#CORRAL CANYON BACKBONE TRAIL PROFESSIONAL#

Parts of the trail were old animal paths that became single-track trails other stretches were converted from fire roads.

#CORRAL CANYON BACKBONE TRAIL PROFESSIONAL#

“It has been constructed by volunteers, the California Conservation Corps, and professional staff from various parkland agencies. “Like the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, the Backbone Trail system has progressed little by little across a patchwork of public lands,” an NPS history of the trail states.

Most of the trails throughout the National Recreation Area, including much of the Backbone Trail, were built and are maintained by volunteers. The damaged areas have been rebuilt and the trail is finally complete and fully open. The last two parcels were finally acquired in 2016, but just two years after the trail was finally complete, sections were badly damaged in 2018 during the Woolsey Fire.

By 1990, 43 miles of the route had been constructed, and then the project stalled. The concept was approved by the California legislature in 1974, four years before the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area was created by an Act of Congress.īy 1983, there were ten miles of trail. The trail has a history as convoluted as any of the parkland it crosses. The Backbone Trail was first proposed more than 50 years ago, but it only began to become a reality in the 1980s, when the National Park Service, California State Parks, and the newly formed Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy began piecing together the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. This is a path that even in the dull, prosaic 21st century has the potential to lead to adventure. The Backbone Trail winds along the spine of the Santa Monica Mountains for nearly 70 miles, from Point Mugu in Ventura County to Will Rogers State Park in Pacific Palisades. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the RingĪnyone who has ever taken a hike in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area backcountry has a good chance of having traveled part of the Backbone Trail, possibly without realizing it. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. The nearly 70-mile-long route traverses some of the most dramatic, remote and beautiful parts of the local coastal range. The backbone trail traverses the spine of the Santa Monica Mountains, from Point Mugu State Park in Ventura County, to Will Rogers State Park in Pacific Palisades.

Corral canyon backbone trail