City Slickers Ride the Range : Recreation: For 10 miles and several hours, you can pretend you’re Clint Eastwood and never really leave Hollywood.

Less than two miles from the hubbub of Hollywood Boulevard is an outpost of the Old West that transforms city slickers into High Plains drifters, at least for an evening.

Every Friday about 5 p.m., scores of wanna-be cowboys skip out of work early and shed their suits and high heels to experience a slice of Los Angeles most people believe disappeared long ago. They’ve come for supper and a 10-mile ride on horseback across Griffith Park that begins at Sunset Ranch, 2.5 acres of land tucked into a canyon underneath the Hollywood sign. “You know what the sign stands for, but when you ride you forget where you’re at,” said Wendy Guillerm, 28, of West Hollywood, after a recent evening’s jaunt. “You are able to get away from city life. You feel free.”

Sunset Ranch, which began as the Sunset Stables in Culver City in 1929, relocated to its present location in 1954. The 10-mile trail ride over the Hollywood Hills reaches its midway destination at Viva Restaurant in Burbank, where the group dines before heading back to the ranch. The $25 cost of the ride includes dinner.

On the trail, the guided ride is an escape into the country without ever leaving Los Angeles. Riders soak in the sights and smells of the chaparral-covered slopes from somewhere other than behind a windshield. And there’s a peaceful sort of camaraderie that develops among the group of strangers, who can range from cooing couples to a father with two children.

“It’s hard not to get to know people when your horse is biting the rump of another horse,” said Deborah Horton, activity director of California Native, a singles adventure group that took the ride recently.

“Los Angeles is a tough city to meet people,” she said. “If you’re on a horse and going the same place, you have something in common. Suddenly, the barriers start to break down.”

If nothing else, after spending nearly seven hours together, almost everyone shares a common discomfort: tender behinds. But visitors to the ranch, most of whom are beginning riders, shrug off expected morning-after muscle aches for an out-of-the-ordinary evening.

“It’s not real expensive and it’s different,” said Heidi Mitts, 24, of Rancho Palos Verdes. Mitts came with Kent Donnelley, 28. The couple usually spend their Friday nights at a local bar or pizza joint, she said.

Sandra Moore, visiting from New York, took the ride because of a friend who works at the ranch. “The landscape was so gorgeous, and it’s one I wouldn’t see otherwise,” she said, while ordering a taco salad and beer at Viva. The Mexican restaurant in Burbank has been the ride’s dinner spot since the mid-1970s.

On a recent trip, after mounting up around 6 p.m., a group of 55 riders accompanied by four guides ascend a steep incline into hills covered with laurel sumac, sagebrush, buckwheat and toyon, some of the 250 plants species found in Griffith Park.

Beginning at the very first turn is a panorama of the high-rise city sprawling below. At another point, the crowned peak of the First Interstate Tower looms behind the dome of the Griffith Observatory. The bridle path, really a road wide enough for emergency vehicles, is also used by park runners and hikers.

“We encourage all that use of the park,” said James N. Ward, grounds maintenance supervisor of Griffith Park.

The horses, with names such as Happy, Stormy and Alfalfa, move away from the city, into the heart of the hills. Eventually, they take a hairpin turn to ascend from old Mulholland Highway at a saddle in the hills. Now their hoofs kick up sparks instead of dust. As they plod steadily along, only occasionally breaking into a trot, conversation between riders comes easily. The biggest challenge is to keep the horses from snacking on weeds beside the road.

After a 90-minute ride, the sun has nearly set as the group descends to a grassy plateau, offering fresh city vistas: the sprawling San Fernando Valley to the left, Glendale’s high-rises to the right, the zoo and the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum below.

The only disquieting part of the ride is ahead--the path crossing under the Ventura Freeway via three short concrete tunnels at Forest Lawn Drive. It can prove to be claustrophobic from dust kicked up by clomping hoofs.

Finally, the ride’s midpoint lands the riders at the restaurant, adjacent to the Los Angeles Equestrian Center in a Burbank neighborhood zoned for horses. Groaning riders swing off and tie up their horses beside two, 50-foot-long hitching rails, shaking out their stiff legs and putting away their sunglasses.

The restaurant is ready. “We know we have to seat everybody from the ranch quickly,” said Margaret Zepeda, the restaurant’s host. “Sometimes our regular customers have to wait.”

After margaritas and carnitas, the riders stiffly remounted about 9:30 p.m. to retrace their route.

In darkness, the horses seemed no less sure-footed and set out at a quicker pace, eager to return for their dinner. The glow of a three-quarter moon and glimmering city lights were bright enough to cast a shadow and illuminate the faces of the riders. Live oaks and sycamores provided a lacy profile on the horizon. The one scary moment came after recrossing the highway. The horses clambered down a sharp drop, hoofs clattering on the rock trail.

The return is the best part, said Ben Mansperger, 27, of Hermosa Beach. “At night, you couldn’t see the streets and the cars. It felt like you were out in the wild. You were more detached.”

Although he and Tammy Ledbetter, 26, took the ride because they thought it would be romantic, Mansperger was not initially prepared to leave his workday behind. He brought a cellular telephone along in order to take a prearranged call at 6:45 p.m. “The competition isn’t riding horses,” Mansperger said with mock seriousness. He is the co-owner of a Garden Grove limousine service.

Groups have encountered coyotes and deer, as well as skunks and rabbits. There are nine types of animal wildlife native to Griffith Park. There have been falls and broken bones, but no serious injuries, said Stephen W. Smith, whose father founded the original ranch.

Riders sign a liability waiver at the outset. “We don’t have 10 cents of insurance on anything up here,” said Smith, from Carson City, Nev. He now runs a stable in South Shore Lake Tahoe, and has turned over ownership and management of the Hollywood stable to his son, Stephen Jr. The 26-year-old Smith is a champion bareback bronco rider, ranking 20th in the nation last year.

Wranglers at Sunset Ranch have been cinching up horses for the public twilight rides for 36 years, Smith Sr. said. However, Friday is the only night open to the public, he said. No reservations are taken, but about 55 horses are available.

Other week nights the horses are reserved for private groups, said Rose Berger, the ranch manager. Birthday bashes are common, but groups have included lawyers, insurance agents and police officers. Berger recalled one marriage proposal made on horseback.