Exploring Green of Whittier Hills

For a decade and a half, Otterbein was the name of a regional county park in Rowland Heights. In 1989, it was renamed for Pete Schabarum, an L.A. County supervisor from 1972 to 1990. At the park office is a display of mementos from Schabarum’s political career, complete with trophies, newspaper clippings, photos and plaques.

Schabarum Park is a milelong band of green that is often full of picnickers. Schabarum Trail explores the brush-covered slopes of the Whittier (also called Puente) Hills--the wilder part of the park.

Directions to trail head: From the Pomona Freeway (60) in Hacienda Heights, exit on Azusa Avenue. Head south a short way to Colima and turn left to the entrance to the park on your right. The signed trail begins behind some restrooms near the park entrance.

The hike: The trail tacks this way and that as it ascends a steep hillside. Almost a mile out, you reach a junction and Schabarum Trail splits. (The left branch goes to a corral and horse rental facility.) Take the right branch, which climbs steeply for a long mile toward the brushy hilltops.

When you meet Skyline Trail, turn left (east), climb a little bit more over a hillock, then begin your descent back to the park. When you reach the park equestrian center, you can return to the trail head either via a bridle path that parallels the park road or by way of an asphalt path that bisects the park’s long picnic grounds.

Linking Schabarum Regional County Park with Whittier Narrows Regional County Park to the west and Bonelli Regional County Park to the east, is the Puente Hills Skyline Trail. The 28-mile riding and hiking trail rambles through the canyons and over the mustard-covered crests of the hills.

The trail’s western terminus is at Whittier Narrows, where a nature center invites the whole family to learn about the ecology of the Whittier Hills and adjacent flatlands.

Birds, lots of them, have long attracted birders to Whittier Narrows. At last count, more than 250 species had been recorded in the area between the San Gabriel and Rio Hondo rivers. Diverse habitats--lakes and rivers, sand bars and mud flats, riparian vegetation and open fields--account for the high number of species.

Abundant bird life was one of the reasons that the National Audubon Society established its Southern California headquarters in Whittier Narrows during the 1930s.

A wild river, vines that climbed high into the trees and junglelike vegetation attracted movie makers to Whittier Narrows. The Narrows doubled for deepest, darkest Africa in the Tarzan movies that starred Johnny Weismuller.

Over the years, Whittier Narrows survived fire and floods but nearly perished--as a wildlife sanctuary, anyway--when the Audubon Society was displaced by the Army Corps of Engineers, who built berms, dams and concrete channels.

Today’s 127-acre Whittier Narrows Nature Center is but a fraction of the much larger Whittier Narrows Recreation Area, which is a developed area that includes Legg Lake and all kinds of sports fields and facilities.

A cliff above the Whittier Narrows section of the San Gabriel River was the original site of Mission San Gabriel, established here in 1771. Spanish missionaries regarded the San Gabriel as a dependable source of water and could well imagine the possibilities for a settlement in the river valley.

However, the padres did not foresee how the river could rage when swollen by winter rains. After losing their first structures in a flood, the padres moved their settlement away from the river to its present site in San Gabriel in 1775.

You can explore the San Gabriel River ecology--what’s left of it, anyway--via a path that loops around the Whittier Narrows Nature Center. To get more out of the walk, pick up a leaflet at the nature center. Stop by the small nature museum that interprets native flora and fauna.

The path, paved at first, explores riparian vegetation--willows, sycamores and elderberry. Eventually, the trail reaches bulrush- and cattail-lined Lake Aquatecos, a pond that attracts many birds.

Walkers more in the mood for exercise than education can join the nearby San Gabriel River Trail or Rio Hondo River Trail and power walk to their hearts’ content.

Whittier Hills. Schabarum and Skyline Trails Where: Schabarum Regional County Park, Rowland Heights. Distance: 5 miles round trip for loop around park, with 700-foot elevation gain. Terrain: Bushy Whittier Hills. Highlights: Clear-day views of the San Gabriel Valley. Degree of difficulty: Easy For more information: Call Schabarum Regional County Park at (818)654-5560.