush hour douche-bags in the morning). In a quarter mile you’ll see the dirt road intersection. YOU MUST ENTER THE WORLD OF DIRT! Turn left and park 100 yards up. It’s refreshing to drive on dirt. And it’s not that crazy – you’re weasely buddies Mini Cooper will make it fine..

HIKING DIRECTIONS:

You start to the south of the fenced in, DWP concrete-pool-of-underground-electricity. You have about a half mile of ridge top fire road. It’s the nice kind of fire road that’s starting to overgrow and might actually be impassable to a fire engine. Then, you leave the dog-walkers and daisy-pickers and turn right down the fantastic little Hollyhock trail.
At the bottom of trail is Mandeville Canyon Road. It’s a real road; with cars and mailboxes and houses and lots of Warning: Patrolled by Private Security signs. If you live on Mandeville Canyon Road, you probably hike this trail all the time…or have your servants hike it for you, I guess.
You walk up hill until you reach Garden Land Road and turn left. That takes you to the beginning of your uphill. So far it’s been a comfortable 2 miles, now comes 2 miles of blood-soaked terror! I mean, it’s uphill.
There seems to be a dog-load of dogs so I can only assume that the people of Mandeville Canyon are running an international puppy mill.
Also, keep your eye out for the many Jurassic cages along the trail. Some might try to convince you that they are to trap debris during heavy rains, but isn’t “debris” just a fancy word for “small dinosaurs?”
You’re not really on Mandeville Canyon trail yet. You have to take two (2) right turns at crossroads in the trail and you will be on your way to the Nike Missile Site at the top of Mulholland.
If you’ve never seen the Nike Missile Site here’s a little history for you. Before the cola wars, there was The Cold War (AKA - The Shoe Wars). The Russians were in league with Adidas, and we, of course, were a Nike country. We were afraid that the Russians were going to bomb our Nike Outlet stores, so we built this radar facility. The park service refurbished the site, and in a bit of revisionist history, erased all reference to The Shoe Wars. All I know is there are bathrooms and drinking fountain
Then it’s a dusty, dull .8 mile walk down to your car.
Almost 5 miles round trip, it will feel more like 4.8 miles..
THE STORY:

Don’t tell the DWP that water and electricity don’t mix.  The fenced in cement mausoleum at the top of Mulholland is a testament to the early DWP pioneers who attempted to combine water and electricity into a single delivery tube.