I was talking to a friend in Big Santa Anita Canyon, Glen Owens of Monrovia, who told me tomorrow’s (Saturday) Mount Wilson Trail Race will not be held. He said it is the first time since the race began in 1908 it had been cancelled.
He and John W. Robinson, author of the best selling hiking book “Trails of the Angeles” were going to cut the racing ribbon at the start line.
I hear they may run it next weekend but I’m still not sure.
Owens was joking that the Santa Anita Fire in late April denuded some of the slopes adjacent to the trail, which leads from Sierra Madre to Mount Wilson. What is normally a treacherous drop becomes even more so, he said, because there is little brush to break your fall.
I’ve hiked it and have run it to Orchard Camp several years ago and remember thinking how one slip could send you down the canyon several hundred feet. And that was during good conditions. So, I think the organizers made the correct call.
I was hoping to drive up Chantry Flat Road and check out the new store Saturday, but Owens tells me that the canyon got 2.5 inches of rain from the recent storm, causing a minor slide on Chantry Flat Road that makes it unpassable.
That’s disappointing. I hope they can fix it this weekend, when I’d like to get some hiking in bertween raindrops.
Speaking of rain, the storm may have moved mud, but it also may have a silver lining. It may be just the right conditions to germinate seedlings in the soil, Owens said. It would be a good beginning to new life in the fire-damaged Angeles above Sierra Madre.