A fun ridge scramble, made funner.
I had a loop planned that would start where the Calabasas Peak Motorway meets Stunt Road, proceed up a ridge to where Stunt Road meets Saddle Peak Road, and then back to the start. Since I was there and it was there and I was already hiking up the fire road, I passed by the ridge and went straight for the 2,113' edifice of Calabasas Peak. There are a few benchmarks but someone has taken the register notebooks so if you're in the area, bring one.
I then hiked back to the start of the ridge route, which I later learned is named Topanga Ridge. It begins as a somewhat steep use trail and there's a little Class 2. Then, I ran into a tricky section where I had to sit down to proceed. Later on there was some Class 3 that the inexperienced might have issues with. However, I believe in both cases I made things more difficult by getting off the dirt use trail that runs downhill of the rocky ridge. In parts that use trail is shady and a bit jungle-like, but a lot of the route has no cover. Then, it levels off and becomes a fire road.
I didn't see anyone else on the ridge itself, but I saw around five parties going in the opposite direction after I was off the rocky section. I don't know if they were doing the whole ridge trail or just going to an overlook, but I probably wouldn't recommend descending the ridge due to some loose spots. One party asked if the ridge was packed so apparently it does see more traffic than I would have expected.
One of the upsides/downsides of this area is how built up it is. The tower I saw on the way up the ridge looked like something I'd like to visit, but road signs said it was off limits and monitored by cameras. I decided not trying to find out if that's just a bluff. It turns out the tower - which you can see to the left in the second pic - is an abandoned microwave installation (and it might be privately owned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClB-tQl49xI).
Carrying on, I reached an overlook where you can see the mountains on one side and the sea on the other. The last photo has a pic of the ridge. Rather than go to Saddle Peak, I walked along the road, then got on the Backbone trail, then walked along the road again.
Even though I was briefly in the Celeb Open Space, I didn't see any of those elusive creatures; apparently they're crepuscular.
