Encino's busiest fall calendar runs south of the boulevard and north of the 101, on ground built to hold floodwater. The Sepulveda Basin is a purpose-built flood-control facility covering about 2,000 acres, roughly 2.5 times the size of Central Park, and about 225 of those acres are set aside as the Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Area.
Between now and December, three anchors line up on that land and just beyond it. The Encino Velodrome holds Friday race nights. The Wildlife Reserve fills with wintering birds. Los Encinos State Historic Park runs Sunday blacksmith demonstrations. All three depend on unpaid help or limited staff, and the calendar works better when you know that going in.
A golf game, a flood basin and a concrete oval
The Encino Velodrome at 17301 Oxnard Street exists because of a casual conversation in 1953. Four friends from the bicycle business, George Garner, Bob Hansing, Jack Kemp and Charlie Morton, had been talking about building their own track. That same year Morton was playing golf with a friend from the Army Corps of Engineers, who told him about a small piece of Corps land in the Sepulveda Dam Flood Control Basin "begging for someone to do something with it." The four formed a nonprofit, put in a large amount of their own money and asked the Southern California cycling trade for donations. The track opened on asphalt for the 1961 season and was covered with concrete in 1963.
The early years were big. The track hosted the U.S. National Championships in 1965 and 1968, the 1968 U.S. Olympic Trials, and the 1972 and 1973 Grand Prix of the United States, which aired on ABC's Wide World of Sports. A postcard from the early 1960s on the club's site shows racing crowds large enough to fill the parking lot.
The arrangement hasn't changed much since then. An all-volunteer board runs the track, and the club describes it as a facility that relies on donations to stay open and maintained. This October, the club's calendar lists a Friday Night Omnium on Oct. 9, 16, 23 and 30. Gates open at 6 p.m., racing runs until 8:30 p.m., and the event is listed at $10 for racers. The calendar doesn't list spectator terms, so the board's published email, [email protected], is the place to ask.
The surface under those races is 63 years old. On its home page, the club says the original concrete "has reached the end of its life" and that the rebuild is "designed, quoted and waiting on funding." The rebuild plan lays out the scope:
- Cost: an estimated $875,000 to $950,000
- Duration: about three months
- Track: the historic 250-meter concrete oval, keeping the character of the 1961 original
- Repairs: rebuilding the failed crown sections in turns one through four, which have fallen back
- Material: roughly 580 cubic yards of shotcrete reinforced with rebar, which raises the surface about five inches
That is close to a million-dollar project for a track run entirely by volunteers. It puts every Friday race night into a different light.
The reserve gets weeded before the pelicans land
A short drive west, inside the same basin, the Wildlife Reserve is moving into its busiest season. San Fernando Valley Audubon says American White Pelicans can usually be seen at the Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Lake from November through March, though arrival and departure dates vary. These birds weigh up to 30 pounds, have nine-foot wingspans and breed as far north as central Canada. They are also seen circling over the 405 and 101 interchange. Fishing is fully prohibited at Wildlife Lake to protect them and other diving birds from fishing line.
The habitat they land in is partly the work of volunteers, done on a schedule timed to the rain. On Sept. 26, the Army Corps reports, Friends of the Los Angeles River hosted a restoration day in the reserve with the California Native Plant Society and other groups. Volunteers made seed balls, watered native plants and pulled invasives by hand. The seed balls held elegant clarkia, succulent lupine and California poppy, and they get scattered in cleared areas before the rainy season starts. One California Native Plant Society volunteer explained the method in the Corps' account:
"We found that if you continuously remove weeds in an area for maybe four years — they're prevented from reseeding, then the native plants come back by themselves."
That four-year horizon explains why the work repeats. Audubon, FoLAR and CNPS hold a habitat restoration session every fourth Saturday morning, and the next one is Oct. 24.
