A Splash of Urban Solitude at the San Gabriels’ Hermit Falls

Fifty-foot Sturtevant Falls is the best known waterfall in Big Santa Anita Canyon, a bucolic place northeast of Pasadena that is popular with local hikers.

Nearby Hermit Falls, however, is relatively unknown. You could spend a wonderful day exploring Big Santa Anita Canyon and visiting both waterfalls.

A disclosure about Hermit Falls: The view of the lovely cascade is limited because the path delivers hikers to its rim, not its base. You won’t get a picture-perfect panorama from the front.

Still, the view is worth the trip. Just walk (carefully, please) to the lip of the falls and watch the water spill out of a handsome rock notch.

A second disclosure: Certain cretins periodically desecrate the boulders around the waterfalls. For years the Forest Service and volunteers have acted quickly to erase the graffiti, but the number of morons determined to scar nature’s beauty seems endless.

Still, Big Santa Anita remains one of my favorite places to take visiting friends and relatives. You can meander past giant woodwardia ferns (also called chain ferns) along the oak- and alder-shaded creek.

If you and your companions are feeling especially ambitious, I recommend the 16-mile round-trip trek from Chantry Flats to the top of Mt. Wilson.

Directions to the trail head: From Interstate 210 in Arcadia, exit on Santa Anita Avenue and drive six miles north to its end at Chantry Flats. (The street changes names to Santa Anita Canyon Road along the way.) The signed trail, a paved fire road, begins across the way from the first parking area.

The hike: Descend on the paved road, part of the 28-mile Gabrielino National Recreation Trail. About a quarter-mile from the parking lot, look for a signed junction on the right with First Water Trail.

Join this path as it switchbacks down to the bottom of Big Santa Anita Canyon. Thanks to some early-1960s check dams made of log-shaped concrete, the creek flows in well-organized fashion, lingering in tranquil pools, then spilling over the dams in 15-foot cascades.

Mosses, ferns, alders and other flora have softened the visual impact of the dams, allowing them to blend with their surroundings much better these days.

About three-quarters of a mile from Chantry Flats, the path passes modest cabins and crosses the creek to a junction. Roberts’ Camp and Sturtevant Falls lie up the canyon to the north. Hermit Falls is three-quarters of a mile down the canyon among tall trees, sword ferns and maidenhair.

From Hermit Falls, retrace your steps on First Water Trail to your starting point. Or for a four-mile side trip, continue up the canyon to Sturtevant Falls before backtracking to the car.

For more of John McKinney’s tips, visit www.thetrailmaster.com.