| Fossil Ridge Park | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Location | Corner of Mulholland Drive and Beverly Glen Boulevard, Sherman Oaks, California |
| Coordinates | 34°08′10″N118°26′35″W / 34.136°N 118.443°W |
Fossil Ridge Park is a public park in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles County, California. It is owned by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.
It is located on the corner of Mulholland Drive and Beverly Glen Boulevard in Sherman Oaks, a neighbourhood of the city of Los Angeles. [1] [2] [3]
At the northern end of the park is the Buckley School, a private school. [1] On the east side is Mulholland Estates, a gated community. [2] Access to the park used to be blocked by security guards at Mulholland Estates. [4] However, since 2011, members of the public are allowed to drive or walk on Westpark Road, which is inside Mulholland Estates, to have access to the park. [5] However, parking on Westpark Road is not allowed. [5]
Since 2002, it has been adjacent to the new Oak Forest Canyon Natural Area, also owned by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. [6] [7] Oak Forest Canyon was purchased to facilitate access to Fossil Ridge Park. [4]
The idea of the park was conceived in 1986. [2] It was dedicated five years later, in 1991. [2] Actor Ed Asner and local politician Zev Yaroslavsky spoke at the dedication. [2] However, it was only completed and properly opened in late 1995. [3]
The initial parcel of land (56 acres) was donated by Kenneth Kai Chang, the real estate developer who created Mulholland Estates, to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. [2] Moreover, Chang later agreed to fund some of the trails and a visitor center. [2]
The overall landmass is 110 acres (45 ha). [6] It contains many fossils of marine animals. [4] [6] The area is protected, and rocks with fossils on them cannot be moved. [3]
This park contains fossiliferous diatomaceous sandstones of Middle to Late Miocene Modelo Formation. It one of the few remaining fossil fish localities that has not been either destroyed or made inaccessible due to urban development. [4]
Shown is one of several slabs of diatomaceous sandstone with abundant fossil fish (perhaps a species of herring) collected in the 1970s from the area now underneath the Mulholland Estates security gate/access road. Many hundreds if not thousands of these 5+1⁄2-inch fish must have encountered an area of low oxygen content and all died at once.
Oak Park is an unincorporated community in southeastern Ventura County, California, United States. When developed in the Simi Hills in the late 1960s, a single road provided the only access to the community from Agoura Hills, California, in neighboring Los Angeles County. As of the 2010 census, Oak Park had a population of 14,266, down from 14,625 at the 2000 census. For statistical purposes, the United States Census Bureau has defined Oak Park as a census-designated place (CDP). The census definition of the area may not precisely correspond to local understanding of the area with the same name.
Mulholland Drive is a street and road in the eastern Santa Monica Mountains of Southern California. It is named after pioneering Los Angeles civil engineer William Mulholland. The western rural portion in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties is named Mulholland Highway. The road is featured in a significant number of films, songs, and novels. David Lynch, who wrote and directed a film named after Mulholland Drive, has said that one can feel "the history of Hollywood" on it. Jack Nicholson has lived on Mulholland Drive for many years, and still did so as of 2009.
The Santa Monica Mountains is a coastal mountain range in Southern California, next to the Pacific Ocean. It is part of the Transverse Ranges. The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area encompasses this mountain range. Because of its proximity to densely populated regions, it is one of the most visited natural areas in California.
The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy is an agency of the state of California in the United States founded in 1980 and dedicated to the acquisition of land for preservation as open space, for wildlife and California native plants habitat Nature Preserves, and for public recreation activities.
The Santa Susana Mountains are a transverse range of mountains in Southern California, north of the city of Los Angeles, in the United States. The range runs east-west, separating the San Fernando and Simi valleys on its south from the Santa Clara River Valley to the north and the Santa Clarita Valley to the northeast. The Oxnard Plain is to the west of the Santa Susana Mountains.
The Angeles National Forest (ANF) of the U.S. Forest Service is located in the San Gabriel Mountains and Sierra Pelona Mountains, primarily within Los Angeles County in southern California. The ANF manages a majority of the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument.
The State Scenic Highway System in the U.S. state of California is a list of highways, mainly state highways, that have been designated by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) as scenic highways. They are marked by the state flower, a California poppy, inside either a rectangle for state-maintained highways or a pentagon for county highways.
The Simi Hills are a low rocky mountain range of the Transverse Ranges in eastern Ventura County and western Los Angeles County, of southern California, United States.
