Hog Farm to Rattlesnake

Dogs Unknown

E-Bikes Unknown

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Start with a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure in the ever-shifting sands and boulders of Cairnville in the Big Tujunga wash. Then climb up to The Hog Farm, infamous former home of America's longest-running hippie commune. Continue climbing to Rattlesnake, a fun singletrack that runs out through Ebey Canyon.

This area is popular with and maintained by equestrians so please observe trail courtesy: yield to hikers and stop for horses. There are several networked fire roads and singletrack options that can be looped together or ridden in any combination; this Featured Ride samples a little bit of everything this little section of the Angeles National Forest has to offer.

From the junction of Big Tujunga Canyon Road and Oro Vista Ave N, ride southwest on Big Tujunga towards Oro Vista Park at the end of the street. This portion of the ride is a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure as you make your way roughly west to W. Conover Street. Oro Vista Park has a few small loops of trail, but once you leave the park's western edge the trails braid across the wash. The most-traveled paths are marked with enormous cairns (piles of rocks). At some point you'll need to cross the creek, either at a shallow spot to your liking or down at Foothill's bridge.

Climb out of the wash and turn right (east) on W. Conover Street. Just as it starts to climb steeply, turn left onto the Conover Fire Road. (You can continue on the paved Conover Street to the Hog Farm, but it is very, very steep.) Bear right at the first intersection towards the private gate, and at the gate look right for the continuation of the fire road. Effectively narrowed to singletrack, Conover Fire Road climbs up to where it re-joins the pavement and both ascend to the junction with Doty Road just below the Hog Farm.

From the Hog Farm, drop back down to the junction and begin to climb up Doty Road . This steep fire road offers breathtaking views of Ebey Canyon on one side and Lakeview Terrace on the other, following the ridge towards its eventual junction with Oliver Canyon Road. Before the junction and just after the switchbacks, look for the Rattlesnake Trail trailhead on the right.

Rattlesnake is a roller-coaster ride down Ebey Canyon, alternately nosing a long ridge and dipping into shallow drainages. Towards the bottom, it meets up with the Ebey Canyon Trail. Stay left at the first junction and right at the second to stay on Rattlesnake and exit onto Doty Road. Turn left and the fire road ends shortly, depositing you onto Ebey Canyon Road (paved). Take this right (down) and stay on it until it joins Oro Vista Ave, which exits the neighborhood, crosses over Big Tujunga Creek and takes you back to the start.

The Hog Farm was initially, go figure, a hog farm. After that it was an early homebase of one of the first American intentional hippie communities, or communes. The Hog Farm peacenik clowns are well-known for their involvement in the Woodstock music festival, and for their hallucinogenic drug use. Nowadays the site is utterly decrepit, replete with mounds of building materials, a gigantic truck in disrepair, and a partially-disassembled PT Cruiser. The junk is junky, but the plateau offers fantastic views of the Big Tujunga valley, Mount Lukens, and the Verdugo Mountains.

Ebey Canyon and Oliver Canyon form a big figure-8 network of fire roads that ring the canyons and meet at Larsen Flat. Each canyon also features singletrack trails that generally criss-cross the canyons, so many combinations of fire road climbs and singletrack descents can be strung together depending on how long you want your ride to be.