Photo Essay: A Hollywood Horseman's Legacy at Will Rogers State Historic Park [Updated for 2025-Burned Down]

[Last updated 1/8/25 3:02 PM PT—A press release from California State Parks confirms that the historic home and barn at Will Rogers State Park were lost to the Palisades Fire in January 2025.]

via California State Parks 

For years, "Will Rogers" was just a name to me—of a beach, of a park, and of a state park.

I couldn't have told you the difference between Will Rogers and Roy Rogers if I'd tried.

But then almost three years ago, I joined The Los Angeles Breakfast Club—of which Will Rogers was a rumored member (supposedly, a "Rooster")—and I began to get acquainted with his reputation as a humorist.

The club was founded in 1925—just 10 years before Will Rogers would tragically die in a plane crash. 

Photo taken 2011

The legendary writer and actor spent the last few years of his life at the ranch that would become Will Rogers State Historic Park in 1944, when his widow Betty donated it to the State of California.

Photo Essay: What I Missed in Will Rogers Park

I've had what I consider two failed attempts at visiting Will Rogers Park. The first was when I attempted to hike to Rustic Canyon from there, ended up on the Backbone Trail, got totally lost, and had to backtrack to my car. In retrospect, it was actually a good hike, but I didn't get to see what I set out to. Last week, I intended to hike all the way to Will Rogers from Temescal Gateway Park along the Rivas Trail, but I got tired and took a shortcut down Rivas Canyon Road instead of going all the way to Will Rogers.

Both incidents were hanging over me. I was becoming obsessed with finding out what I'd missed out on.

So I returned to Will Rogers on a cloudy day, specifically to scout both short trails to see exactly what I had not seen.



First, I headed to the Rustic Canyon Trail, which for some reason was very easy for me to find this time around.



You're supposed to be able to take this trail all the way to Murphy Ranch...



...but signs warn that it is unmaintained, undefined and unmarked, and full of mountain lions, ticks, rattlesnakes, poison oak, and swarms of bees – "one of the best hikes in Los Angeles."



I proceeded.



I encountered many fences and wooden catwalks and stairs, reminiscent of the secret stairways on the other side of Rustic Canyon...



...and lots of lizards, all of which seemed surprised to be disturbed by human visitors.



Although the trail bore footprints and horse hoof prints, I don't think many people make there way down here very often.



As promised, the trail led down into the canyon to a creek bed...



...where signs try to discourage hikers from going the wrong way...



...but soon the path becomes too overgrown and too wet (surprising in this drought)...



...suitable only for the most intrepid explorer, immune to poison oak. I turned around.



I headed across the park to its western boundary, to meet up with the Rivas Trail that leads to Temescal, back towards where I'd been just one week before.



I quickly realized...



...that I'd made the right decision last week...



...by cutting my hike short...



...because there wasn't much to see on this section...



...before I hit the housing development where I'd encountered some baffled work crews last week.



So I emerged onto the private Rivas Canyon Road, this time from the other side...



...walked down to Sunset and over to the Will Rogers access road...



...trying not to get hit by cars as I plodded up the shoulder, ducking under trees...



...and dodging a dead snake.



I still feel like I haven't really done Will Rogers Park – I've yet to play polo, ride a horse, or take a ranch house tour there.

Maybe next time I can at least do the Inspiration Point Loop Trail, which is probably the most common one that everybody else does.

Then again, I don't always try to see what everybody else sees.

Related Posts:
Photo Essay: No Scene Twice Seen, Through Rivas Canyon
Out and Back

Photo Essay: The Inland Empire's Last 'Golden Age' Movie Palace, Saved from Demolition

In the entire Inland Empire of Southern California, the California Theatre is the only movie palace of its kind that remains. (Especially now that the Fox Riverside has been given a major makeover, though it was never as "palatial" as the California.)

circa 2009 (Photo: Amerique, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Out and Back

I had to go pick up my personal things from the office on Wednesday.

I wasn't looking forward to that, but I wanted to get it over with.

I thought I would capitalize on being on the westside by taking a hike out there (since in LA you can plan your hikes around your days), so I headed back to Topanga State Park, where I'd already hiked Temescal Gateway Park, this time picking up a trailhead in Will Rogers State Historic Park.



Most people go to Will Rogers SHP to check out his old ranch house and stables...





...but you can take a nice loop trail to Inspiration Point (another overlook where you can see the beach and, on a clear day, Catalina) and actually head up the Backbone Trail into the main part of Topanga State Park, down the Rustic Canyon Trail, and then back into Will Rogers.

Supposedly, you can.

I, of course, got lost.

I couldn't even find the trailhead in the first place, so I secured the help of a park ranger named Carlos who pointed me in the direction of the Inspiration Loop Trail.



Unfortunately, it being a loop, he pointed me in the direction opposite of where I wanted to go.

I discovered this a bit too late to turn around, but since the route was scenic enough, with the wildflowers in full bloom, I stayed the course.









I wasn't sure how much extra time doing the extra part of the loop had added to my trip, but when I reached the Backbone Trail, I decided to try to take it anyway.

Parts were quite steep...