Mulholland Highway is a scenic road in Los Angeles County, California, that runs approximately 50 miles through the western Santa Monica Mountains from near US Route 101 in Calabasas to Highway 1 near Malibu at Leo Carrillo State Park and the Pacific Ocean coast – at the border of Los Angeles and Ventura Counties.
Topanga State Park is a California state park located in the Santa Monica Mountains, within Los Angeles County, California. It is part of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.
The Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve is a large open space nature preserve owned and operated by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy spanning nearly 3,000 acres (1,200 ha) in the Simi Hills of western Los Angeles County and eastern Ventura County.
Runyon Canyon Park is a 160-acre (65 ha) park in Los Angeles, California, at the eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains, managed by the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks. The southern entrance to the park is located at the north end of Fuller Avenue in Hollywood. The northern entrance is off the 7300 block of Mulholland Drive. The Runyon Canyon Road, a fire road that is closed to public motor vehicle access, runs roughly through the center of the park between the northern and southern entrances along Runyon Canyon itself, and there are numerous smaller hiking trails throughout the park. The highest point in the park at an elevation of 1,320 ft is known as Indian Rock. Because of its proximity to residential areas of Hollywood and the Hollywood Hills, celebrity sightings are common. The park is also noted for having a fairly liberal dog policy, with dogs allowed off-leash in 90 of the park's 160 acres (0.65 km2). The park is part of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.
The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area is a United States national recreation area containing many individual parks and open space preserves, located primarily in the Santa Monica Mountains of Southern California. The SMMNRA is in the greater Los Angeles region, with two thirds of the parklands in northwest Los Angeles County, and the remaining third, including a Simi Hills extension, in southeastern Ventura County.
Beverly Glen Boulevard is one of five major routes that connect the Westside of Los Angeles to the San Fernando Valley (the other four are the San Diego Freeway, Sepulveda Boulevard, Laurel Canyon Boulevard, and Coldwater Canyon Avenue.
The Backbone Trail is a long-distance trail extending 67.79 miles (109.10 km) across the length of the Santa Monica Mountains in the U.S. state of California. Its western terminus is Point Mugu State Park, and its eastern terminus is Will Rogers State Historic Park in Pacific Palisades. The trail is open to hikers throughout its length. Dogs, mountain bicyclists and horseback riders are only allowed on portions of the trail as posted.
Ramirez Canyon Park is a public park owned by the state of California. Barbra Streisand donated this estate to the state-run Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy in 1993. The estate has 22.5 acres (9.1 ha) of lush vegetation, streams, and bridges. There are five homes on the estate.
Simi Valley is a synclinal valley in Southern California in the United States. It is an enclosed or hidden valley surrounded by mountains and hills. It is connected to the San Fernando Valley to the east by the Santa Susana Pass and the 118 freeway, and in the west the narrows of the Arroyo Simi and the Reagan Freeway connection to Moorpark. The relatively flat bottom of the valley contains soils formed from shales, sandstones, and conglomerates eroded from the surrounding hills of the Santa Susana Mountains to the north, which separate Simi Valley from the Santa Clara River Valley, and the Simi Hills.
Franklin Canyon Park is a public municipal park located near Benedict Canyon, at the eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains, in Los Angeles, California. The park comprises 605 acres (245 ha), and is located near the geographical center of the city of Los Angeles. Franklin Canyon is also the name of the canyon and surrounding neighborhood.
Coldwater Canyon Avenue is a street, primarily within the City of Los Angeles, in Los Angeles County, California. It runs 10.3 miles (16.6 km) from North Beverly Drive at Coldwater Canyon Park in Beverly Hills, north up Coldwater Canyon, including a short stretch shared with Mulholland Drive, ending at a crossroad intersection with Roscoe Boulevard in Sun Valley, where the Coldwater Canyon Avenue changes into Sheldon Street.
Mulholland Estates is a guard gated community in the Santa Monica Mountains of Southern California, US. It is named after pioneering Los Angeles civil engineer William Mulholland. Although properties in the estate have a 90210 ZIP code and thus a Beverly Hills address, it is actually part of the Beverly Hills Post Office area in the city of Los Angeles, with much of the land located inside the Sherman Oaks district. The community's main entrance is located at Beverly Glen Boulevard and Mulholland Drive, next to Fossil Ridge Park, and it looks out to the San Fernando Valley.