Looking for sandy trails in the Santa Monica mountains for training

[krishna B]

Hello Hikers.

I was hoping someone could recommend some sandy trails in the Santa Monica mountains. I just went backpacking in Utah at Coyote Gulch and the trails were basically sand. I found it hard work on my hip adductors to hike through sand, so I wanted to train on some more sandy hikes locally. Any suggestions for trails where a substantial portion of the hike is over a sand covered trail? I could of course walk on the beach, but I wanted a bit of up and down effort too.

[Jeff Hester]

You’ll typically find sand in the canyons, mostly in dry creek beds, not so much on any hills. One place that comes to mind is in Malibu Creek State Park. You can take a route through the creek instead of the fire road, and then add in as many hills as you’d like.

When we trained for the Lost Coast Trail, we actually just loaded up our backpacks and headed to Santa Monica. We got some weird looks hiking along the beach like that, but it did the trick (sans the hills, of course).

[krishna B]

Thanks Jeff. Yeah, I was going to go to Santa Monica too. Glad to know that I am not the only one who has ever walk along the beach with a big pack on my back :). I did not think of Malibu Canyon though. I will do that one.

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