Mulholland Highway

Map of Mulholland Highway and Santa Monica Mountains.

Mulholland Highway (and Mulholland Drive) is a scenic road in Los Angeles County, Southern California that runs approximately 50 miles through the western Santa Monica Mountains from the near U.S. Route 101 (Ventura Freeway) in Calabasas to Highway 1 (Pacific Coast Highway) near Malibu at Leo Carrillo State Park and the Pacific Ocean coast - at the border of Los Angeles and Ventura Counties. Mulholland Highway is the western rural portion, and with the eastern Mulholland Drive portion, is a scenic route named after William Mulholland and built throughout the 1920's "to take Angelinos from the city to the ocean".

Geography

The name Mulholland Highway applies to a thirty-mile stretch that starts near Calabasas High School. Mulholland Highway formally begins in Calabasas, and extends to its westernmost terminus, at Leo Carrillo State Park, meeting Pacific Coast Highway. Wholly contained within Los Angeles County, this scenic byway was formally opened in 1928. In tandem with Potrero Road, Mulholland enables motorists to zigzag the length of the Santa Monica Mountains - one of the Southern California Transverse Ranges, from Camarillo all the way to Hollywood, without having to rely upon Pacific Coast Highway or the 101.

The route provides access, directly or en-route, to many of the regional parks in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

Unlike Kanan-Dume Road and Malibu Canyon Road, Mulholland Highway makes its way through the mountains without benefit of tunnels. There are several automobile wrecks and Malibu fires burned structures that litter the bottom on the canyons through which Mulholland Highway passes. The native flora of the Santa Monica Mountains is seen throughout the scenic route.

Sandstone Peak as seen from Mulholland Highway.

Mulholland Highway and Drive

Curving ingeniously through the eastern Santa Monicas, the Mulholland Drive's motorway once brought a heavy slew of Angelinos into the Valley. In the early 1970s, however, 5,000 local activists successfully prevented the cement paving of most of that stretch. To this day, that section is known as 'Dirt Mulholland', and is only open to cyclists and pedestrians. From the famous Mulholland Bridge east, Mulholland Drive completes its creator's vision, and winds through the affluent Hollywood Hills to Mulholland Drive's easternmost terminus at Cahuenga Boulevard, near Universal Studios,until again becoming an unpaved footpath to Griffith Park.

See also

California portal

• Mulholland Drive
• William Mulholland
• Santa Monica Mountains
• Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area
• Malibu Creek State Park
• The Rock Store

External links

• photos/mulholland_hills