...and other parts quite narrow, making it pretty obvious why this trail, in the Chicken Ridge area of the state park, got its name.



I knew I was still on track when I reached the bridge...



and the really steep part with the welcome railing...



...but shortly thereafter, I couldn't find the turnoff for Rustic Canyon, one I was warned would be narrow and easy to miss. I paced back and forth through a stretch of the trail trying to find it, asking a fellow hiker, and not wanting to go much farther into Topanga for nothing. And then I finally relented, saying, "OK, it's not a loop anymore. It's an out and back."

I'm sometimes reticent to do out and back hikes because I don't love retracing my steps. I'd rather see new things along the entire way. But it's actually a mistake because most trails look incredibly different when you're facing the other direction. Unless you turn around frequently to look behind you (which I do), you usually miss out on half of the hike's view.

So I headed back down the Backbone Trail and picked the Inspiration Point Loop Trail back up, taking it back through Will Rogers, where the scenery actually was quite different than where I began.



As I headed back to my car, I thought about the repeated themes in my life - layoffs, unemployment, heartbreaks, abandonment, poverty, and loneliness, but also serendipity, fortune, passion, travel, music - and realized that although I often have to retrace my steps, and sometimes veer off the main trail onto a little spur that takes me nowhere but out and back, the path is never exactly the same. It always looks a little bit different, and takes me somewhere not exactly the same as where I started.

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Photo Essay: No Scene Twice Seen, Through Rivas Canyon

I've been a bit skittish about hiking in unfamiliar territory since the car accident, for fear I'll get myself lost or confused, or wind up on a hike a lot more challenging than I'd planned.

So if I want to get some exercise and get out of the house without spending money, can't I just go to some interesting neighborhood and walk around? (This, my PTSD therapist asked me today.)

Couldn't I just hike a trail I'd already hiked, so I'd know the way?

Sure, I say. I could.

But in my tourism of Southern California, I have taken on the spirit of the train travelers in the early days of rail, who paid special for excursions that promised "No Scene Twice Seen." Those trains would make a loop around (actually along a kite-shaped track), just so the view out the window wouldn't be repeated on a round trip.


Artifact from the collection of the San Bernardino Railroad Historical Society. Photo by Sandi Hemmerlein/AvoidingRegret.com

I don't like to return to places just because they're convenient and known. I don't like to order the same dish every time I go to a restaurant. And I don't particularly like "out and back" hikes, when every scene is twice seen.

So, having been to Temescal Canyon once already, I chose what seemed to me a somewhat obscure trail that would take me east out of Temescal, through Rivas Canyon, into the western boundary of Will Rogers State Park, which I've also visited (and got lost in). I knew I hadn't been in this area before, and even though my directions provided a turnaround point instead of a loop route, I decided to give it a try.



For those of us who are easily bored, Temescal is a good, interesting place to hike:



...its varied habitats provide a lot to look at...



...while you're cooled off by the ocean breezes.



Since it is only 2.1 miles from the trailhead in Temescal to Will Rogers Park, a 4.2 mile roundtrip hike seemed doable for me today, as long as I didn't get myself lost.



Being a state park, the trails are well marked, and there are plenty of weird-looking, slanted, and downright bent-over trees to use as landmarks when you backtrack.



It's a steady climb up some switchbacks...



...and some stairs...



...under plenty of shade...



...through those gnarly groves of leaning trees.



The trail finally opens up...



...as it continues to ascend along a ridge...



...passing a reservoir...



...and revealing views of Pacific Palisades and the ocean below.



The terrain suddenly becomes rocky...



...and the landscape transforms from chaparral shrubland to desert-like conditions...



...with aloe plants, blooming yucca, and beavertail cactus (and their flowers).



The trail then reaches its peak...



...and begins to descend...



...down to the suggested turnaround point: 1.1 miles from Will Rogers Park.



The hike had been so interesting thus far, I figured I'd hike all the way to the other park, and then turn around, just so I could see the whole thing.



If I hadn't kept on, I wouldn't have really experienced Rivas Canyon...



...a desolate sanctuary for fallen sycamores, oaks, and other trees...



...thick brush...



...too much poison oak, and ivy-covered canyon walls.



At times, it was as though I was hacking my way through the rainforest...

...replete with ferns and fan palms, a thick canopy of overgrowth above.



And then suddenly, it changed again, as it had many times – and just as abruptly – before, and it was clear I was in a residential neighborhood, stomping my way just beyond various backyards, separated from them only by a wall.



When I reached the paved Rivas Canyon Road, the dirt trail to Will Rogers continuing across the way, I decided to take a shortcut. I didn't want to climb that ridge again. I didn't want to see again all those things I'd just seen.

So I walked the residential streets of Pacific Palisades, two miles back to my car at Temescal, making my hike a loop and, as suggested, finding a nice neighborhood I can just take an easy walk around. There weren't always sidewalks along that stretch of Sunset Boulevard. My sneaker was drawing blood from the back of my ankle. But I knew where I was, where I was going, and how to get home.

And I hadn't seen that part of LA that way – up close, on foot – ever before.

Related Posts:
Photo Essay: Temescal Gateway Park
Out and Back