The chain-link fence that blocked the top of Runyon Canyon's West Trail for more than a year is gone. There's no caution tape at the Mulholland Drive gate, no barrier at the junction below Indian Rock, nothing stopping the loose, switchbacking descent toward Fuller Avenue. People have been walking it since February. Check the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks page for Runyon Canyon today and it still says the West Trail is closed.
That gap between the trail and the web page is the actual story this fall for anyone who uses this canyon on a normal week. It isn't a metaphor. It's a literal status field that hasn't been updated to match a trail that's been in regular use for the better part of a year.
What Actually Closed It
The West Trail didn't close for erosion control or routine maintenance. It closed because of the Sunset Fire, which broke out on the evening of January 8, 2025, in the 2300 block of North Solar Drive, in the narrow stretch of hillside between Runyon Canyon and Wattles Park. Cal Fire ordered mandatory evacuations for the area bounded by Laurel Canyon Boulevard, Mulholland Drive, the 101 Freeway, and Hollywood Boulevard. Reports on the fire's size varied by outlet and by the hour, from just over 40 acres in the earliest CBS News coverage to 60 acres in later retrospectives, but every account agrees on the shape of it: a fast-moving brush fire that tore up the western ridge separating the two parks and was fully contained within about a day.
The city closed the West Trail afterward for habitat rehabilitation, the standard response when a hillside that steep loses its ground cover. The rest of Runyon, the East Ridge Trail past Inspiration Point and Clouds Rest, the fire road running through the center of the canyon, stayed open the entire time.
Where the Listing and the Trail Diverge
Local coverage in mid-February 2026 reported that the fence at the top of the West Trail had come down and that hikers were back on it within days, with a permanent bathroom near the Fuller Avenue entrance described as coming soon after. The same reporting noted that the Recreation and Parks website still listed the trail as closed even with the physical barrier gone, and that a few isolated sections along the route remained restricted even as the bulk of it reopened.
By June, the official listing and the trail itself still read differently. A hiker's trip report logged on AllTrails in June, after a Friday evening run up the West Trail, put it plainly: the trail was physically open with nothing wrong with it, no tape, no fence, nothing preventing use, and the report noted that the city's page still listed it as closed. Other trail-tracking sites carried the same flag through the spring, describing a partial closure that, on the actual ground, wasn't stopping anyone.
For someone deciding whether to take the west loop on a Tuesday evening or route around it because an app says it's shut, that's not a small detail. It's the difference between the hike you've always done and an extra twenty minutes going around a barrier that hasn't existed since winter.
Wattles Is a Different Case, and Worth Keeping Straight
This is where the two stories are easy to blur together. Wattles Garden Park sits just west of Runyon, sharing a ridge through the Trebek Open Space, and it burned in the same fire. The property is a 1907 Mission Revival mansion built for Omaha banker Gurdon Wattles, sold to the city in 1968, and designated a historic-cultural monument in 1993, with formal gardens that locals have long used for a quieter walk or a tai chi session away from Runyon's crowds. Unlike the West Trail, Wattles hasn't had its closure lifted. A review posted to Yelp in July 2026 described it as still shut for renovation a year and a half after the fire.
That matters for anyone who used to link the two parks. The connector route that ties Wattles Garden Park to Runyon's west ridge, marked on trail maps at a junction below the transmission tower, still doesn't function as a through-hike. You can walk the West Trail again. You can't currently finish the old loop down into Wattles and back out onto Curson Avenue the way you could before January 2025.
If that connection was part of your regular route, plan on an out-and-back on the West Trail for now rather than the full loop.
What the Route Actually Looks Like Right Now
Running from the Fuller Avenue entrance in Hollywood up to the Mulholland Drive gate, Runyon still covers its familiar 160 acres, with about 90 of them open for off-leash dogs. The West Trail climbs the steeper, looser side of the canyon, the option locals reach for when they want the workout without the East Ridge crowds circling Inspiration Point. That option is back in play. The water fill station near the main entrance is still out of service, so carry your own, and portable toilets are standing in until the permanent restroom near Fuller is finished.
What isn't back is the western connector into Wattles. Anyone stitching together a longer weekend loop around that link should check current conditions before committing to it, since the city's page and most trail apps still describe the earlier closure.
The fastest way to know for certain is still to walk up and look. The fence is down, the path is worn smooth from months of regular use, and the official status listing reflects an earlier stage of the recovery.
Michael Fenton spends enough time in these hills to know which closures are still in effect and which have lifted. If you're weighing a move to this part of Hollywood Hills and want someone who actually knows the canyon, not just the comps, book a confidential consultation.