Ask three neighbors when Temescal Gateway Park reopened and you'll likely get three different answers. One will say July. One will say "this summer, I think." One will insist it's still closed, because the last time they checked, before Will Rogers came back in November, most of the canyon behind Sunset was still fenced off.
All three are describing the same recovery, at different points in it. The Pacific Palisades trail system didn't reopen on a single day. It reopened three times, on three separate timelines, run by three separate agencies, and the gap between "the trailhead is open" and "the hike you remember is open" is where most of the confusion still lives.
Three parks, three calendars
Will Rogers State Historic Park came back first, on November 8, 2025, ten months and one day after the fire started. California State Parks reopened the Polo Field, the Main Lawn, the picnic area, and a partial Inspiration Loop Trail, while cautioning that select segments and facilities would stay closed as repair work continued.
Los Liones Trail, the narrow canyon route that climbs from a cul-de-sac off Los Liones Drive toward Parker Mesa Overlook, came back next, in February 2026, after fire damage had closed it since January 2025.
Temescal Gateway Park was last, reopening at 8 a.m. on July 17, 2026, eighteen months after the fire. The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority rebuilt the Rivas Trail from scratch, restored the Sunset Trail, and reopened the Sycamore Grove and Rubell picnic areas.
Stack those three dates and you get the real story: this wasn't one recovery, it was a staggered handoff between State Parks, the county-adjacent MRCA and Conservancy, and separate trail crews, each working on its own piece of the mountain on its own schedule. If your mental map still says "the canyon is closed," you're not wrong about the fire. You're just working from an outdated calendar.
What's actually different at each trailhead
The reopening announcements read like good news, and mostly they are. But "reopened" comes with fine print at every one of these parks.
Temescal Gateway Park: The rebuilt Rivas Trail and the Sunset Trail are open, and the Sunset Trail connects to both Temescal Ridge Trail and Topanga State Park. The Temescal Canyon Trail to the waterfall, arguably the most-hiked route in the whole park before the fire, remains closed indefinitely because fire damage left the trail conditions unsafe. MRCA public affairs director Dash Stolarz told the Palisadian-Post the crews rebuilt stairs and re-graded sections, saying [of the new trail work] "it's really nice and you can see everything." That praise was for Rivas and Sunset. It wasn't for the waterfall trail, because that one still isn't open.
Will Rogers State Historic Park: All nine miles of hiking trails are open except for Backbone Trail, the Rivas Canyon/Temescal Trail, and parts of the Inspiration Point Trailhead. Current hours run 8 a.m. to sunset. The 31-room ranch house that once anchored the park burned down to a stone chimney and a few remaining wall fragments, so if you're hiking there expecting the historic home tour, that's gone for the foreseeable future. The Polo Field survived largely intact, and weekend polo games run every weekend from May through mid-October, except for Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and Labor Day. Jigsaw Farms is re-establishing its operations at the park in 2026, which means horseback riding lessons and trail rides are returning after more than a year off.
Topanga State Park: Day use facilities, backcountry service roads, and backcountry trails are open with named exceptions: Rogers Road Trail, Bent Arrow Trail, Josepho Spur Trail, Rustic Canyon Trail, the Lower Topanga Day Use Area and its trails, and the same Temescal Canyon Trail that's closed on the Temescal Gateway side. Parking at the East Topanga Fire Road, the unofficial name locals use for the Paseo Miramar approach, is extremely limited due to ongoing fire recovery work, and State Parks is directing hikers instead to the Los Liones Trailhead.
Read those three lists side by side and a pattern emerges. Every park has reopened. Every park also has a specific, named closure that happens to fall on the route locals used most.
The seam that hasn't closed
Here's the detail that the individual press releases don't spell out clearly, because each agency is only reporting on its own park.
Temescal Gateway's official reopening notice says visitors "can hike the rebuilt Rivas Trail to two scenic overlooks or continue to Will Rogers State Historic Park," which reads like the connector between the two parks is open. But Will Rogers' own reopening list names the "Rivas Canyon/Temescal Trail" specifically as one of the segments still closed, alongside Backbone Trail.
That's not necessarily a contradiction. It likely means the Temescal Gateway side of the Rivas Trail is passable while the connecting stretch through Will Rogers' side of the canyon is not, which would explain why both statements can be true at once. But it does mean the classic loop hikers used to run between the two parks, up through Temescal and down into Will Rogers or the reverse, isn't something you should assume works end to end just because both trailheads say "open." If that loop is the reason you're heading out, it's worth checking current trail signage before you commit to it, because the two agencies are describing two different pieces of the same connector.
This is the part a quick search doesn't surface. Every roundup treats "reopened" as a single word with one meaning. On the ground, it means something slightly different at every boundary line between these three park systems, and the boundary between Temescal Gateway and Will Rogers is exactly where that ambiguity sits.
Dog rules changed too, and they're not uniform
If your hike doubles as a dog walk, the rules are no longer the same park to park, or even trail to trail within the same park.
At Will Rogers, dogs on a six-foot leash are allowed in the historic zone and on the Inspiration Loop, but they're not allowed on Backbone Trail, Temescal Trail, or Rustic Canyon Trail. In practice, that means dogs are permitted almost anywhere that stays inside the park boundary and prohibited almost anywhere that would lead you out of it.
At Topanga State Park, the rule is stricter by default: dogs aren't allowed on park trails, fire roads, or in the backcountry at all, with only a specific list of designated dog-friendly trails as exceptions.
At Los Liones, the split happens mid-trail. Dogs are permitted on the Los Liones Day Use Trail, the flatter first stretch near the trailhead, but prohibited beyond that point, including on the climb up toward East Topanga Fire Road and Parker Mesa Overlook.
None of this is punitive. It reflects real habitat recovery work still underway after the fire. But it does mean a dog walk that used to be one continuous decision, leash up and go, now requires knowing which segment of which trail you're actually on.
Where to park until the lots catch up
Fire recovery work has squeezed parking at the East Topanga Fire Road access point down to almost nothing. State Parks has posted a direct redirect: park instead at the Los Liones Trailhead, off Los Liones Drive, where three small lots and ample free street parking are available, along with restrooms. It's a short detour on foot to link back up with East Topanga Fire Road once you're on trail, and it beats circling a lot that officials have already flagged as extremely limited.
What a Palisades weekend actually looks like right now
Put the pieces together and the honest picture of late August 2026 is this: nearly every trailhead a Palisadian used before January 2025 has technically reopened, but the network connecting them hasn't fully knit itself back together. Temescal Gateway is open for its rebuilt Rivas and Sunset Trails, not for the waterfall loop. Will Rogers is open for nine miles of hiking and Saturday polo, not for the historic ranch tour, and possibly not for a clean connection back into Temescal. Topanga is open across most of its 36 miles, with a short, specific list of named exceptions still standing. Los Liones is fully back, with a dog policy that only applies to half of it.
That's not a complaint. Eighteen months after a fire that leveled a ranch house down to its chimney, having three functioning trail systems back at all is the actual headline. It's just not the same headline as "everything's back to normal," and treating it that way is how a resident ends up turned around at a closure sign on a trail their phone map still marks as open.
If you're weighing what this kind of recovery, block by block and trail by trail, means for property values and timing in the Palisades, our Pacific Palisades neighborhood guide tracks the broader picture alongside the Village's own reopening story. For those ready to talk through what any of this means for a home you already own here, Tom Dolezel is a phone call away. Request Your Home Valuation whenever you're ready to see where your property stands today.
