Probably the most interesting trail in the area, Rustic Canyon has everything from nice single track to entirely unmaintained trail with creek hopping, bush whacking, and an abanoned Nazi camp from the WWII era. Most of the trail is not runnable, but it makes for a great adventure.
1 Heading out on the Rustic Canyon trail from the East end of Will Rogers. Looks like great runnable single-track to start out.
2 The trail didn't last long though. It's marked as unmaintained on the trail map, and signs at the trailhead say the same. And they were definitely the right. The "trail" just follows the creek, which means lots of creek hopping and bush whacking.
3 It's beautiful though.
4 The water probably roars through here after a big rain.
5 Not a single human around.
6 Beautifully green in spots.
7 The "trail" is wet, muddy, and fun.
8 There's actually a small, man-made waterfall along the way.
9 Since there is no well established trail, there's a spider-web of paths and use trails, with no way of knowing which one is the "right" one. In most cases, I just stuck with whatever stayed closest to the creek. I was unsure how to get around the waterfall though. Turns out, one of the paths leads up and out of the canyon with same crazy steep sections that actually have ropes to pull yourself up.
10 Some rough trail running along the canyon wall leading around the waterfall.
11 The view towards Topanga from about halfway up the Rustic Canyon wall.
12 Back down to the canyon floor and into a bed of ferns.
13 Bushwhacking through the ferns.
14 Coming-up to the first of many old buildings that are mentioned in the trail guides. They are covered in grafitti and are a little creepy. Evidently this was a semi-hidden Nazi compound called "Murphy's Ranch" in the 1930s and was Hitler's SoCal outpost during WWII.
15 There's some nice single-track in the area though.
16 Another bizarre Nazi building.
17 There are several flights of stairs here that are highlighted in the trail guides.
18 Not quite Dipsea, but fun stairs to run nonetheless.
19 Even more stairs.
20 Running through some of these tagged buildings is rather creepy.
21 The meadow area at the juctinon with a trail split leading up to the Backbone trail.
22 It's a beautiful spot.
23 Unfortunateluy, another tagged building in the middle of the meadow.
24 The Rustic Canyon trail ends at a large Boy Scout camp about halfway up the canyon. They seem pretty serious about it, and there are people in the camp, so I'm hesitant to ignore the signs.
25 Rather than trying to go through the camp, I decide to go around by following the creek bed. It's a lot of bushwhacking though.
26 Popping out of the creek bed to see the camp. They probably wondered what was making all that noise tromping through the brush.
27 Reached the end of the camp area and was hoping to find the continuation of the Rustic Canyon trail.
28 Unfortunately, I coudn't find any semblance of a trail past the camp. It looks like what trail there was earlier was meant to only lead to the Boy Scout camp. After a lot more bushwhacking, and walking face-first through several huge spider webs, I finally decided this was as far as I would be going up Rustic Canyon. It might be fun to try going further on a different day with better trekking clothes and equipment.
29 On the way back, I took an offshoot from the tagged building area, which leads to a fireroad, which is the shortcut that most people take into the area.
30 Looks like this was some sort of private road at some point. It ends at a better maintained road running along the east ridge of the canyon.
31 A view from the road on the opposite edge of Rustin Canyon from Will Rogers. The house at the top of the hill is that one that I always see in the distance from Inspiration Point in Will Rogers.
32 Back into the canyon, I end-up taking a different route back for part of the way rather than taking the rope climb out of the canyon.
33 This route goes to the top of the waterfall. It's easier going from here on out. I ended-up tacking on a couple miles on the Backbone trail in Will Rogers since most of the rest of the day was unrunabble. With that, I ended another great day on the trails.