We Get Letters: Annandale Canyon Open Space Revisited

Dear Editor:

I happened to go up to the top of Annandale Canyon recently to see the City’s new trail permitted by local homeowners after a contentious Conditional Use Permit hearing. I write to report what I learned from my visit.

Promised as an open space natural preserve with a trail, the double canyon hillside was acquired by the City along with local homeowners and the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy in 2010. Just opened is a one half mile trail above the 20 acre canyon site. The trail is well constructed, with one bridge and two benches. The trailhead is gated and provides a small parking area for a few cars. Just above the trail and parallel to it is the final stretch of Glen Oak Blvd. and its links to Scholl Canyon.

Some of us found the first news about Annandale Canyon in a Fall, 2007, article in the West Pasadena Residents Association newsletter. The article celebrated the natural beauty of the canyons. It urged acquisition of the site from a developer to prevent a new residential development. The article correctly noted that the site could benefit residents in the rest of Pasadena, many of whom lack nearby park space, but only if an adjoining parcel could be acquired in order to provide access to the lower canyons. This parcel is called “the Carlson Estates,” down the hill from the homes on Woodcliffe Drive. The lower canyons are tree filled, streambed rutted, high oak canopied and offer glimpses of hawks soaring above. Beautiful! I had visited the area in 2010 and again recently, thinking that the City had actually acquired it. But I later learned that this access area to the lower canyons remained in private ownership.

Visiting the new trail above the canyons requires finding it on a map. The location is at the topography Glen Oaks Blvd., and then at the end of Wierfield Drive. If you park and enter the official open space trail, you may be tempted to follow one of the deer traces over the edge and enter the steep sides of the top of the canyons. But there is no easy or authorized path down, and the adventuresome hiker should beware of brambles, poison oak, bees, and tricky ground.

Just before the trailhead at the end of Wierfield Drive is a partially fenced level promontory reaching south into the canyon areas. This is privately owned, and I heard a rumor that a new residential development is under consideration for the area.

All told, the original hopes for a natural preserve and the protection of the viewscape of local homeowners have, at least for the time being, been fulfilled. But, in my opinion, the hope for a park for all Pasadena residents, not so much, as the official site is a long way for residents from the rest of Pasadena to travel to access a short trail to nowhere.

Regards,

John Fauvre

Got something to say, email Managing Editor André Coleman, at andrec@pasadenanowmagazine.com