A Private Mountain Haven : Cold Creek Canyon Preserve Offers Solitude in Nature

At the end of a long, dry summer, there aren’t many places in the Santa Monica Mountains that boast a waterfall splashing into a fern-shaded pool.

And there is just one that can be visited only by reservation.

The reservation is no hot ticket, however. This time of year, and often in the busy season as well, a hiker may have Cold Creek Canyon Preserve all to himself or herself.

Located in Calabasas in a north-facing canyon, the preserve is sheltered from sun and heat and offers a microcosm of the Santa Monica Mountains. In addition to the common chaparral and oak woodland habitats, it has a year-round stream, cattails, ferns and other moisture-loving plants.

Parks officials familiar with the Santa Monica Mountains say that Cold Creek Canyon Preserve is the region’s only privately owned hiking area that is open to the public.

Visitors Limited to 25

No more than 25 people a day are permitted inside the 600-acre preserve, which has locked gates at its two entrances off Stunt Road. A narrow, 2 1/2-mile trail winds through the canyon. Admission is free, and the preserve remains open 365 days a year, but reservations must be made by telephone.

“A private organization like ours can be very sensitive to the resource’s needs,” said Betty Wiechec, executive director of the nonprofit Mountains Restoration Trust, which owns and manages the preserve. “We’re not under pressure to produce numbers of visitors the way public agencies are. And if there ever comes a time that visitors are too much for a certain area, we can close it. Public parks have a hard time doing that.”

Such overuse isn’t likely to take place soon, as Cold Creek Canyon remains overlooked compared to such nearby public hiking areas as Topanga State Park and Malibu Creek State Park. State officials said that this year through the end of July, about 48,000 people had used Topanga and about 32,000 had used Malibu Creek. Cold Creek, which is about one-tenth the size of the public parks, had fewer than 1,000 visitors.

Wiechec said the 25-person limit is occasionally reached during the spring wild flower season and when the Sierra Club or naturalist author Milt McCauley takes a tour into the preserve.

“But lots of times you’ll be the only one here,” she said. “We have people who come for that tranquillity, to be alone and meditate.”

Grotto-Like Effect

The preserve has 13 waterfalls, although only one is on the trail. It flows over a spillway of travertine--a deposit built up by minerals in the water--creating a grotto-like effect. Around the pool grow orchids and ferns. In October, ladybugs began gathering on the undersides of plant leaves along the creek.

“They come by the thousands, and no one has been able to tell us why they winter here,” Wiechec said. “There are a lot already, so maybe that means a cold winter.”

Wiechec said that the creek is free from pollution and that stone flies, an “indicator species” occurring only near clean water, are present. Entomologists come from out of state to study the flies, she said.

Growing on hills in the preserve is a stand of red shank, a shrub with shred-like bark that grows in only a few areas of California and Baja California.

Studies of red shank, birds and other Cold Creek life have been conducted by naturalists at UCLA, said Tim Thomas, a resource manager for the U.S. National Park Service who is site manager for nearby state-owned Stunt Ranch.

Studying Park Effects

“In a region where summer drought is the norm, the diversity of wildlife found in that canyon is particularly rich,” he said. “It was kept in a fairly pristine condition through most of its history of management, meaning the last 100 or so years.”

Thomas said Stunt Ranch will become part of the University of California’s Natural Land Reserve System, and, together with Cold Creek Canyon Preserve, will be the site of studies exploring a Catch-22 inherent in the creation of parks. The very act of preserving a habitat will isolate it much like an island, he said, which leads to a diminishing number of wildlife species.

Nancy Helsley, head of a 30-member group of docents for the preserve, said animals seen by visitors can include golden eagles, snakes, bobcats, fox and mule deer. Docents lead tours for both adults and schoolchildren.

“Inner-city kids are overwhelmed,” she said. “All they know is the urban world. Some of them think panthers or lions will jump out at them.”

Helsley said the Chumash Indians lived off the land.

“They didn’t have to grow anything. It was all here, and still is. If you look, after a while you start to see things in all this brown brush that convince you the land is very rich with life.”

Keeping Stream Clean

The Mountains Restoration Trust added the Cold Creek headwaters to the preserve in July. Wiechec said the 14-acre parcel--purchased for $130,000, much of it a Sierra Club grant--will help ensure that the stream remains unpolluted.

The Trust was created by the state Legislature in 1981 to serve as a neutral third party in efforts to add land to the public park system. Wiechec, 42, has been executive director since 1982.

“Our role is to be a bridge between private landowners and public agencies,” she said. “The original job was to help landowners retire their development rights in exchange for tax credits.”

In addition to that task, the Trust buys land for resale to such public agencies as the state Parks and Recreation Department.

“What makes the Trust so valuable is that we can move quickly when a piece of land comes on the market,” she said. “Very often public agencies don’t have the money at the right time.”

The Trust got its own parkland to manage in 1984 when the Nature Conservancy, a private organization that buys for preservation, handed over Cold Creek. The Conservancy had bought the land in 1970 for back taxes--about $180,000. A 500-acre parcel at the time, the preserve has grown to 600 acres through purchases such as the headwaters acquisition.

$135,000 Budget

The Trust is run by a five-member board of directors. Wiechec said funds for the $135,000-a-year budget come from grants, donations from visitors and sales of land that has risen in value. About $14,000 of the budget goes toward property taxes and water bond fees on the preserve’s acreage.

Acquiring land for parks in the Santa Monicas can be difficult because much of the property, although undeveloped, has been subdivided.

“We have lots that are an eighth of an acre,” Wiechec said. “It’s been subdivided way out of proportion to the land’s limitations. But people who own the land have the expectation that they will eventually develop it or sell it to someone, so you have to deal with numbers of owners. Add to that the fact that land values have skyrocketed, and it’s a problem.”

Nonetheless, Wiechec said, 1,280 acres in the Santa Monicas have become public land with the Trust acting as intermediary.

People wishing to visit Cold Creek Canyon Preserve may call (213) 456-5625.