Most mornings before the sun clears the ridgeline, a line of cars fills the small lot at Pico Canyon Park. People stretch against their bumpers, climb 163 concrete steps in the dark, and turn around at the top. It is a good workout. It is also, if you look at what's actually back there, the shortest and easiest part of a trail system that keeps going for miles past where almost everyone stops.
That's the piece of local knowledge that doesn't show up on the fitness-app version of this place. Stevenson Ranch residents treat the stairs and Mentryville, the historic ghost town a few minutes further down the same road, as two separate destinations. They share an address. They're connected by the same trail. And the part of the hike people skip is the part with the actual story.
What the 163 steps don't tell you
The concrete staircase at Pico Canyon Park is the neighborhood's most photographed workout spot, and for good reason. It's steep, it's close, and it's over fast enough to fit before work. The entrance sits past a large oak tree locals know as "Old Glory," with picnic tables and a clean restroom nearby, so the whole thing feels contained and manageable.
What most people don't realize while they're catching their breath at the top: that's not the summit. The maintained trail continues past the stairs into a dirt section with roughly 340 additional steps of varying height, climbing along the ridge toward a genuine high point with views back across the valley. One AllTrails reviewer who kept going past where the printed map suggested turning around described reaching the peak and finding it worth the extra effort. Another flagged that the trail becomes noticeably steeper and more overgrown the further you push, which is a fair warning if you're used to stopping at the concrete section.
The gap between what's advertised and what's actually there matters if you're planning a Saturday morning around it. Fifteen minutes at the stairs is a different outing than the ninety minutes it takes to do the ridge loop properly.
The connection nobody markets
Here's the detail that changes how you think about this whole area: Pico Canyon Park and Mentryville share the same address on Pico Canyon Road. They read as two separate attractions on travel sites and hiking apps, complete with separate reviews and separate photo galleries, but they sit inside the same stretch of Santa Clarita Woodlands Park land.
Mentryville is the actual reason this canyon has history worth walking into. It was built around Pico No. 4, the first commercially successful oil well in the western United States, drilled by Charles Alexander Mentry in 1876. The well went on to become the longest continually operating oil well in the world before it finally closed in 1990, according to the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, which manages the site today. What's left standing includes Mentry's thirteen-room mansion, a one-room schoolhouse, and a period barn, all preserved as California State Historical Landmarks.
Parking at Mentryville costs $5 through an automated kiosk, and the structures are locked but visible through the windows. From there, a paved road leads into the canyon's backcountry trails, the same trail network that eventually connects back toward the stairs. Treating these as one continuous outing rather than two separate errands is the difference between a quick photo stop and an actual afternoon in the hills behind your own neighborhood.
What the trail is doing right now
Trail conditions change enough here that it's worth checking before you commit to the full route. A hiker who logged the upper ridge in March 2026 described the section around the 2.5-mile mark as difficult to traverse, mostly loose scree, with high winds making footing worse on the descent. Another visitor around the same period noted overgrown brush and mud in spots closer to the Towsley Canyon connector. None of this rules out the hike. It does mean the casual version most people do, stairs and back, is a genuinely different experience from the extended ridge route, and treating them as interchangeable is how people end up unprepared.
A few things worth knowing before you go:
- Dogs are welcome throughout the park system but must stay leashed, and posted advisories note mountain lions and coyotes are present in the canyon.
- The Mentryville parking kiosk is cash only, and reviewers recommend bringing exact change since the machine isn't always reliable.
- There's no food or water available past the trailhead. Pack in what you need, especially for the longer Mentryville-connected routes.
- Cooler months make the exposed ridge sections far more comfortable. Full summer sun with little shade on the upper trail is a real consideration.
Picking your version of the hike
Not every morning calls for the full ridge. The park system around Stevenson Ranch has enough range that the right choice depends on how much time and effort you actually want to spend.
| Route | Distance | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Pico Canyon Stairs only | Under half a mile round trip | The concrete steps, a quick heart-rate spike, back to your car in 20 minutes |
| Pico Canyon Park loop | 1.2 miles | Stairs plus the shaded lower trail, moderate difficulty, about 30-60 minutes |
| Mentryville: Pico Canyon Trail | 7.1 miles out and back | Full ghost town access plus the ridge climb, 3.5 to 4 hours, 1,286 feet of elevation gain |
If none of that sounds like your Saturday, Stevenson Ranch has quieter options that don't involve stairs at all. Jake Kuredjian County Park, next to Pico Canyon Elementary, offers developed walking trails under mature shade trees along with restrooms and picnic tables, all without the climb. Richard H. Rioux Memorial Park, near Stevenson Ranch Elementary, works the same way for a flatter walk closer to the neighborhood's core. Neither will show up in a search for "hardest hike near me," and that's the point.
The habit worth changing
If you've lived here for a while, you've probably already sorted the stairs into "quick workout" and filed Mentryville under "thing we should take visiting family to sometime." Splitting them that way isn't wrong, but it does mean missing how the two connect and undersells what's actually back there. The next time cooler weather rolls in and the ridge stops being a sunbaked hazard, it's worth doing the walk as one trip instead of two. Park once, climb the stairs, keep going past where you'd normally turn around, and let the trail take you all the way to a mansion that's been standing since the 1880s.
That kind of local detail, the kind that only shows up when you've actually spent time in a place rather than skimmed a listicle about it, is the same thing we look for when we're helping someone understand a neighborhood before they buy into it. If you're weighing a move to Stevenson Ranch, or you already live here and have questions about what your home is worth in today's market, Montemayor & Associates can walk you through it with the same level of detail. Contact us anytime.
