Murphy Ranch Park. Whittier, CA

Murphy Ranch Park Trail

Located just a few blocks east of La Serna High School at 16200 Las Cumbres Drive. Whittier, CA. Just a bit east of the Turnbull Canyon hiking area. The kids and I enjoyed this park, right from the start there are plenty of benches to picnic before your hike. And for some reason they are housing a whole flock of goats as shown in the photo below. Dogs and horses are welcome as well.

The kids got a kick out of the goats even though the goats did not share in the same amusement with my children, in fact the goats looked like they could not care less we were there. LOL

OK so moving on to the hike. We took the center wide trail which just looped around up into the hills at the end to the right and came back down to the beginning. The loop is an incline and has a slight zip-zag to it to reduce the rough incline. According to the trail map there are a few other trails off to the left from the beginning, that may be a better choice for a view of any sort? Not sure yet. 

We did venture off the main trail at one point to the left down into the dried up stream bed. The stream bed got narrower as we went along and we had to jump from side to side of the stream as it drops off at certain points with no where to walk. It was a bit difficult to find a way back up out of the stream, so unless you are ready to climb or turn back around I would just avoid the stream bed, its deep with high canyon walls on both sides for the most part. 

It appears that if you choose the other trail to the left (of the main trail) from the beginning, you may have a view of the stream bed from above. Ill check that one out next time. This may be especially nice to see during the winter after rain fall.

Overall this trail is great for a quick exercise through the park, but be careful people love to walk there dogs here and conveniently forget to pick up their poo! Besides that it was mostly gentle enough that I even seen some women with babies in strollers, so get out there and enjoy.

Trail Map:

I recommend you take a picture of this map on your phone at the entrance. I could not find a printable one online yet, if I do I will be sure to upload it. As always get out there and have fun. And please if you have any places you would like to know more about let me know so I can keep them in mind for future hikes. And I would love your feedback, please leave comments at the bottom of this post.