Search "Santa Susana Pass entrance" today and you'll likely land on a page telling you the main gate off Devonshire Street sits behind a chain link fence, closed for lead contamination from an old shooting range. That page might have been updated this year. The fact underneath it is nine years out of date.
Chatsworth Park South, the primary route into Santa Susana Pass State Historic Park and the closest gate for most Canyon Oaks addresses, reopened on August 31, 2017. California State Parks lists it today as the recommended entrance, with free parking right off Devonshire. The confusion isn't really about the park. It's about how long outdated information sits online after the facts underneath it change.
Why the Gate Closed in the First Place
The story starts in 2008. A Rockpointe resident reported lead pellets in the soil at Chatsworth Park South, traced to a skeet and trap range that operated on the site decades earlier, back when the land was used as a men's club shooting facility. The city closed the park that February. Soil testing dragged on for years with no firm reopening date, and residents who attended neighborhood meetings in that stretch heard the same answer every time: still testing, still no timeline.
That long uncertainty is exactly why the "closed" version of the story stuck. For most of a decade, it was true. Then it stopped being true, and a lot of the pages describing it never got the memo.
What Still Says Otherwise
Wikipedia's entry on Santa Susana Pass State Historic Park, last touched in April 2026, still describes the Devonshire Street entrance as closed for cleanup and points hikers toward the same workaround routes that were necessary in 2012. The Foundation for the Preservation of the Santa Susana Mountains gives near identical directions on its own visiting page, noting that Devonshire Street "presently" dead ends at a closed gate.
Compare that to California State Parks' own listing for the site, checked as recently as August 29, 2026, which states plainly that the best access to the park is through Chatsworth Park South, with free parking on-site. The Santa Susana Mountain Park Association, a local advocacy group that tracks the site closely, is even more direct about the timeline: Chatsworth Park South reopened August 31, 2017.
Two respected sources are describing two different parks. One of them is describing the park as it exists now.
Four Ways Onto the Ridge
If you're deciding how to get onto the trail system this weekend, here's what's actually available, not what was available in 2012:
- Chatsworth Park South, via Larwin Avenue - the reopened main gate. Take Topanga Canyon Boulevard to Devonshire, then Larwin Avenue one block south. Free parking on-site.
- Lilac Lane Trailhead - reached via Santa Susana Pass Road, just past the Rocky Peak exit off the 118. A dirt lot with a State Parks kiosk marks the start.
- Andora Avenue, near Lassen Street and Valley Circle Boulevard, southwest of Oakwood Memorial Cemetery - a quieter access point favored by hikers heading toward the Stagecoach Trail.
- The Rocky Peak parking lot on the south side of Santa Susana Pass Road - not to be confused with the Rocky Peak Trail entrance off the 118 itself, this is the meeting point most used for organized community walks.
None of these routes are secret. What's changed is that the first one, the closest and easiest for anyone in Canyon Oaks, no longer requires a detour.
The Hike Schedule Written by Volunteers, Not the State
Here's something that doesn't show up on any state agency page: the trail schedule that actually runs this park week to week comes from neighbors, not Sacramento.
The Chatsworth Neighborhood Council's Summer 2026 Community Hikes program paired specific volunteer Hike Leaders with specific trailheads all season. Ken led a Waterfall and Stagecoach Trail hike from the Andora trailhead. Donna led the El Camino Nuevo and Upper Meadow Loop from the Rocky Peak parking lot, a moderate 1.5-mile route. Wendi led a State Parks Week Mindfulness Hike, also from Andora, rated difficult over two miles. Vincent led a Welcome Walk starting in front of the Chatsworth Park South Recreation Center. Maria closed out a Stagecoach Trail hike from Lilac Lane.
Every one of those leaders is trained by the California Department of Parks and Recreation, but the program itself is organized and supported by the neighborhood council alongside the Foundation for the Preservation of the Santa Susana Mountains, not run out of a state office. If you want to know whether a particular gate is open on a particular Saturday, the person who actually knows is more likely to be a hike leader than a hotline.
Stoney Point Is Its Own Park, Not a Nickname for the Historic One
Before you plan a route, one more distinction matters: Stoney Point Park, the boulder field visible from Topanga Canyon Boulevard, is a separate Los Angeles city park, not part of the state historic park next door. It just happens to sit close enough that people conflate the two.
Stoney Point earned its reputation honestly. The sandstone formations there, geologists call it the Chatsworth Formation, are more than 65 million years old, built from turbidity currents that once moved sand across an ancient ocean floor. The site was a Tongva village called Momonga before Spanish contact, later a hideout associated with the outlaw Tiburcio Vasquez in the 1870s, and it earned Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument status in 1974. Climbers have trained on its boulders for decades, and the top of the formation still delivers one of the widest views of the San Fernando Valley you'll find without driving up into the hills proper.
Maintenance there is community-run too. In February 2026, the neighborhood council's Outreach Committee organized a volunteer clean-up at Stoney Point's South Side Boulders, an early morning session with tools provided. Nobody was waiting on a state contract to keep the boulders clear. Neighbors did it themselves.
What This Means for a Saturday Morning
If you live in Canyon Oaks and you've been avoiding the Devonshire gate because that's what the internet told you to do, you've been taking the long way for no reason. The closest entrance to the ridge has been open for almost a decade. The volunteer-led hikes that filled trailhead lots most weekends this summer came from people who live two streets over, not a state office in Sacramento.
That kind of gap between what's written and what's true shows up more often than most people expect, in park access, in permit status, in property boundaries. Knowing which version to trust is most of the job. Shalaya Shipman spends time in neighborhoods like this one for exactly that reason, so when the question shifts from which trailhead to use this weekend to what a home in this area is actually worth, the answer comes from someone who already knows the terrain. If that day comes, get your free home valuation and start with information that's current, not just indexed.
