Backyard Hikes

Winter is almost over. No more long, dark days. No more Monica and Bill on TV. Time to get out of the house and stretch those legs.

How about a short nature hike in a place really beautiful and really easy to reach--say 10 minutes from wherever you live in the Valley? A place where you won’t have to huff and puff like someone in those TV commercials for vitamins or running shoes.

Towsley Canyon Park and Pico Canyon Park, which intersect where Newhall and Saugus touch on the map, feature a pair of easy hiking trails that pass through a glorious natural area that you probably didn’t know existed so close to home.

There are places along these trails that look like Oregon because of the groves of Douglas fir trees. In other spots, you feel like you could be in Arizona, New Mexico or the California High Sierra because of the flowering ash, maple trees and grassy meadows. No wonder movie folks chose this area to film Westerns with Tom Mix and Hopalong Cassidy. “These parks are hidden gems,” said Rorie Skei, deputy director of natural resources and planning for the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, which operates the parks.

They’re part of a six-canyon area called the Santa Clarita Woodlands, which the conservancy began acquiring in 1987.

At the head of the Pico Canyon trail, you’ll find the small historic village of Mentryville dating from the area’s oil-field period. It features the oil superintendent’s mansion, a schoolhouse, some barns and a California historic marker noting the location of the area’s first oil well in 1876. In Towsley Canyon Park, a nature center at the start of the trail contains displays on the Native Americans who once lived in the area. The gently rolling trail runs along a stream called the Narrows, a slim passage between rock walls presenting a dramatic example of canyon formation.

The parks are open from dawn to dusk seven days a week. Admission and parking are free.

Although they are within minutes’ driving time from most parts of the San Fernando or Santa Clarita valleys, finding them can be tricky.

To reach Towsley Canyon Park, take the Calgrove exit from Interstate 5, turn west under the freeway and take the Old Road south for a few hundred yards.

Watch for the park sign on your right--it’s small and the entrance is merely an open gate in a wire fence. There’s also a mailbox on a wooden post with the address 24425 The Old Road, Saugus. Enter and drive a half-mile on a winding dusty road to the parking lot below the nature center.

To reach Pico Canyon Park, take the Lyons Avenue-Pico Canyon Road exit from Interstate 5, drive west over the freeway and continue on Pico Canyon for about three miles. Parts of this road are bad, but stay on it, bearing left where it makes a Y, until you reach the parking lot that serves Mentryville.

For information about docent-led hikes and other events, call (661) 255-2974 or (310) 589-3200.