Mount Clef Ridge is a 1,076 ft volcanic mountain in

Thousand Oaks, California Thousand Oaks is the second-largest city in Ventura County, California, United States. It is in the northwestern part of Greater Los Angeles, approximately from the city of Los Angeles and from Downtown Los Angeles, Downtown. It is named af ...

. It is a volcanic outcrop that resulted from lava eruptions 30 million years ago. The ridge was formerly under ownership by the Janss Corporation, but was acquired by the Conejo Recreation and Park District (CRPD) in 1967. Trails here are available from Santa Rosa Valley, Newbury Park and

Wildwood Regional Park Wildwood Regional Park is a suburban regional park in the western Simi Hills and Conejo Valley, in Ventura County, California. It is located in western Thousand Oaks, northern Newbury Park, and southern Moorpark. Wildwood is home to over 27 mi ...

. Although being a major feature of Wildwood, it occupies its own open-space area bordering Wildwood's northern boundaries. Mount Clef Ridge Open Space Area occupies 212 acres. From the ridge are great panoramic views of Santa Rosa Valley,

Conejo Valley The Conejo Valley is a region spanning both southeastern Ventura County and northwestern Los Angeles County in Southern California, United States. It is located in the northwestern part of the Greater Los Angeles Area. Communities in the Conejo ...

Hill Canyon Hill Canyon is a deep canyon in the western Simi Hills and within northern Newbury Park and Thousand Oaks, in Ventura County, southern California. The Arroyo Conejo Nature Preserve includes the central canyon area, and is part of the Conejo Cany ...

, as well as the Santa Susana-, Santa Monica- and Topatopa Mountains. The open-space area is home to plants such as

coastal sage scrub Coastal sage scrub, also known as coastal scrub, CSS, or soft chaparral, is a low scrubland plant community of the California coastal sage and chaparral subecoregion, found in coastal California and northwestern coastal Baja California. It is w ...

, chaparral,

Lyon's pentachaeta ''Pentachaeta lyonii'', the Lyon's pentachaeta or Lyon's pygmydaisy, is an annual plant in the family Asteraceae. It is Endemism, endemic to southern California, where it is now known only from a few areas on the heavily developed coastline of Lo ...

and Conejo dudleya. The fauna includes mountain lions, deer, coyotes, gray foxes, and more. Mount Clef Ridge was featured in the film ''

Flaming Star ''Flaming Star'' is a 1960 American Western film starring Elvis Presley, Barbara Eden and Steve Forrest, based on the book ''Flaming Lance'' (1958) by Clair Huffaker. Critics agreed that Presley gave one of his best acting performances as t ...

'' (1960) starring

Elvis Presley Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one ...

. The horse training scenes in ''

Dark Victory ''Dark Victory'' is a 1939 American melodrama film directed by Edmund Goulding, starring Bette Davis, and featuring George Brent, Humphrey Bogart, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Ronald Reagan, Henry Travers, and Cora Witherspoon. The screenplay by Ca ...

'' (1939) starring

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

also features sequences by the ridge. An army was storming off Mount Clef Ridge in the film ''

Spartacus Spartacus ( el, Σπάρτακος '; la, Spartacus; c. 103–71 BC) was a Thracian gladiator who, along with Crixus, Gannicus, Castus, and Oenomaus, was one of the escaped slave leaders in the Third Servile War, a major slave uprising ...

'' (1960). The ridge was also featured in ''

Wuthering Heights ''Wuthering Heights'' is an 1847 novel by Emily Brontë, initially published under her pen name Ellis Bell. It concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moorland, moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and their tur ...

'' (1939), where the ridge dubbed for Peniston Crag, England. A rock shelter, known as Wildflower Cave (Ven-486), is located here and was utilized for shelter by the

Chumash people The Chumash are a Native American people of the central and southern coastal regions of California, in portions of what is now San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties, extending from Morro Bay in the north to Malibu ...

in pre-colonial times. The ridge is named in honor of the California Lutheran Education Foundation (CLEF), which worked to establish

California Lutheran University California Lutheran University (CLU, Cal Lutheran, or Cal Lu) is a private university in Thousand Oaks, California. It was founded in 1959 and is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, but is nonsectarian. It opened in 1960 ...

in the 1950s. The ridgeline extends from the

Norwegian Grade The Norwegian Grade is a section of Moorpark Road from the Santa Rosa Valley, California, Santa Rosa Valley up into the Simi Hills and the city of Thousand Oaks, California, Thousand Oaks, within Ventura County, California. Completed in 1911, it ma ...

westwards to Wildwood Regional Park. A rock formation that spells out "CLU" can be found atop Mount Clef on the campus of California Lutheran University, and a 30-foot cross is located just east of the landmark letters. The cross was made from old telephone poles. This part of the ridge, Dr. Rudy Edmund Living Laboratory, was dedicated on May 5, 2003, in order to enhance student research in biology and geology at the university. Ecological field studies also take place here. The area's namesake, CLU professor Rudy Edmund, published extensively on the need to preserve Mount Clef Ridge.https://www.callutheran.edu/news/story.html?id=93#story

References

{{coord, 34, 14, 04, N, 118, 53, 11, W, type:mountain_region:US-CA, display=title Thousand Oaks, California Parks in Ventura County, California

See also

References