Moments in Dirt and Ink

Monrovia Canyon Park Locate the trailhead. I was looking for an overnight backpacking trip with plenty of sights and settled upon a plan heading out of Monrovia Canyon Park up Sawpit Canyon. We would go up to Stone Cabin Flat, probably about 9 miles. In the morning, hike back via Mt. Bliss, about 1 mile off the trail, and stop in Deer Park for a while including dinner, then hike back along the road in the evening. This way we'd get to see quite a bit and really have 2.5 days, sort of, since there's a nice long rest in the second day before the evening hike out, which should be quite safe along the road. Of course if, say, we'd not been backpacking for too long and hadn't quite got everything together so needed to go about getting a few things in the morning and had overestimated our ability to carry extra pounds, etc, there was still the option of only going to Deer Park and being a touch on the lazy side the second day. So a bit after lunch we parked on th...

Monrovia Canyon Park Locate the trailhead. We had a fair bit of rain, so I decided to go out and see the waterfalls, or at least one. I wanted to go to Fish Canyon, but the shuttle was canceled "due to rain" even though it was supposed to be sunny. I was going to go anyway, hiking over the edge of the canyon down into it, then I got lazy and just went out to Monrovia instead. I still needed to get exercise, so parked on the street and walked in. The snow level came down very low over the many days of rain and there was a little snow that could be seen still up on the hills on the way in. The hills around Monrovia Canyon aren't all that high, but a little snow remained in among the vegetation. The park has quite a variety of trees that really shouldn't be growing here. Pines, yes, but the furs and ceders and palm are a little odd.

Monrovia Canyon Park Locate the trailhead. We took a second trip of Monrovia Canyon . This time we only did the small canyon with the falls, and not a bit of Sawpit that it is a tributary to. This makes the trail even shorter. We didn't quite do the shortest version, but it was very nearly so. As before, the trail is sometimes narrow, often wide, and always easy. It goes past the old flood control barriers... Where there's a creek, there's flood control. Or it seams that way. Sometimes even very large double bits of flood control like this one.

Monrovia Canyon Park Locate the trailhead. We wanted something on the way to dinner down the 605 a bit and short enough to start well after lunch. Sawpit Canyon (on the map), but Morovia Canyon by the signs, looked like a good one except that they were going to close the gate at 5PM and we'd still be on the trail then. No problem since parking outside of the gate is easy too. Getting there just involves getting off the freeway at Myrtle and turning north through picturesque old town Monrovia. Turn right onto Foothill and then left onto Canyon Blvd. We parked on the street. Most of the way up to the park there was a footpath beside Canyon Blvd. The trail starts just past the pay station. Since it's run by the city, the National Forest Service permit doesn't get you in. Going up we pondered the loudness of the water sound and whether it might really be water in spite of the dry winter. The wind didn't seem to be blowing that hard. It was water; accordin...