Topanga Lookout Site

Area Features:

Topanga Ridge divides the Malibu and Topanga watersheds. Today's walk will be at the 2400 foot level, at first below the ridge, then along it to a high point where a lookout tower stood for many years before it was removed in the 1970s. The site is owned by the Mountains Restoration Trust and the access road is privately owned and OK to use. Primarily a Chaparral plant community, the ridge does support some Coastal Sage Scrub plants. A fire swept uphill in 1970 and left only the burned trunks of bushes and trees. Recovery has been complete with only a few burned stumps still visible. This is a walk and is focused on the plants that grow here.

Trail Information:

Park off the road at the junction of Stunt Road and Saddle Peak roads at the crest of the mountains. The trail is a fireroad leading to the site of the fire lookout. The road is paved for about 500 yards at which point it forks, with the right fork going uphill to a telephone relay tower.

Because the road is paved part way and the grade is reasonably gentle, this walk can be used by those in wheelchairs. When the pavement ends the road becomes rough but it is hard ground and rock, but passable. Parents with children in strollers might have a problem because the wheels are small.

The first part of the walk is high on the north facing slope of the mountain and although classified as Chaparral, the vegetation includes Bay Trees, Coast Live Oaks, Canyon Sunflower, Heart-leaved Penstemon, and some Grassland plants. Toyon with red berries from November until late winter, Scrub Oak with small but many acorns, Russian Thistles and other small shrubs dominate the first part of the walk. Look for Giant Rye, Hairyleaf Ceanothus, Saw-toothed Goldenbush, Bush Lupine, Phacelia, Cliff Aster, and Honeysuckle. When the trail forks, we go straight ahead onto a hard dirt road.

Geologically most of the rock along the route is sandstone and pebble cobble conglomerate. We will see some immense slabs, usually sloping steeply toward the northwest. Several intrusive sills and dikes of volcanic diabase in the form of weathered spheroidal blocks will be seen in the road and in roadcuts. This volcanic diabase is called "Onion Rock" because it exfoliates as it weathers. Some of this will be found in a roadcut after the route reaches a saddle and makes a definite turn toward north. Wand Buckwheat is the dominant plant on the face of the roadcut.

Later we will cross an area where the pavement of the road shows the distinctive diabase pattern and we have an opportunity to see it up close as we walk.

California Buckwheat, Chaparral Currant, Bush Senecio, Bigberry Manzanita, Two-tone Everlasting, Telegraph Weed, and Laurel Sumac will be seen all along this stretch of the road. The lookout site is surrounded by alien Pine Trees. These rarely reproduce in the Santa Monica Mountains, but once established, some species are able to live many years. The lookout site isn't the neatest spot in the mountains. The broken bottle evidence indicates that the spot has been popular as a rendezvous for beer drinkers and careless picnickers.

The road continues around the eastern side of the old lookout, dropping rather steeply. Look for more diabase "Onion Rock" in the roadcut. Bush Poppy, Hollyleaf Cherry, Red Shanks, Hairy-leaved Ceanothus, and Mountain Mahogany are found on the north facing slope alongside the road. Plummer's Baccharis is found in the saddle where we can look into Old Topanga Canyon watershed. The road ends at a sandstone knoll and we can look back to see the large tilted sandstone slabs. A rock scramble trail goes down the ridge northwest from the end of the road, but we won't hike the ridge on this walk and will turnaround to return the way we came.