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HIKE 5

The Grotto

Location: Circle X Ranch (Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area)

Highlights: Spooky rock formations and live oak groves

Distance: 2.8 miles (out-and-back)

Total Elevation Gain/Loss: 650'/650'

Hiking Time: 2 hours

Optional Maps: Trails Illustrated Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area or USGS 7.5-minute Triunfo Pass

Best Times: All year

Agency: SMMNRA

Difficulty: Moderate

Trail Use: Dogs allowed, good for kids

The 1,655-acre Circle X Ranch, formerly run by the Boy Scouts of America but now administered by the National Park Service, is positively riddled with Tom Sawyer-esque hiking paths. Chief among those is the Grotto Trail, perfect for young or young-in-thought adventurers. This hike is almost entirely downhill on the way in and uphill on the way back. Plan accordingly and bring enough drinking water.

To Reach the Trailhead: The Circle X Ranch Ranger Station is located near the western end of the Santa Monica Mountains, a few miles (by crow’s flight) south of Thousand Oaks. From the Pacific Coast Highway near mile marker 1 VEN 1.00, turn north onto Yerba Buena Road and proceed 5.4 miles.

Or from US 101 in Thousand Oaks, take CA 23 south for 7.2 miles. Turn right (west) on Mulholland Highway, then in 0.4 mile turn right again onto Little Sycamore Canyon, which soon becomes Yerba Buena Road and reaches the trailhead in 5.5 miles. On either approach, you face a white-knuckle drive on paved, but very narrow and curvy roads.

You may park at the ranger station or drive 0.1 mile down a dirt road behind the ranger station to signed day-use parking. The trailhead is 0.1 mile farther down at the bottom of the road beside the Circle X Ranch Group Campground (camping by reservation only).

Rock-hopping in the Grotto

Description: Start hiking at the Circle X Ranch park office. Walk down to the group campground, where you find and follow the Grotto Trail heading south down along a shady, seasonal creek. Keep going downhill as you pass the Canyon View Trail intersecting on the left. Shortly afterward, you cross the creek at a point immediately above a 30-foot drop, which becomes a trickling waterfall in winter and spring. You then go uphill, gaining about 50 feet of elevation, and cross an open meadow offering fine views of both Boney Mountain above and a deep-cut gorge (the west fork of Arroyo Sequit) below. Maintain your descent, which becomes sharper as you get closer to the bottom of the gorge.

When you come upon an old roadbed at the bottom, stay left, cross the creek, and continue downstream on a narrowing trail along the shaded east bank. Curve left when you reach a grove of fantastically twisted live oaks at the confluence of two stream forks. On the edge of this grove, an overflow pipe coming out of a tank discharges tepid spring water. Continue another 200 yards down along the now-lively brook to the trail’s abrupt end at The Grotto, a narrow, spooky constriction flanked by sheer volcanic-rock walls. If your sense of balance is good, you can clamber over gray rock ledges and massive boulders fallen from the canyon walls—just as thousands of Boy Scouts have done in the past. At one spot you can peer cautiously into a gloomy cavern, where you more easily hear than see the subterranean stream. Watermarks on the boulders above are evidence that this part of the gorge probably supports a two-tier stream in times of flood.

When you’ve had your fill of adventuring, return by the same route, uphill almost the whole way.