Audubon also runs guided walks in the reserve on second Sundays. They cover birds, other wildlife and the area's recovery from the September 2020 fire, and they last about 1.5 to 2 hours. According to Audubon's page for the walk series, walkers meet at the small amphitheater on the south side of the rock-faced buildings in the southeast corner of Woodley Park, reached by turning east off Woodley Avenue at the Japanese Garden sign and continuing to the parking lot at the end of the road. The first-Sunday Sepulveda Basin Bird Outing covers about two miles, along a route where more than 300 species have been reported to eBird. An older Audubon page gives different times for these outings, so it's worth checking the current calendar before heading out.
Across the freeway, a spring the rancho grew around
The third anchor sits on the other side of the 101. It runs on state staff rather than a volunteer board, and it is also stretched thin. Los Encinos State Historic Park is open Wednesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and entry is free from either Ventura Boulevard or Moorpark Street. Street parking nearby is limited to two hours, and only authorized vehicles may park inside the grounds.
The site has the eight-room De La Ossa Adobe, the two-story stone Garnier Building, which State Parks lists as the Visitor Center location, a blacksmith shop, a natural spring and a pond. Ranch owner Eugene Garnier built the pond in 1874. It is fed by the same spring that supplied the village of Siutcanga, home to Chumash, Tongva and Tataviam people, long before any rancho.
The staffing limits show in the tour policy. Free guided tours of the adobe are by appointment, and State Parks asks for at least a week's notice. Self-guided visits to the adobe depend on staff availability. Heritage Days are the walk-in exception. Live demonstrations at the blacksmith shop run from 1 to 3 p.m. The State Parks event listing gives the 2026 dates as Oct. 18, Nov. 22 and Dec. 20. The park describes Heritage Days as a third-Sunday program, but Nov. 22 is the month's fourth Sunday, so confirm that date before going. The park's upcoming-events list also shows Día de los Muertos on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, without hours or details yet.
The fall calendar, in order
Put together, the dates make a steady weekly rhythm through December, with a few one-off neighborhood events in between:
- Fri., Oct. 9: Friday Night Omnium at the Encino Velodrome, gates at 6 p.m.
- Sat., Oct. 10: Great LA River CleanUp at the Sepulveda Basin Sports Complex, 5903 Balboa Blvd., 9 to 11 a.m. That evening, a free outdoor showing of Coco at Encino Park, 16953 Ventura Blvd., runs 6 to 9 p.m., with the film starting at 7.
- Sun., Oct. 11: Audubon's second-Sunday Wildlife Reserve walk.
- Fri., Oct. 16, 23 and 30: Friday Night Omnium continues, with a velodrome orientation class on Wed., Oct. 21.
- Sun., Oct. 18: Heritage Days blacksmith demonstrations at Los Encinos, 1 to 3 p.m.
- Sat., Oct. 24: Fourth-Saturday habitat restoration in the Wildlife Reserve.
- Sat., Oct. 31: Free-entry dog costume contest at Encino Community Center, 4935 Balboa Blvd., 1:30 p.m.
- Sun., Nov. 1: First-Sunday Sepulveda Basin Bird Outing, around the time pelicans usually start showing up.
- Sun., Nov. 8 and Dec. 13: Second-Sunday reserve walks.
- Fri., Nov. 13, 20 and 27, and Dec. 4: Friday race practices at the velodrome.
- Sun., Nov. 22 and Dec. 20: Heritage Days at Los Encinos.
- Sun., Dec. 6: First-Sunday bird outing.
Every Sunday from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., ONEgeneration's Encino Farmers Market runs at 17400 Victory Boulevard, between White Oak and Balboa, and its fall list includes pumpkins, persimmons, apples, pomegranates and winter squash. On a first or second Sunday, that makes an easy loop from the market to the Woodley Park amphitheater for a bird walk.
Joel + Dorit Cooper follow Encino at this level of detail, from which Fridays the velodrome lights are on to when the pelicans usually return to Wildlife Lake. If you'd like a conversation about your corner of the neighborhood that starts with how life there actually works, Joel + Dorit Cooper are glad to help. Schedule a Consultation.
