Main Trail Directions
Access from Chantry Flats: Parking
From the 210 freeway and/or Sierra Madre: drive up Santa Anita Canyon Road: at the fire gate it becomes the Chantry Road. Drive all the way up (three miles) to Chantry Flats; note the locked gate on the right.
- On weekends, and especially in good weather, parking at Chantry Flats is competitive! Come early or park down the rode and hike up.
- Parking in the National Forest requires a daily Adventure Pass: these are available from the Adams Pack Station at Chantry Flats.
- Or you can park in the Adams Station lot for a small fee, no pass required. If you park in the open Forest Service lots or on the road, leave the pass on your dashboard while you are in the canyon.
Once parked (got your keys?) come down to the locked gate of the road leading sharply down into the canyon. Note the trail signs and distances for later reference.
Access from Chantry Flats: Hiking
- Begin your hike downhill…think about hiking back UP this road at the end of your trip!
- Cross the wooden footbridge at the bottom and continue to the right on the main trail. (The restrooms here are the last ones for another hour or so.)
- About 25 minutes into the canyon, you’ll come to Fern Lodge, where more than a dozen cabins are clustered around the stream. (You know you’re there when you see a small wooden sign on your left that says, “Take Care of the Land, Someday You’ll Be Part of It.”) About 50 yards past this sign is a formal trail sign: three trails take off from here. Stand with your back to the stream, facing the sign;
- To your left is the trail you came up on; to your right goes to the bottom of Sturtevant Falls (not to be confused with the Camp.)
- Almost straight ahead, slightly to the right past the boulder is the Upper Falls trail—see detailed description of this recommended option on the next page.
- At 11 o’clock (between left and straight ahead) is the pack trail / main trail up the canyon. This takes you up high above the stream, but you are still paralleling the stream, heading up canyon. It is sunnier, easier to follow and a bit easier to hike.
- The main/pack trail and the upper falls trail eventually join at Falling Sign junction, so either way, you will end up in the right place.
- Take your pick of the two trails, and continue on.
- Continue hiking to Falling Sign junction; at that point you are about half way to camp. Take a short break, and then head on up to~
- After some big open views of the canyon, you’ll briefly stop climbing and drop down to cross the stream to a picnic table with an outhouse up above—this is Cascade picnic ground. (There is a call-box here.) The trail is steeper from here on, so it’s about 30-45 minutes to go Camp. Take a break, then follow the trail up and past the outhouse.
- You’ll cross the stream a few times in this section. Past a wider, flatter “muddy crossing,” the trail may be indistinct for 20 yards or so—just aim up the canyon and keep coming. Shortly after that is Spruce Grove campground—almost there!
- Through the campground, continue upstream…
- Shortly after this is the last stream crossing—you’re 2-3 minutes from camp, but it is also easy to follow the wrong trail here, so pay attention!
- For 20 yards it becomes very rocky as you come up to the last main trail intersection, marked with a metal sign. To the right = Newcomb’s Pass, different hike, another day.
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- To the left is the main trail—the sign says to Mt.Wilson and Mt. Zion. Hike up/left along the stream, up/over the check-dam: keep coming, and ignore the arrow “Trail” sign to the left across the check-dam.
- Look up ahead to see the “Camp Sturtevant” sign and the Ranger Cabin. Aim for that, as the trail twists to the right for a few steps and then left on into camp—
Welcome to Sturtevant Camp!
About the Upper Falls Trail
Compared to the main/stock trail, this trail is steeper, a bit shorter and a little sketchy in spots (not good at night.) But it is also much more beautiful, staying close to the stream the whole way; you’ll hike over the top of Sturtevant Falls and see many more waterfalls and pools: even with two check dams, this is closest to what the whole canyon was like before 1959 (when the check dams were installed to control flooding.)
If you take this trail, notice: at the top of Sturtevant Falls, you enter a rocky gorge. After hiking along a lovely pool fed by a waterfall formed between giant boulders, you’ll come up/over the first check-dam and down to a spot where the trail is washed out against a large rock on the left, forming a little pool, blocking just a few feet of trail…. Usually you can step on the concrete bar laid against the rock, or you can go around it by crossing the stream and back to the trail just beyond the pool, or shimmy across about 6 feet of the rock above the pool (careful!) Or if it’s hot out, wade through the pool!
A few more minutes, after you’ve passed the one isolated cabin in this section of the canyon, watch for the first of two small metal arrow shaped “Trail” signs: this will direct you to cross the stream to the right by means of some rock-hopping; the far side of this stream crossing is overgrown with low ground cover: simply pick your way through, again always aiming upstream.
Another 5-10 minutes will bring you to a second arrow “Trail” sign: this one points left across the stream and more rock-hopping; after crossing, the trail goes up steeply for a few minutes to Falling Sign junction. (See main trail directions from there.)
