Do you love camping but hate mosquitos and…well, everything that has to do with the outdoors? Welcome to Hüttenpalast, an affordable (30 euros per person, roughly $43), hotel near Berlin that brings the outdoors inside. Here you can sleep in a tiny hut or canned-ham style trailer, sing campfire songs with total strangers, and stumble…
Peter Strauss Ranch is a great place to explore, picnic and introduce kids to hiking. The 0.6 mile Peter Strauss Trail is one of the best places in the Santa Monica Mountains to hike with children who are at that awkward age – too big to lug in a backpack carrier but not quite ready…
Let’s say that you want to become a Suburban Frontiersman…like Yours Truly. Where would you start? Perhaps you think you might need some gear, a pair of sturdy boots, a handy knife, a trustworthy haversack. But you’d be wrong. What you need is time. The Suburban Frontiersman’s life is chopped up until it’s a pizza…
The ruins of a lost civilization are overlooked by hikers on a daily basis in the mountains above Malibu…at least that is what Robert Stanley claims. My mission last week was to explore part of the Santa Monica Mountains and see what, if anything, I could find that supports Stanley’s notion that a lost civilization…
Is it possible that there is a lost civilization in the mountains above Malibu? Robert Stanley seems to think so. In 1985 he discovered evidence that convinced him that a pre-Chumash civilization once inhabited the region. The book Weird California fleshes out some of Stanley’s observations, noting that he discovered walls, ramparts and foundations that…
Whether you’re coming from out of town or just need a quick overnight outdoors break, there are more places to camp around Ventura than you might imagine. The Real Cheap Sports blog has a comprehensive list of campsites in Ventura county. They list phone numbers, locations, amenities and fees. By the way, Real Cheap Sports…
Cheseboro Canyon is part of the Santa Monica Mountains Recreational area, and part of a larger network of clearly marked trails in an open space surrounded by suburban sprawl. You can find a good map of Cheeseboro Canyon here. The area is popular with mountain bikers and equestrians. I hiked to Shepherd’s Flat late Sunday…
