Stef And I Hike Through Zuma Canyon

I read online this is a medium trail. What that means is after you finish it it’s likely the only way to communicate with you will be through a medium!

Stef discovered the trails through Zuma Canyon a few weeks ago. Now she wanted to take me.

All her friends from college are shocked to hear Stef is doing this (the hiking, not the taking me part). She was voted most likely not to have hiking blisters!

We drove to the Pacific Coast Highway then north to Zuma Beach where the trailhead is located. You turn inland and drive through a community of gated homes surrounded by high flowering hedges. Then the road turns to gravel. A few hundred feet later you’re in a parking lot.

Stef led me to believe this trail was a lot more difficult than what Helaine and I walk at Sleeping Giant. It is!

The trail is comparable in length but it’s narrower, steeper and shade free! It was hot, dry and very dusty on the trail. At spots the trail was overgrown though still visible if you looked down. At other points you’re at the edge of a serious cliff.

Groups ride the trail on horses. There are little horse gifts scattered about.

What makes the trail so rewarding are the beautiful views into wilderness of the canyon and then beyond past multi-million dollar homes to the deep blue of the Pacific.

I carried my camera and a few extra lenses in a pack. That weight made itself more-and-more known as we climbed. For a while Stef took both the camera and backpack off my hands. That was very helpful.

– Please click on the photo to the left. It’s really quite different when viewed at a larger size –

As we approached the high point a woman passed us going in the opposite direction. She was in her seventies, slender, erect and running! That’s not fair. There were only three other people we ran into as we traversed the Ocean View branch.

I read online this is a medium trail. What that means is after you finish it it’s likely the only way to communicate with you will be through a medium!

It was nice to get out and walk with my daughter. Hopefully she’ll find more trails and invite me again.