Explore California; The Abandoned World - Murphy's Haunted Ranch.

Well that's exactly what Murphy's Ranch is! I just had to check it out.

A friend wanted to come and explore here with me, so we drove to Malibu on Friday night to camp. This meant we could get an early start in the morning, as you have to hike in to the Ranch, and what a view we got in the morning:

Murphy's Ranch is accessed by Sullivan Ridge Fire Road, which also leads to a Boy Scout Camp (according to the signs there). There is no parking available here, and anyone wanting to hike to Murphy's Ranch need to park in the residential area, where you can, and follow the fire road up the hill. You know you on the correct road when you get to the closed gate. The views of the canyon are beautiful, and if you look carefully, you'll see one of the structures through the trees:

Here you will see views over the Pacific Palisades:

This is a very popular hiking location for explorers, artists, ghost hunters and taggers due to the location and history:
In the 1930s, Nazi sympathizers built a refuge in the Pacific Palisades. Herr Schmidt, Winona and Norman Stephens, and their followers occupied a self-contained stronghold in what is now Rustic Canyon between Sullivan Ridge and Will Rodgers State Park. Murphy Ranch was designed to serve as a hold out for fans of the Third Reich waiting for America to fall to the Nazis. Instead, the ranch was raided by U.S. authorities and closed in 1941.
The abandoned buildings were transformed into an artists’ colony in the 60s and 70s, but were abandoned after the Mandeville Canyon Fire in 1978.

As you carry on walking up from the closed gate, on your left you will come to a narrow long concrete staircase. As you travel down the stairs you are transported in to the green canopy of nature either side of you, getting thicker as you descend.

There are a lot of steps, I lost count after around 220 or so of them, and that seemed about half way down.
View from the bottom looking up the stairs:

Be careful though, as when I got to the bottom I noticed a movement to the side of us; "Oh just a rattle snake!". Luckily it seemed more scared of us and slithered away in to the bushes.
About 10 mins later, when I had calmed down from the snake encounter (I hate snakes, and it took a while for my heart to stop pounding out my chest!) we spotted our first abandoned structure:

These appeared to be raised bed for planting crops in. We noticed a staircase off to the side:

This may have lead somewhere at sometime, but not now. It just ended on the hill, with no trail to be seen.
So we followed the path till we came to this:

The Power Building. One of the few existing structures you can go inside by slipping through a hole in the chain-link fence:

Every inch is covered in graffiti and tags, but it does make it colorful to look round inside:

and even explore up:

and even out:

Leaving this building we followed the road to the next structures:

However these were not standing and we had to be very careful when looking around these ruins:

Only one wall standing:

View from behind:

There is another fence to crawl through:

where does this path lead? To this structure:

I thought it looked like a furnace:

It was the only structure here, apart from the wall. There was a dirt trail down the side of this furnace, I followed it a little while, but it didn't seem to lead to any more 'Ranch finds', just some dog walkers having a rest.

We walked back to the main trail and followed the larger dirt path to here:

The largest of the buildings we found:

It was obviously the stables:

But the one side of this building towards the back, had crumbled over the years making it unsafe to go in to more than we did:

Not all the graffiti here is tagging, some are pieces of art work:

There is a wooden ladder on one wall for anyone brave enough to climb up it:

Up on the second floor we found a group of Art Students setting up for a photo shoot:

But be careful where you tread, there are holes everywhere!

Carrying along the dirt trail, we left this building and headed off to see what else we could find:

It is a beautiful location for a hike, even if you don't want to explore the buildings:

Once you get to this turn:

you are heading back up to the paved path and the last of the structures:

A huge water tank:

Neither of us are brave enough/stupid enough to try the ladder to get down inside the tank.

The last thing you will see as you start hiking back down the fire road are the gates:

We had such fun exploring Murphy's Ranch, but sadly I have heard rumors that more fences have since been put up for safety, due to the further deterioration of the buildings here.
This place is a bizarre mix of history, art and nature, so if you want to go and make your own discoveries here, do it before it is gone forever.

Thanks for reading guys! Till next time :-D

All photographs are my own.
!steemitworldmap 34.0703713 lat -118.516568 long ´Murphy’s Ranch, California´ D3SCR