Hikes in the Santa Monica Mountains

Dawn Mine offers a glimpse into the history of the San Gabriel Mountains. The abandoned shafts can be reached on a moderately strenuous 6-mile round trip hike up beautiful Millard Canyon. To visit the entrance to this forgotten gold mine, start from the Millard Campground parking area and hike half a mile up the canyon to Millard Falls. Take in the falls and back up three hundred feet. ...Read more.

Millard Falls is just half a mile from the trailhead, up one of the most pleasant canyon in the San Gabriel Mountains. The 50-foot tall boulder-topped beauty makes a great destination for a short, sylvan hike. Millard Falls is one of the Los Angeles waterfall hikes. To see Millard Falls, embark up a dirt road through Millard Campground. Just beyond the campground, the trail up the canyon turns off to the right. ...Read more.

Millard Campground (also called Millard Trail Camp) sits alongside a stream at the trailhead for Millard Falls. There are only five tent sites that are all first-come first-serve. The grounds appear to function as a picnic area for many visitors. If you are coming out to hike the creek, the campgrounds are an ideal venue for a BBQ. Millard Campground The sites are a quarter mile from the parking lot, so a short "hike it" is required. ...Read more.

The forty-foot waterfall in Eaton Canyon fills an amphitheater at the top of Eaton Canyon Trail, tumbling into a wide pool that you can rest alongside or wade in. The waist-deep water is so refreshing, you are likely to see hikers in bathing suits on a warm day. The hike to Eaton Canyon Falls can be summed up this way: 1.1 miles of wide flat, relatively uneventful dirt trail, followed by 0. ...Read more.

Switzer Falls might be the best know waterfall hike in Los Angeles County. This 50-foot waterfall is reached via a 4.5 mile out-and-back trek on Gabrielino Trail that follows a shaded babbling creek down into a wooded canyon. This is one of the most popular hikes in front range of the San Gabriel Mountains, with a picnic area at the trailhead that gets crowded too. ...Read more.