Detour #110: Grimes Canyon, California, USA
Sergio R / Unsplash
This old stagecoach route between Moorpark and Fillmore must be among the most photogenic roads in California.
Judging by the number of wrecked cars littering its embankments, Grimes Canyon is also one of the state’s most treacherous. Rockfalls are common, and when the rare rains come to this arid landscape, the mudslides follow. Coyotes and mountain lions prowl the hills in search of prey.
This 11-mile stretch of California 23 begins its hazardous journey as Walnut Canyon Road in Moorpark in Ventura County which claimed to be one of the first US cities to be powered by a nuclear plant and also home to Egg City – the largest chicken ranch in the USA. Both the nuclear power station and the chickens have long gone.
Follow the telegraph poles out of Moorpark and you’re soon in farm country, passing the apricot orchards celebrated in the town’s annual festival. Within a few miles you begin a gradual climb to the crest of the ridge that straddles the Santa Susana Mountains. It’s less than 20 miles due north of the millionaires in Malibu, but a world away, with the few locals living in trailers and weather-worn ranches, scratching a living from the land.
As for the road, it’s an easy, flowing drive cutting between hillsides until very suddenly it isn’t. The descent into Fillmore is, as the locals say, “gnarly”. As it dives steeply there’s a sequence of about half a dozen tortuous corners, including the much-photographed one picture here. And, as luck would have it, there’s a parking spot just above above it that couldn’t be better placed to set up your tripod.
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