Hiking At Murphy's Ranch

Koko and I went to this place called Murphy's Ranch over at Rustic Canyon. I had never heard of this magically strange place that is about 40 minutes from my front door. We headed down Sunset Blvd. and ended up turning onto Capri and parking in the residential area. We started up a paved road, passed a guy on a bike that told us things star a half hour away, and we were off.

While we hiked we kept on wondering how in the hell all this stuff got into this area. I mean, I have lived in this area for almost 20 years and never heard of this place and have passed it plenty of times not knowing that scenes that could be in Lord of the Rings was so close. There are areas where the trails are kinda hidden and hard to see if you aren't paying attention and others that are stairs. Good lord, the stairs. I'll get to those soon enough. Here is some half-assed history of this Murphy Ranch that I found online and none of it seems 100% agreed upon.

Story goes is that this area was set up for when the Third Reich won World War 2. Winona and Norman Stephens were told by a magical mystical Nazi to build what would be considered a “Nazi White House.” A self sufficient spot with its own power generator, water springs, and a huge gas tank.

Of course, in this reality the Nazi's didn't win and this place ended up being cleared out. Over time it has been torn down, graffiti everywhere, and trash from visitors because people are assholes. What I found really nuts other than the fact that a secret Nazi base near me is that the main gate (which we missed seeing) was built by Paul R. Williams who is a famous Black architect. If you don't know his name I assure you that you've seen his work if you've been to Los Angeles.

During the hike we kept looking for this main entrance because the main goal was finding the house. We got to some stairs and began heading down. The stairs are steep but fun if you aren't afraid of falling and have good shoes on. Its a lot of steps. Like...a lot. We got down and the real crazy began. More graffiti and a piece of a house. Just a sink, old washing machine, and window panes. We kept on walking for a while just checking out everything until we got to a point where we thought we'd never find this house. I headed down and saw an arrow on the ground that said “Murphy R.” I told Koko and we started walking more.

After turning a corner we found the house! You can't miss it. Its fucking huge. There is now a fence around it but someone bent the fence so you could easily get in. Neither of us did even though we could because the place had weird vibes coming from it. We trust our instinct. Here are a bunch of images of the place.

We began to head back because it was now past 6:30pm and I was not trying to get lost in the dark in a Third Reich built ranch and wooded area. The thing I didn't take into account was that we had to head back up those stairs. After hiking for a few hours the stairs kicked my ass. My legs are still tender and it is the next night and I am in bed writing this.

After cursing the steps we hiked our asses back and made it back just as the sun was beginning to head down the mountains. We hopped in the car and headed to Japantown and grabbed some food which I'll be writing about soon. If you like hiking and are in the area you should check this place out before its all torn down or closed to the public.