Corral Canyon Trail

Corral Canyon Trail - Malibu

Trailhead: You can access the the trail via part of the Backbone Trail that starts off of Latigo Canyon Road.  There is a parking dirt parking lot located on Latigo between Newton Canyon Rd and Upper Ramirez Mtwy (map here)

Type: Outdoors

Category: Bike, Hike

Company: Friends

Cost: Free!

About 40 seconds into my ride on Corral Canyon, I was already yelling back to my buddy that this was the best trail I've found in LA - and many sites, including Trails.com agree with me).  The trail has everything - hard switchbacks, dry riverbeds of softball-sized rocks, big drops, tree-covered canopies mixed in with wide open riding - a little bit of everything, keeping the adrenaline high.  The elevation change is fairly minimum, meaning you don't have to worry about spending half the ride silently cursing the slow climb back up.  My heart rate and thrill level stayed high throughout the ride.

OTC Video: Thanks to the my new favorite toy - a GoPro Hero - I was able to record most of my ride. A quick highlight from the frame mounted view:

Getting to the trailhead isn't half bad either - the short ride from the Latigo Canyon parking lot is a blast.  A bit hilly at times, it offers some fast riding.  After about 1.4 miles, you'll hit a fireroad (Newton/Cessna Mtwy).  After enjoying the amazing view, drop in on the trail on your right.  (Note that after a minute you'll hit a slight fork - go left down the mountain.  The upper/right path is for hikers.)  The trail will hit another fireroad after 2.6 miles.  At this point I turned around and headed back (I had already turned out an hour and a half of biking earlier in the day, otherwise I would have had to be dragged back to the car). 

OTC Tip: Despite the relative middle-of-nowhere feel to the trail, you will most likely run into a handle of other bikers (hopefully not literally).  This single-track is just too perfect to stay empty, so be always be on the lookout, especially around the fast blind turns. 

For a specific route of the trails, I used the MotionX GPS app.  Its cheap and offers simple outputs, as well as a map of the route.  Note that the mileage and time aren't completely accurate, as I left it running while taking camera and water breaks (and also forgot to turn it back on a few times), but the basic info is included on the linked map.