Old M*A*S*H Site Hike

CALABASAS, CALIFORNIA—Malibu Creek State Park. We began our hike early; it was going to be a special hike. Our first hike since my wife and I had our baby and, for obvious reasons, our son’s first hike. I thought to myself a few days earlier, what should be his first hike? The first thing that popped into my head was, ‘The Old MASH site.’ Not only was it an easily accessible route, not too difficult but difficult enough to be called a hike and not a nature walk, its main reason was that it was cool, I mean, it was where they filmed the 1970s movie and the 11 year run of the television show, how can you loose? Some of my fondest memories growing up are that of sitting in front of the TV with the family as my Dad turned the channel to the witty humor and comic mishaps of the 4077 MASH. Classic.

I know there are some sad people out there that may not completely appreciate huge cool factor that this is. If only for a few insightful moments, humor me.

Known variously as Century Ranch, Fox Ranch, and Malibu Creek Park, the main portion of the property that was once owned by 20th Century Fox was originally purchased in 1900 by a group of people who formed the Crag's Country Club. In 1901, they built a dam across Malibu Creek at the top end of the gorge, thus forming the seven-acre lake, now known as Century Lake. Below Century Lake is Rock Pool. This was used in many films, most famously in Planet of the Apes or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Skye and I had been there four years earlier; from what we remembered it was an easy to moderate 4.6 mile hike. This would be a good hike to get back into it all again.

Now this is something both Skye and her mother can attest to, when I’d go hiking I’d tend to over pack and over carry a lot of stuff, case in point, my unceremoniously named “$500 Black and Yellow Backpack.” I’d carry an extra couple of water bottles, my SLR film camera, video camera and on occasion, 5-pound rocks for Skye’s mom’s backyard stream. Maybe subconsciously I had been training for this day…

It was a beautiful day. The weather could not have been better with blue skies and a gentle breeze. Skyler just had his 6-month checkup a week earlier and weighed in at just under 18 pounds, an extra 18 that I’ll be carrying along.

My setup; a hip bag with two water bottles, one for me, one for Skye; a small camera, a “Baby Björn” with a baby boy included. All-in-all an extra 20 pounds. Not bad, that would have been only 4 rocks for the stream. Skye carried an over-the-shoulder bag that included our PB&J sammiches, a baby bottle, baby formula and a jar of peas, oh yeah, and three martini glasses. We are going to the old MASH site, remember?

The beginning of the hike is rather straightforward. The trail meanders along Malibu Creek, hence the name of the park, before the trail breaks from the creek and begins to ascend up a short but effective switch back hill. The creek continues southwest Even with the nice weather we had to stop a couple of time to catch our breath. Now when I say we I really mean me. Skye was doing much better that I. Before long, we were at the top and began our way down. To our left was Century Lake, in front of us a gentle down slope. The trail headed northwest about a quarter mile before it arrived at a stream crossing. The bridge had seen better days. The wooden rails had been snapped and broken, remnants of some huge flood. At this point we basically just followed the creek. The creek and the trail headed southwest through a ravine. We saw how high the water got during our recent storms, they must have been some 12 feet during the height of the storms. Crazy thoughts.

We stopped along the creek to sit upon some kind of cement drainage system. It was lunch time for Skyler. Break out the peas! We passed out time watching the mountain bikers pass through the water puddles and mud. Skyler was amused as he ate and really wasn’t as messy as I thought he’d be. With a nice olive-drab color on his cheeks and a full belly, he was ready to head into camp. We were about a quarter mile from the old site. There was a point at which I thought I heard the old helicopter overhead.

As the ravine opened we saw the old burnt out jeep. We knew we had arrived. There were florescent flag markers staked in the ground outlining the old set buildings. We could see where the old Swamp tent used to be, the main building and where the flagpole used to be. The helicopter pad is still in an obvious position.

One of the best shots of the day was when I found the spot where, in the opening credits, ‘Radar’ O’Reilly is looking out to see the choppers fly in. The horizon lined up. Of course we had to take a picture of Skyler in the same spot. Skyler ‘O’Reilly’?

We walked around camp. It’s much smaller than that of the movie/TV show. Since the interior scenes were shot on a sound stage they mainly just used site for daytime exterior shots. Remember those martini glasses? How can you not take a picture here without them?