Things to Do in Stevenson Ranch This Weekend
Ask a Stevenson Ranch resident where they went last Saturday and the answer usually involves a freeway. Malibu. Burbank. Griffith. The 5 south to somewhere with a name. It is a strange local habit, because the most reviewed trail in Los Angeles County's northwestern corner, a National Historic Landmark, a stair climb that keeps its own social media reputation, and two full sit-down restaurants all sit inside a two-mile radius of the Pico Canyon Road exit. Most weekends, residents drive past their own amenity to reach someone else's.
This is a walk through what is actually within that radius, ordered the way a Saturday actually unfolds. No moving, no packing, no toll roads. Just the map most locals stop reading once they know the way home.
Take Calgrove west off the 5, cross under the freeway, turn south on The Old Road, and within a quarter mile you are at Ed Davis Park in Towsley Canyon. The park is named for the former state senator who kept this canyon from becoming a landfill, and its trails lead through a variety of habitats including the Don Mullaly Trail, Towsley Creek, and the water-worn rock formations of Towsley Gorge.
The gorge is the reason to come. Towsley Canyon sits in the Santa Susana Mountains just off the Golden State Freeway, minutes from the amusement parks and In-N-Outs of Santa Clarita, but a quick loop hops near streams, dodges natural tar pits, and walks through a narrow slot-canyon area of upturned sedimentary rock called The Narrows. The Tataviam people used the naturally occurring asphalt for healing purposes and to seal their basketry. Very few Los Angeles hikes give you that combination inside forty minutes of home.
Three loops leave from the same lot. Pick by how much Saturday you want to spend.
| Loop | Distance | Elevation Gain | Rough Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canyon View Loop | 1.9 mi | modest | under an hour |
| Towsley View Loop | 5.4 mi | 1,075 ft | 2.5–3 hr |
| Towsley Canyon Loop | 6.2 mi | 1,459 ft | 3.5–4 hr |
Loop distances and gains are drawn from the published trail descriptions at Hikespeak and AllTrails.
A local detail worth knowing before you arrive: the park has both pay and free parking. If you drive past the fence into the interior lot, you owe a fee. Park before the fence and you add roughly three minutes of walking and pay nothing. In August the shade matters more than the distance. Most of the Towsley View climb is exposed, and reviewers routinely mention ticks in the tall summer grass and pockets of poison oak along the creek line, so long socks and a dog leash are not overkill.
Drive east out of the park, back under the freeway, and continue on Pico Canyon Road past the last cul-de-sac in the neighborhood. The pavement narrows, the houses stop, and about four miles from the 5 the road ends at Mentryville.
Most residents know it exists. Fewer know what it actually is. Mentryville sits at the base of Pico Canyon's chaparral slopes as an 1880s oil boom town built around the oil well Pico No. 4. Named for Charles Alexander Mentry, the well's driller and later a superintendent of the company that would become Chevron, Mentryville was home to over 100 families until the early 1930s. Pico No. 4 became the longest continually operating oil well in the world, closing in 1990. Historic buildings still stand including Mentry's thirteen-room mansion, a one-room school house, and a period barn. Mentryville and Pico No. 4 are registered as California State Historical Landmarks.
Reading that sentence and standing in the barn's shadow are different experiences. The one-room Felton School still has its bell. The mansion faces the canyon head-on. Interpretive signs fill in the parts the boarded-up doors won't.
There is a working local trick to the parking. A $5 fee applies at the parking lot inside the gate. Free parking is available 0.5 miles down the road where Pico Canyon Road splits with Pico Canyon Service Road, which adds an extra 1-mile walk round trip. If you were going to walk anyway, the free lot is a rounding error. If you have small kids in the car, pay the five and keep moving.
From Mentryville, the paved service road climbs to the Pico No. 4 site itself. The out-and-back to the well is short enough to fit before lunch. The full trail continues seven miles into the backcountry if you want to make a morning of it, but the payoff for casual visitors is the first mile and a half, where the canyon closes in and the old wooden structures start appearing between the oaks.
Back down Pico Canyon Road toward the freeway, the residential grid picks up and Pico Canyon Park opens on the right. On a map it looks like a small neighborhood park. In practice it is the trailhead for the Pico Canyon Stairs, a punishing set of concrete steps into the foothills that gained a following on social media a few years ago and never lost it. On any given Saturday morning the parking lot fills with running strollers, weighted vests, and dogs waiting at the bottom while someone's teenager runs repeats.
The park itself has picnic tables and shaded benches at the base if the stair climb is not the plan. A slow lap around the perimeter is a legitimate use of a Saturday morning with a stroller. Two other neighborhood options round out the local park set: Richard H. Rioux Memorial Park in the middle of the community and Jake Kuredjian County Park on the south side. Both are county-run, both are free, and both are within a five-minute drive of most Stevenson Ranch addresses.
The single most useful piece of Stevenson Ranch geography is the intersection of Pico Canyon Road and The Old Road. Every trail described above funnels back through it, and it holds enough seating to feed everyone who came off the hill that morning.
Finney's Crafthouse sits at 25636 The Old Road, one signal north of the intersection. The four-sided bar and TV tower make it a spot to watch a game with a Surfing Hippos Hazy IPA and a bison burger. On Saturdays it opens at 11:00 a.m. and stays open until 10:00 p.m., which handles both a post-hike lunch and a sunset patio dinner without a second stop.
A block south, at the intersection itself, Casa Canela opened a second location at Pico Canyon Road and The Old Road in the former Coco's building. The original in Saugus built a following long enough that residents were driving across the valley for it. That drive is now a light and a left turn. The Stevenson Ranch location serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
The corner also holds the anchors residents use without thinking: Stevenson Ranch Plaza sits at the signalized intersection of The Old Road and Pico Canyon Road just west of the I-5 on-ramp, anchored by Ralph's, LA Fitness, PetSmart, and Guitar Center. Between the plaza on one side and the Valencia Marketplace on the other, the grocery, gas, coffee, and hardware runs sit within a single traffic pattern. A weekend morning that starts at Ed Davis Park can end with a full cart and a burger without a single left turn onto the freeway.
If you drew a compass circle two miles across centered on the Pico Canyon and Old Road light, it would enclose:
Very few Los Angeles zip codes hold that inventory inside two miles. Most residents know each piece in isolation. Fewer plan a Saturday that uses three of them in sequence.
A worked example, for a Saturday that starts at 7:30 a.m.: park at the free lot outside Ed Davis, walk the Canyon View Loop, drive back to Mentryville, spend forty minutes at the mansion and the schoolhouse, come out at Casa Canela for a late breakfast, and be home by noon. Total freeway miles: zero. Total gas: less than a gallon.
The reason this matters for people who already live here is not that Stevenson Ranch is secretly a destination. It is that the neighborhood was quietly built on top of one, and the reflex to drive out on weekends predates most of what is now within walking distance. The map is better than the habit.
If you are thinking about your next move inside the Santa Clarita Valley or want a local read on how your block fits into the larger market, Kramer Cruz Group works this corridor daily. Work with Kramer Cruz Group. Schedule a consultation and start with a conversation about what you already have around you.
Whether you're in the research phase at the beginning of your real estate search or you know exactly what you're looking for, you'll benefit from having a real estate professional by your side. She'd be honored to put her real estate experience to work for you.