Solstice Canyon
Malibu, Santa Monica Mtns NRA · near Malibu · Los Angeles / SoCal
Hiking
At a glance
- Difficulty
- easy
- Route type
- loop
- Distance
- 3.2 miles
- Elevation gain
- 700 ft
- Time needed
- day
- Best season
- Year-round · The waterfall runs even in summer; spring for wildflowers
Permits and booking
- Permit required
- No
- How the permit works
- Free NPS / Santa Monica Mountains NRA parking; the lot fills on weekend mornings, so arrive early.
- How hard the permit is to get
- 0 of 5
What is here
- Features
- Year-round waterfall & rock pools · 'Tropical Terrace' Roberts Ranch ruins (Paul Williams, 1952) · 1860s stone cottage · Shaded sycamore/oak creek
Worth knowing
- Dogs
- Allowed
- Good for a first timer
- Yes
Hiking detail
- Intl tip
- Do it as the loop (up the shaded canyon, down Rising Sun) for both the waterfall and the ocean panorama; the flat out-and-back alone misses the views.
The guide
Solstice is the crowd-pleaser of the Malibu canyons: a gentle, shaded creek walk that ends at a perennial waterfall spilling ov…
In the Guidebook
Everything above is yours for free. The written guide to Solstice Canyon — what it is actually like, and what we would tell a friend before they went — comes with the Guidebook.
Getting there
- Coordinates
- 34.03765, -118.7477