"Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt."
Making a list and doing a number of hikes in the San Gabriel Mountains was on my Updated Bucket List. However, the Monrovia Hillside Wilderness Preserve in the foothills of Monrovia was not on the list because it didn't exist in it's present form at that time (see A Little History below). I have walked, ran and hiked what we call the original Clamshell for many years, but the City recently mapped and created a different trail as part of the Wilderness Preserve and I wanted to do the 7-mile round trip on the new trail between the Ridgeside Access and the Cloverleaf Access during my YEAR 77. The map of this trail is shown below.
I recruited Espi, who has joined me on the original Clamshell in the past, to hike the new trail with me on November 15th. When I met her that morning at the Ridgeside Access Point she informed me she had fallen a week or so before and had broken three ribs and damaged her elbow (she probably had other injuries she didn't mention). I assumed we should call the hike off, but she said we should go on the trail and see how she felt, so off we went (she's one tough lady).
The first photo below is the trail map at the Ridgeside Access Point and the second photo is a selfie of Espi and I at the beginning of the hike (not a well-taken photo).
Click Photo to Enlarge - Use Arrows for Next Photo
Beginning at the Ridgeside Access Point, we climbed about 1 mile to the highest point of the trail, then worked our way down a fairly steep switchback trail that was originally dubbed the Coyote Trail, but I haven't heard it called by that name recently. We then worked our way north and west on an up and down trail to an intersection at about 2.5 miles which could take us north to the Arcadia Wilderness Park, but we went south for the last mile to the Cloverleaf Access Point in Hidden Valley for a total one-way distance of 3.5 miles. Espi set a pretty good pace for the entire distance and never complained about pain from her injuries. The photos below were taken at the Cloverleaf Access Point in Hidden Valley, except the first photo is of downtown Los Angeles taken from the trail high point. The sign shows the trail map, lists the Trail Rules and suggests you watch for ticks, poison oak, and rattle snakes and cautions that the Preserve is a habitat for bears and mountain lions. The plaque states the "Wilderness Preserve is dedicated to the people of Monrovia and serves as a continuation of the City's efforts to create a community that offers a premier quality of life." Credit is given to the Monrovia City Council, the City Project Team, the Construction Team, and Elected Officials.
Click Photo to Enlarge - Use Arrows for Next Photo
Given Espi's injuries, we decided the wise thing to do would be to avoid doing the 3.5 miles on the trail back to the Ridgeside Access Point. We walked through the north Monrovia neighborhoods to a house Espi owns on Encinitas/Hillcrest (a one-mile walk for a total of 4.5 miles for the wounded warrior) and I walked on up the hill to my car at Ridgeside (a two-mile walk for a total of 5.5 miles). Although I may do the reverse hike from the Cloverleaf Access Point back to the Ridgeside Access Point in future months, I enjoyed this hike and will mark the Wilderness Preserve off my list. The weather was perfect for hiking today and conversation with Espi was fun and interesting.
A Little History: There has been a trail called the Clamshell in the foothills north of us for as long as we have lived in Monrovia. The trail is really a dirt fire road and, as we have always defined it, begins at Ridgeside Dr (in a neighborhood above Canyon Park) and climbs up a little over one mile, then meanders down to a gate we call 2-mile gate; i.e. running to the gate and back is a 4-mile round trip. The dirt road continues beyond the gate (which has No Trespassing signs) and goes past a few private residences and ends in Hidden Valley. Tracy and I hiked to the top and back sometime in the early 1980s, but I don't remember going there again until Donna and I ran it on January 7, 2010. She and I ran the 4-mile round-trip many times during the next few years, and ran past the gate down to Hidden Valley on one occasion, violating the No Trespassing signs to do it. I have ran or walked the Clamshell many times, most of the time alone, but in recent years Espi or Harry have joined me. Several times I have taken a split-off trail that goes over to the Arcadia Wilderness Park.
In the year 2000, Monrovia voters overwhelmingly passed measures that adopted zoning restrictions to designate land in the Monrovia hillside as a wilderness preserve and recreation area in order to prevent future development projects. The measures also adopted a special tax that would generate $10 million over 30 years and $80,000 annually in order to acquire and maintain the open space and recreational land in the hillside. The Preserve covers 1,416 acres in the hillside (including the Clamshell), encompassing undeveloped land, Canyon Park, Trask Boy Scout Camp, and the Sawpit Reservoir, extending to Arcadia on the west, Bradbury to the east and the Angeles National Forest to the north. In early 2017 (seventeen years after the voters approved the land acquisition) the City finally opened the Monrovia Hillside Wilderness Preserve trails providing passive recreational opportunities for the Community. There are four access points to the Preserve: Sleepy Hollow, Ridgeside, Cloverleaf and Highland. The reasons for the long delay for public access are too lengthy and complicated to describe here - suffice it to say there were complaints and lawsuits by residents near the access points, among other problems. There are still some restrictions and work to be done, but many walkers, runners, hikers and mountain bikers are now enjoying the mountains within the Monrovia Hillside Wilderness Preserve. The trail we called the Clamshell, as I described it above, was re-routed at the one-mile top and extended by the City of Monrovia so that it now bypasses the private homes but is open for public use all the way into Hidden Valley.