Cheeseboro and Palo Comado Canyons Still Beautiful in Late Spring

Local resident Barbara Syfacunda enjoyed a hike in Cheeseboro and Palo Comado Canyons yesterday and sent over these great photos via the CVG Facebook page. She remarked that although most of the green is gone back there, it is still beautiful. Indeed it is.

Cheeseboro and Palo Comado Canyons cover over 4,000 acres in the northernmost section of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, in the Simi Hills. The Chumash occupied these canyons for thousands of years, until ranchers came into the area in the 1800s. The natural landscape changed as a result to accommodate the needs of grazing cattle.

The National Park Service (NPS) acquired Cheeseboro Canyon in the early to mid 1980s and Palo Comado Canyon (formerly known as the Jordan Ranch), in 1994.

Folks frequently ask, why is it called Cheeseboro when the road that gets you to the trailhead is called Chesebro? According to a knowledgeable NPS Ranger, the original owner of the land in the late 1800s was Oscar Cheesebrough (yet a different spelling). The NPS adopted the U.S. Geological Survey spelling, while Caltrans adopted the name Chesebro.