News of the Arroyo
Title: | Of time and the trail |
Subtitle: | |
Date: | 2006-01-12 |
Summary: | January 12, 2006 - Larry Wilson forges ahead on the ancient Millard Canyon trail, the eastern edge of the Arroyo Seco watershed. |
Author: | Larry Wilson |
Publication: | Pasadena Star News |
Content: | TAKE a drive sometime, if you will, up Altadena\'s Chaney Trail - it\'s that famously flashing yellow light on Loma Alta - a mile or so into the Millard Canyon parking lot. Most of us, once there and on foot, make the right turn and take the up-canyon hike. Our family and the family dog did that this past Thanksgiving. It\'s a perfect little San Gabriels riparian walk. The sycamores arc high over the streambed, letting in lots of light. The granite boulder-hopping is constant, though most people in adequate shape can make it without too much sweat. The reward after maybe 20 minutes is the classic one: Millard Falls splashes loudly down 40 feet or so into a small pool. There\'s no need to worry about going any farther. It\'s the end of the line. Dinner awaits back in town. Thursday, though, I took the footpath less traveled. With an Altadena friend leading the way, we hung a downstream left from the lot. That\'s the way past the rustic cabins the Forest Service still grudgingly allows the grandfathered-in owners to occasionally use. The Feynman family and other properly famous locals own some of them: Paradise five minutes from the city. Soon the lower canyon turns much darker, narrower, cooler than above. An oak canopy shuts out much of the light. Is that a trout darting in that deeper stream? It\'s as enormously quiet and gorgeous a place as I\'ve been in our mountains - and I\'ve been in our mountains a lot. And then comes the pseudo-civil-disobedience part. Because, yes, as some of you have guessed, this is where the trail that a few La Vina development folks believe they can keep us away from begins. Contrary to the clear language of the hard-fought construction agreement Altadenans and open-space advocates negotiated many years ago, contrary to the legal opinion of Los Angeles County authorities, La Vina residents have posted \"no trespassing\" signs at this point in the canyon. \"Private property,\" they say. That part is true. But the sign-posters are pretending they don\'t recall that in order to get La Vina built, the developers agreed to keep the centuries-old trails available to all in perpetuity. Anyway, pay no mind to the signs. They are bogus. We breezed past them without a care in the world Thursday, talking politics, talking trail-building, talking about how the late Jae Giddings Carmichael\'s family owned this watershed over a century ago, and how then the La Vina sanitarium did, and how it has always been open to hikers. Leave the streamside after half an hour and cut up-country to take a peek into La Vina itself. There\'s a lot of good people in there. A few of their cranky neighbors think it\'s in the neighborhood interest to renege on the promises, to deny the dream of the contiguous Altadena Crest Trail joining the Arroyo Seco and Eaton Canyon. It\'s not in their interest, or in ours. And it\'s the sign-posters who are ignoring the legal agreement. Come along sometime and break the fake rules. Join us on the path. larry.wilson@sgvn.com Larry Wilson is editor of the Pasadena Star-News. His column runs Fridays, Sundays and Wednesdays. |
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