Malibu Creek State Park — Attraction in Agoura Hills

The 20th Century Fox Ranch, now known as Malibu Creek State Park, is a wonder of dramatic vistas that are different in every direction in which you might look. Which explains why it continues to be so popular as a movie filming location. Cary Grant, Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Elvis Presley and Paul Newman have worked on set here.

The Malibu Creek park is possibly best known however for the MAS*H movie and television show where many of the exterior shots were filmed for over a decade. Follow the Crags Road trail for 2.4 miles and you'll be on the set yourself, complete with a restored ambulance, a replica signpost and two burned out vehicles that were used in the last season of the show. Be sure to look for the helipad area, just South of the former camp site.

On the way you'll also pass by the site of the village from the Planet Of The Apes (1968) movie. The park has some great interpretive signs reminding you of this and other park facts.

• Crags Road Trail | 5★ | 6.3mi | Easy | 367ft - The walk down the wide Crags Road is undemanding and flat, but with the dramatic landscapes to keep you entertained you'll hardly notice. At around the 1.6 mile mark things get a little harder where the creek has found its own path around what looks like something that was intended to be a bridge. To pass the creek you'll want to look around for the best way across - I saw people navigate a makeshift crossing of logs, but I chose to head to my left where I found a place that I could just stride across. From here the road narrows into a trail, snaking through the canyon to the MAS*H location.

Some like to end their hike with the MAS*H filming location at the 2.4 mile mark, but if you have the energy we'd recommend continuing to the trail's end at the base of the Malibou Lake dam (sic). Although there's no way to see or access the lake itself, you do pass close by more of the local rocky terrain.

The gorges in Malibu Creek park were formed from layers of sea-floor lava which became tilted and exposed to the air by compression between the North American and Pacific tectonic plates. Air bubbles were originally trapped in the seafloor lava as it rapidly cooled, and now exposed to the elements those odd holes in the rock now make great nesting places for the hundreds of white-throated swifts that flit around the canyon.

• Crags Road to Rock Pools | 4★ | 2.2mi | Easy | 85ft - Not everyone comes here to hike the movie locations. Malibu Canyon is a great setting for a picnic, and others like to hike as far as the rock pools or climb the walls and boulders nearby. We've plotted out a shorter hike that will lead you to the rock pools which is usually busy with waders...

Meh. Really boring and bland. There’s barely anything there. Mostly flat main “road” trail that takes you through the middle of the “park” that leads you to the former Mash set. But all that’s there is a repainted military vehicle and a bench picnic area covered with camo net for shade LMAO and some signs saying how the TV show was filmed there but that’s it. Nothing else. The rock pool is ok, it’s really nothing special. I mean it doesn’t look very clean so I dunno why anybody would want to go in it. There’s also a small dam up above it that you can go see as you go around on the main road, that holds back most of the water on that same stream that creates the pool. Some folks use the rock wall for climbing and unless you are so inclined (haha) you can’t get around to the back of the pool as you have to climb up and over some cliffs. The “hike” itself is not much of a hike but more a walk. No challenge. There are offshoots to a few hillocks but they don’t lead to anywhere interesting at all. I get that it’s a nature preserve NOW, but they could do so much more with it to make it fun and interesting. There is a camping area if you want to do that, they charge $45 for overnight stay. I wish that some of the taller hills and mountain tops are accessible for a serious hike and climb, I never understand why so many of these taller mountains aren’t around the USA. It’s just totally lame that the land and properties are so protected from the public’s access by stupid land owners and government agencies for their own uses. It’s a mountain of Earth and should be available to the human public to be able to go climb them like many are around the world. The visitors center is weak, it’s like a little local museum thing that barely has anything at all in it, and it’s always hilarious that there’s things like this that display the life and culture and survival skills of the Chumash people who used to live around these areas who have been wiped out by the invaders that killed most of those locals, who decided to turn their land into a park just because they felt like they should preserve it so there’s a small section trying to educate us about it...

This one is a little tough. We love camping and always have a good time no matter what the trip throws at us. This campground was very nice when we visited in April but there were a few negatives I wanted to point out. I don’t think any are deal breakers but just things you need to look out for.

First you need to really look at the site map. There are some great spots and then some that I would not want to be at if it’s a sunny day. We had a small tree at our site and it was just enough. Some sites had great coverage and others are exposed as it gets. We were here on a Monday and the trash truck showed up at 5:10am not a huge deal but it was loud as heck at that time. Last negative was the wood that the camp host was selling. It was complete garbage and would not burn. Again this will be different from time to time but just something to check.

The location of this site is great because there are a lot of trails that are close by and the drives are all really pretty. The day use was super busy on Sunday and then died down a ton by Monday. We walked the little trail right at the site and it was a nice easy “hike” with a good amount of water that people were playing in. The camp hosts were friendly and helpful, bathrooms and showers were clean and having hot water is always a huge plus. There were a good amount of critters so make sure you don’t leave food out. There are also signs for poison oak so keep an eye on the kids.

The is a site that we would visit again as long as we could get a good site. The prices are good and being that close to the beach and a lot of...