Pull into the Wilacre Park lot on a Saturday morning these days and you'll notice the thing that used to be impossible: an open spot. For most of the past decade, arriving after 8 a.m. meant circling Fryman Road hoping someone was headed back to their car. Now the lot that Studio City treated as its backyard sits half empty, and the reason has nothing to do with the trail losing its appeal.
A parking fee returned to the Wilacre Park trailhead this year after roughly a decade of free access that began in 2014. Two hours costs $7. Four hours costs $14. The pay station sits at the main entrance, and unlike newer city parking meters that take a phone app, this one still runs on a printed ticket, which means a line forms at the machine even when the lot itself has room to spare.
That fee is the headline. The part worth understanding if you actually use this trail on a weekly basis is something most coverage of the story glosses over: Wilacre Park and Fryman Canyon Park are two different places with two different gates, and only one of them charges anything.
Two Gates, One Trail
The lot everyone means when they say "Fryman" is Wilacre Park, a 128-acre parcel off Laurel Canyon Boulevard, about three quarters of a mile south of Ventura Boulevard. It's the workhorse entrance. Large lot, restrooms, drinking fountains, a picnic area, and a stop on the MTA bus line, which is why it fills fastest and why its emptying out now is so noticeable.
But the Betty B. Dearing Trail that climbs out of Wilacre also has a second, separate front door: Fryman Canyon Park proper, accessed from the Nancy Hoover Pohl Overlook off Mulholland Drive. It's a smaller parcel, 122 acres, with a fitness course and sweeping views over the Valley, and its parking lot holds a fraction of what Wilacre does. It has stayed free through all of this.
Here's how the two compare on the ground:
| Wilacre Park (lower trailhead) | Fryman Canyon Park (upper trailhead) | |
|---|---|---|
| Access point | 3431 Fryman Road, off Laurel Canyon Blvd | Nancy Hoover Pohl Overlook, off Mulholland Drive |
| Size | 128 acres | 122 acres |
| Parking cost | $7 for two hours, $14 for four | Free |
| Lot size | Large, roughly 50 cars | Small, roughly 20 cars |
| Amenities | Restrooms, drinking fountains, picnic area | Fitness course, overlook |
| Transit access | MTA bus stop nearby | None noted |
Both lots connect to the same ridge system and the same Betty B. Dearing Trail that eventually links to Coldwater Canyon Park and Franklin Canyon. If your Saturday routine has always meant Fryman Road because it's the closest entrance to home, the Mulholland side is a real alternative, not a compromise. You lose the restrooms and the bus stop. You keep the trail.
Why the Meter Came Back
The mechanism behind the fee is straightforward and worth knowing if you've wondered whether this is temporary. Wilacre Park is managed by the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, which relied on a Los Angeles County subsidy to keep the lot free starting in 2014. Recent county budget cuts eliminated that funding, and MRCA reinstated the parking charge to cover maintenance of the lot and the trail system it feeds.
It isn't the first time this exact spot has charged for parking. Before the 2014 arrangement, the same lot ran a smaller fee, closer to three dollars, and by most accounts a lot of hikers simply didn't pay it. That history is part of why the current fee feels like a return rather than a novelty, and part of why enforcement this time around has been more visible.
Where the Cars Went Instead
The empty lot doesn't mean fewer people are hiking Fryman. It means the same crowd is parking somewhere else. Neighbors near the trailhead have described cars stacking up on Laurel Lane and on Sunshine Terrace, the residential streets that dead-end near the canyon, as hikers avoid the pay station altogether. Parking enforcement has followed them there, and residents say citations have picked up along with the overflow.
One hiker who has used the lot for years told a local news crew the change felt like a shock on top of everything else, and she wasn't alone in that reaction. Another regular, interviewed separately, put it more plainly: the lot used to be packed, it was free, and that was the whole appeal of it.
The friction isn't really about seven dollars. It's about a routine that worked for a decade suddenly requiring a decision every time you leave the house. Do you pay at the machine, hunt for street parking, or drive the extra few minutes to the free lot on Mulholland instead. None of those options existed as a question before this year.
The Practical Read for a Saturday Hike
If Fryman has been part of your weekly rhythm, whether you're in the Fryman pocket itself, over in Colfax Meadows, or up in the streets locals call the Silver Triangle between Coldwater Canyon, Laurel Canyon, and Mulholland Drive, the trailhead fee is a small but real shift in how the neighborhood uses its own backyard. The Wilacre lot still makes sense if you want the restrooms, the bigger lot, or the bus option. The Mulholland entrance makes sense if you'd rather skip the pay station and don't mind circling for one of twenty spots instead of fifty.
Either way, the trail itself hasn't changed. The walnut woodland is still there, the ridge views still open up the same way, and the connection through to Franklin Canyon still holds. What changed is the calculus at the gate, and that's the kind of detail that only shows up if you're actually walking these streets rather than reading about them from a distance.
It's the same instinct that makes Studio City residents pay attention when something new opens down the hill on Ventura Boulevard, where the corridor near Tujunga Village keeps adding independent rooms worth walking into after a morning on the ridge. A neighborhood built around routine notices when a piece of that routine moves, even a small one.
If you're weighing whether a home near the Fryman pocket, Colfax Meadows, or the Silver Triangle still fits the life you want to keep living in Studio City, RSR Real Estate knows this stretch of the hills the way a resident does, not just a listing sheet. Reach out to request a private consultation and talk through what these streets actually look like day to day.
