Reopened Road Is a Boon to Hikers

One of the busiest trailheads for hikers in the San Gabriel Mountains was finally open for business this weekend after a seven-month closure due to fire, flood and mud.

The road to Chantry Flat clings precipitously to the hills as it climbs from the San Gabriel Valley floor into the Angeles National Forest. Keeping the road open has long been an intriguing contest between people and nature; in recent years nature has more often been the winner.

The road officially opened Tuesday, and word spread quickly in the hiking community. The Chantry Flat parking lot was filled by 10 a.m. Sunday and the popular trail to Sturtevant Falls was brimming with hikers, dogs and one young couple who had dragged a giant cooler three miles to a backcountry campground -- and were now lugging it back to their car.

“This is the prettiest trail anywhere,” grunted Mike Romero, 18, of Norwalk, who vowed to bring a cooler with wheels the next time. “We tried coming up here a couple of months ago, but the road was still closed and we had to go all the way around the other side of the mountain.”

The Chantry Flat trailhead is reached by taking Santa Anita Avenue north from Interstate 210 and following it into the mountains until the road dead-ends at the parking lot. There are more than 40 miles of trails in the area, including a steep path to Mt. Wilson and a loop trail that follows upper and lower Winter Creek.

The latest problem with the Chantry Flat road was set off by last summer’s wildfires, which destabilized several sections of pavement. Fearing that winter storms would trigger mudslides that would sweep the road into Big Santa Anita Canyon, officials with several agencies decided to keep it shut until the bulk of the rainy season had passed and preliminary repairs were made.

The road still hasn’t been completely patched up. There are two sections where it is down to one lane, and motorists this week could still see several places where rivers of mud had flowed across the asphalt.

The San Gabriel Mountains have a long history of being tough on roads. The mountains are among the steepest in the nation and have a habit of spitting out huge amounts of rock and mud when winter storms batter hillsides stripped of vegetation by wildfires.

Take, for example, the case of Azusa. In the 1930s, the community was hoping to benefit from a road that would slice across the mountains and connect it to Wrightwood. But floods wiped out the unfinished road, leaving behind only a bridge deep in the mountains -- known today as the Bridge to Nowhere.

California 39 cut north from Azusa to the Angeles Crest Highway for years until it was overwhelmed by a mudslide in the late 1970s. It still hasn’t reopened.

Robert Brady, 60, has worked for the Angeles National Forest for 40 years and has seen his share of roads chewed up by the mountains. One of the more memorable was a flood that washed through Soledad Canyon and destroyed a small zoo that held animals used in the 1960s TV show “Daktari.”

“Some of those animals were swept away,” he said. “For months afterward, you might come across a giraffe or other exotic animal in the mountains.”

He meant to say dead giraffe. Back in Santa Anita Canyon, visitors reveled in the tranquillity of a warm Sunday morning. Hipolito Hernando of Arleta, a native of Spain, had hiked in the area last year and loved it because it reminded him of rambling in the Pyrenees as a boy with his father.

“My wife and I came two weeks ago and it was still closed,” said Hernando. “I say to my wife, ‘We’re coming back.’ ”

Standing along the creek, he and his wife, Pat, spotted three trout. Looking around, Hernando added: “It’s fantastic.”