Chantry Flat, beloved site added to San Gabriel Mountains Monument, will stay shut until Oct. 1
A popular day-use area of the Angeles National Forest designated by President Joe Biden as a crucial addition to the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument will remain closed through the summer, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
Chantry Flat, located in the forest’s southwest section just north of Arcadia, Monrovia and Sierra Madre and closed since the start of the pandemic near the end of March 2020, is the second-most visited day-use area within the forest and now, the Monument.
The area was to remain closed through May, but an order extending the closure for an additional four months keeps the popular site off-limits to the general public until Oct. 1. The closure order extension was signed on June 13 by Roman L. Torres, U.S. Forest Service forest supervisor for both the Angeles National Forest and the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument.
The Bobcat fire in the fall of 2020 denuded portions of the Big Santa Anita/Chantry Flat area. Subsequent winter storms in 2022, 2023 and 2024 washed out trails and made Chantry Flat Road impassable. The 3.5-mile Los Angeles County road extends from Santa Anita Avenue up to the Chantry Flat parking area in the Angeles. This area includes picnic sites, a general store and multiple trailheads, including those to Sturtevant Falls and Hermit Falls, very popular recreation spots in past years.
Closure of Chantry Flat is entering its fifth straight year. The amount of repair work is extensive and is taking longer than expected, causing the delay in re-opening, the Forest Service reported.
The paths, called numbered roadways on maps, leading to trails and recreation areas in the canyon, were badly damaged by flood waters that took out sections. Parts of trails that have existed for more than a hundred years were washed away.
“We’ve been dealing with a lot of mud and debris,” said Ricardo Lopez, an engineer with USFS working on the projects.
The work is nearly done on two washed out sections of an access path called Big Santa Anita Canyon Road that leads to waterfalls, as well as other trails, such as the Lower and Upper Winter Creek trails and the historic Gabrielino Trail. This trail was originally a trade route established by Tongva tribes who lived in the area before the arrival of the Spanish.
The USFS has two contracts out with contractors funded through the federal Great American Outdoors Act, used for restoration of public lands and park lands. The work being done on the paths to trails is part of a contract that involves improving half a mile of the “roadway,” said Lopez. “A lot of the damage was related to subsequent storms that came after the Bobcat fire, in the winters of 2023 and 2024,” he said.
Contractors had to rebuild part of the washed out areas and have placed reinforcement materials to stabilize slopes. In some spots, berms were recreated to help shore up the area, Lopez said.
Under a separate contract, workers began in January in the Chantry Flat picnic/recreation area. So far, a roof on a restroom was replaced and new barriers and fencing were added. New steps replaced worn out or damaged wooden ones.
A water system received new valves, meters and covers. The underground system feeds a water tank at the location, Lopez said. Final inspection on this work is scheduled for the end of June, he said.
Workers are now focusing on repaving the Chantry Flat Picnic area parking lot, he said. That should be completed by the end of July, he said.
Volunteers from nonprofit groups have been focusing on the trails themselves, the Forest Service reported. “The U.S. Forest Service put out a call to all our volunteers and they’ve been working on the trails,” said Dana Dierkes, spokesperson for the USFS.
Trails being repaired include: Upper and Lower Winter Trail, Manzanita Ridge Trail, the connector trail from Chantry to Mount Wilson and the Gabrielino Trail to Newcomb Pass, she said. Trailbuilders have been working to restore washed out, damaged trails in Big Santa Anita Canyon since August 2023.
“Some of work had to be redone because more rains came this winter, not as much as year before,” Dierkes added.
A third project will remove old telecommunications equipment. Some of it is classified as hazardous materials, said Lopez.
A Los Angeles County project includes fixing four washed out portions of Chantry Flat Road. Workers have added new drainage and placed netting on slopes as well as built new guardrails, Lopez said.
For more information on area closures, visit https://www.fs.usda.gov/alerts/angeles/alerts-notices/?aid=80638, or call 626-574-1613 (Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.).