Trail Days 2025: that’s a wrap!

In the post-dawn chill, the caravan grew, car after car, along the unassuming dirt strip leading to a service road. With a beckon, it began to move, this serpentine line of vehicles full of people eager to join those already camped under soft oak shade in the beautiful, rain-greened depths of Point Mugu State Park…

Welcome to Santa Monica Mountains Trail Days 2025! For those who participated in this year’s event, thank you so much! We hope that you had as much fun as we did.

By all accounts it was a huge turnout. Cars packed what spaces tents didn’t. At Danielson Ranch, people caffeinated, breakfasted and mingled across many different groups and organizations, including California State Parks, National Park Service, Santa Monica Mountains Trails Council (SMMTC), Concerned Off Road Bicyclists Association (CORBA) and your trusty Sierra Club Santa Monica Mountains Task Force (SMMTF).

SMMTF crew leader Bill Vanderberg gathers volunteers from the Chinese University Alumni Association Alliance of Southern California (CUAAASC) Hiking Club for a safety talk before work begins. Photo by Sara Hanson Nicholl.

Sierra Club crew leaders oversaw about 60 volunteers in our group alone on Saturday, who, after a brief orientation from our own Bill Vanderberg, trekked a mile further into the brush to work on the Coyote Trail.

Others took their McLeods, loppers and saws to trails such as the Upper Sycamore Canyon, Two Foxes, Blue Canyon and more.

SMMTC crew members demonstrate one of several methods that may be employed to control water drainage and mitigate trail erosion. Photo by Dave Edwards.

After a thoroughly gratifying, sweat-beaded day of trail work, everyone reconvened at camp for some much-deserved refreshments, appetites further whetted by the BBQ smoke twisting through the air.

Sponsors of Trail Days 2025

Now forty-plus years old, Trail Days has been integral in elevating awareness of — and engagement with — the welfare of the Santa Monica Mountains. It happens every April.

Ventura Boy Scout Troop 111 accompanied by scoutmaster Craig Carey made repairs to a retaining wall on the Upper Sycamore Trail. Photo by Dave Edwards.

The work highlighted by Trail Days is what the Trailies of the Santa Monica Mountains Task Force do nearly every Saturday, from September to June. Physically or financially, we could always use a helping hand, so if you appreciate what the mountains have to offer, please consider volunteering and/or donating!

Members of the Mountain Bike Unit volunteer park patrol were among those working with the CORBA crew. Photo by Steve Messer.

If you had your camera out, we’d love it if you could share your favorite photos and videos on our…

Community photo gallery!

(While we know that you may have lots more to share, we ask that you please limit your upload to the shared album to 3-5 files, as we want to give everyone the chance to participate.)

How to upload your pictures to our gallery

1 – Go to the event photo album: Trail Days 2025

2 – Click the “Add Photos” icon in the upper righthand side of the screen.

3 – Log in to your Google account, if prompted.

4 – Select a handful of your favorite images from the weekend.

That’s it!

Also, please feel free to tag us on Instagram @smmtf.trail.crew — or on Facebook @smm.task.force.1972 — on photos or videos you post from Trail Days 2025

Till next year. Happy Trail Days!