The Palisades Fire burned 23,000 acres of the Santa Monica Mountains in January 2025. Eighteen months on, you can finally answer the question without saying “I think”. Some trails are back. Some are not. The Topanga side took the worst of it and is still mostly shut. The western half of the range came through almost untouched. And the parallel Eaton Fire above Altadena, which mostly fell out of the national news after the houses were counted, has set up the biggest single trail closure in living memory: Eaton Canyon and the adjoining forest are off-limits until at least the end of 2027.
Here is the picture, trail by trail.
How things stand
About eight Santa Monica Mountains trails reopened with caveats. Six are still fully closed, most of them in the Topanga cluster managed by the MRCA. Eaton Canyon and the Angeles National Forest trails above it sit under a separate LA County closure order running through December 31, 2027. Everything else, including all of the western range (Agoura, Westlake, Sandstone Peak, Point Mugu), is open and was barely affected.
Reopened, with caveats
These trails are accessible. Read the conditions in each fiche before you head out.
Will Rogers State Historic Park reopened November 8, 2025 after ten months of closure. The historic 31-room ranch house burned to the ground. The West Inspiration Loop, the Lower Betty Rogers Trail and part of the loop road are still closed. The classic Inspiration Point Loop is open, and so is the upper Bone Canyon Road.
Malibu Creek State Park reopened for day use shortly after the fire. The bridge to the M*A*S*H site was reinstalled in April 2026, which felt like the recovery turning a corner. Open daily, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. A handful of campsites and back-country segments still rotate in and out of closure.
Topanga State Park reopened most of its trails. The southern section around the former Topanga Ranch Motel is still closed. Eagle Rock and the Backbone Trail connections are open.
Peter Strauss Ranch has been open since June 2022. The fire that destroyed the historic buildings here was the older November 2018 Woolsey Fire, not the Palisades. Same range, separate disaster.
Paramount Ranch has been hiking-accessible since 2019. The Western Town film set burned in Woolsey. Construction of four buildings on the original Paramount Studios footprints started in 2023 under the Paramount Project (NPS plus the Santa Monica Mountains Fund). What you see on the ground in 2026 is much less than what was there pre-Woolsey.
Rocky Oaks reopened its pond loop and parking after losing most of its mature oaks and all the picnic shade in Woolsey. The shade rebuild is part of the same Paramount Project contract.
Castro Crest is the odd case. The trail itself is open. The road that gets you to the trailhead, Upper Corral Canyon Road, has been closed since late 2024 and is still closed for repairs. Unless you have a bike and an appetite for road climbing, the upper parking lot is effectively unreachable.
Still fully closed
The Topanga-area MRCA cluster is the lingering hard zone. As of 2026 the Mountains Recreation & Conservation Authority still lists all of the following as closed until damage assessment and habitat restoration finish:
- Temescal Gateway Park (full closure)
- Tuna Canyon Park (burn-zone closure)
- Summit Valley Edmund D. Edelman Park (burn-zone closure)
- Sara Wan Trailhead at Corral Canyon (Malibu coastal burn zone)
- Arroyo Sequit Park (trail closed indefinitely; this NPS closure predates the fire)
The MRCA statement is blanket. All of its Topanga-area parks, including Top of Topanga Overlook, Mill Creek and Red Rock Canyon, stay closed until further notice. There is no reopening date for the cluster yet.
Where to hike instead
A large part of the Santa Monica Mountains sits outside the burn perimeter. Three sub-regions in particular came through clean.
Western Malibu and the far western Santa Monica Mountains
Almost entirely spared. Circle X Ranch and its Sandstone Peak loop, the highest summit in the range at 3,111 feet, is open. The coastal state beaches at El Matador, Leo Carrillo, Zuma and Point Dume are all welcoming visitors. Malibu Bluffs Open Space reopened quickly. Inland, Triunfo Creek Park and the western NPS sites (Rancho Sierra Vista / Satwiwa, La Jolla Valley / Mugu Peak) are open.
Calabasas, Las Virgenes and Malibu Creek area
Mostly outside the burn zone. King Gillette Ranch is open and shares its visitor center with Malibu Creek. Las Virgenes View Park and the Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space (formerly Ahmanson Ranch) offer long ridge hikes. Cheeseboro Canyon, the NPS grassland canyon in Agoura, was untouched.
Mulholland corridor and Hollywood Hills
Untouched by both fires. Wilacre Park and its Fryman Canyon trail, the single most-reviewed hike in the entire Santa Monica Mountains on AllTrails, is open as ever. So are Franklin Canyon Park, the Mulholland Scenic Parkway (with its Dirt Mulholland and San Vicente Mountain Park stretches), Coldwater Canyon Park at TreePeople HQ, and the Jerome C. Daniel Overlook above the Hollywood Bowl. If you have visitors from out of town who want a hike in 2026, this is where you take them.
The other fire: Eaton Canyon and the Pasadena foothills
The Eaton Fire started January 7, 2025 above Altadena. It burned 14,000 acres of foothills below Mount Wilson and destroyed thousands of homes. It got less national attention than the Palisades after the headlines moved on. The trail picture there is the worse of the two.
Eaton Canyon Natural Area Park and all surrounding Angeles National Forest trails are closed by official LA County order until at least December 31, 2027. Three things drive the closure. The post-fire habitat is in early recovery and cannot take foot traffic. The infrastructure (railings, footbridges, the nature center) needs major rebuilding. And the burn scar has been colonized by poodle-dog bush, a native plant that can cause severe skin reactions in humans and dogs.
For Pasadena-area hikes in 2026, head to the Rose Bowl Loop at Brookside Park, Cherry Canyon Park in La Cañada Flintridge, the Arroyo Seco trail through South Pasadena, or Descanso Gardens.
How to check before you go
Every fiche on this site affected by a closure has a banner with the current status and a link to the official agency page. We review and update them as new information comes out. The agencies update their own pages too. For the area you usually hike in, bookmark the relevant one:
- Mountains Recreation & Conservation Authority for Topanga, urban LA and the MRCA pocket parks
- NPS Santa Monica Mountains for Cheeseboro, Rancho Sierra Vista, Peter Strauss Ranch, Paramount Ranch, Rocky Oaks and Circle X
- California State Parks for Topanga SP, Malibu Creek SP, Will Rogers SHP and the state beaches
- LA County Trails for Eaton Canyon and the Pasadena foothill closures
The bigger picture
What’s striking 18 months on is how much of the Santa Monica Mountains is back. Most of Topanga State Park reopened inside ten months. Malibu Creek’s M*A*S*H bridge was rebuilt in fifteen. Cheeseboro, Rancho Sierra Vista, Rocky Oaks and Peter Strauss Ranch all welcome visitors. The MRCA’s Topanga cluster is the one piece that has not turned the corner. There is no public reopening timeline for it yet.
Eaton Canyon is the harder story. Fragile post-fire habitat, damaged infrastructure, and the poodle-dog bush problem all push in the same direction. The 2027 closure window is long, but on the ground it looks justified. Opening the canyon early would risk both the recovery and the visitors.
For weekend hikes in 2026, stay west or stay inland. Western Malibu, the Calabasas and Malibu Creek area, the Mulholland corridor, the Hollywood Hills, the Verdugos and the foothills outside the Eaton burn scar all stayed outside the fires. The Topanga MRCA parks and the Eaton Canyon area should be off your list. For everything in between, check the closure banner on the fiche.
