Big Sycamore Canyon Loop Trail

Pretty easy hike. First few miles are uphill. Great views, lots of wildflowers, beautiful!! Lots of mountain bikers...all friendly and courteous sharing the trail.

Nice beginner X-country type mountain bike trail. Nice climb up to about 1100ft or so, then you get to shred down Backbone. Fast and flowy.

I've hiked this route as well when I don't have time for anything else. If you're a beginner or only hike in the Santa Monicas, this would probably be considered "moderate". But if you frequent the San Gabes or San Bernardinos, this trail will be quite easy. Good place to get your feet wet with trail running as well!

Crowded, but scenic. Watch out for other bikers and hikers.

Easy. Not difficult.

This is an easy to moderate hike, not hard. The most difficult aspect is it’s length: 10 miles. It’s mostly fire road and approx 3 miles are flat.

One word- MOSQUITOS.
Of the large and biting variety. I am sure the hike would have been much more pleasant had we not been feasted upon heavily for 10 miles.
Bug Spray it up.

first three miles very full. lots of bikers.

Awesome moderate hike with spectacular ocean views. Lots of bikers heading fast around corners. We started off at the trail-head heading counter-clockwise, easier hike up the hill, it seems. We veered off the overlook trail and went down to the shore via more winding backbone, but it was worth the extra 2 miles. Walked along the PCH back to the parking lot. Lots of green plants this time of year. Weather was perfect, cloudy 65 degrees. Got cold quickly around 6pm. Overall, a great day spent hiking.

Hiked here with our club. The hills had wonderful flora and the scenery was great throughout our hike.

Hard going up but after that beautiful views and speedy going down

Love it

God

This is a very enjoyable hike - as long as you have a hat, sunscreen and plenty of water. It's almost all exposed and a lot of fire road. Not particularly difficult and some beautiful scenery.

Hiked this trail by mistake. A group of us decided to hike the La Jolla Canyon trail and use Mugu's Peak as the midway point. However we all parked at the Sycamore Canyon lot not realizing we were in the wrong lot. Turned out to be a really long but nice hike.

nice hike from PCH up to Wendy trail trailhead on Portero rd.
incline is constant but gentle. not challenging but a good cardio if you go fast..

Have hiked and biked this several times over the years. Most recently came up here with family for the first time since the springs fire toasted the canyon in November 2013 and it's pretty charred still. We took the Scenic trail up to the ocean facing ridge for a decent incline going up to fantastic views of the ocean and the giant sand dune to the south (east). The basic canyon hike has very mellow incline for most of it with a bit of steep ascent at the end (north end). You can start at the ocean and head up to newbury park or start up there and come down. I prefer to get the uphill done up front so I tend to start at PCH. Some free parking can be found on PCH a few tenths of a mile to the south (east) but it's sketchy crossing to the park from there. Be Safe :)

Bring water.

Very scenic with slight grade to Thousand Oaks---Lasse Viren 20K runs here in October/November, Can get high winds from Santa Anas.

I love it in Sycamore. You can stay down in the canyon or take one of the side trails like Overlook. This is a pretty flat trail so it's great for beginner mountain bikers. If you start in Newbury Park and take the whole trail you will end of at a campground and just across PCH is the beach. It's amazing how close the ocean really is. Since I live in the San Fernando Valley, it's a bit cooler here during the summer too.