Hidden in a tree-lined canyon in the San Gabriel Mountains is a story of 131 years of history, kept alive by gritty perseverance and continuous restoration pitted against the relentless power of Mother Nature.
Sturtevant Camp, established in 1893 by packing and hiking pioneer Wilbur Sturtevant during the Great Hiking Era, has lived to see a new crop of visitors taking the 4.2-mile hike in from the Chantry Flat Recreation Area that reopened Oct. 2 after being closed for four years.
Four years and one month since the Bobcat fire, followed by years of rainstorms that washed away trails and bridges and sent tree limps through cabin rooftops, the camp and its legendary Sturtevant Lodge have come roaring back to life.
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The lodge, part of the last remaining wilderness trail resort in the Angeles National Forest, will be open for tours Saturday, Oct. 5 and Sunday, Oct. 6 and every weekend thereafter, said Gary Keene, general manager of Sturtevant Camp and president of the Sturtevant Conservancy, nonprofit owner and operator of the camp.
The camp will not be taking overnight guest reservations until January 2025, he said, after crews finish maintenance work on the cabins.
Sturtevant built the camp as a way to make some extra money. He lived in Sierra Madre, not far from the entrance to Chantry Flat and Big Santa Anita Canyon. But the pack train business, like the rest of the economy during a depression, was tanking in the 1890s. So he thought people might want a getaway in the mountains.
“Today, it is the same as it was back then,” Keene said. “To go and stay in the mountains.”
Early advertisements called it a “hotel in the mountains,” Keene said, with some folks camping outdoors. “In the lodge, they would pull the tables back and dance.” The lodge, finished in 1898, has a commercial kitchen, dining hall, fireplace and game room. It has electric lights but no outlets, no Wi-Fi and no cell service.
“You can come up here and leave everything behind. And your phone isn’t pinging every three minutes,” Keene said.
The camp has 10 buildings. Three are original and include the lodge; a forest ranger cabin; and one remaining public cabin called the Honeymoon Cottage, barely big enough for a double bed. The ranger cabin is the oldest on its original foundation in the country, Keene said.
There are seven other buildings, including a tool shed and four more cabins where people can stay beginning in January, he said. The “newer” cabins were built in the 1960s when the camp was owned by the United Methodist Church. A retreat cabin has a kitchenette, bathroom shower and a small double bed with a bedroom for parents and a bunk room for four children.
Everyone who visits are reminded to go easy on the place. “It is like visiting your grandma. You have to treat her gently,” Keene said.
People who have hiked to the camp describe the environs as a little Yosemite, with tall trees, sloping canyons, gurgling streams and colorful wildflowers. The flora includes a rare, untouched stand of Bigcone spruce trees. Also, the canyon is famous for its Pacific Madrone trees, which have red barks and broad leaves.
Sturtevant picked this idyllic spot for his camp just above Sierra Madre and Arcadia, only a few miles from nearly 2 million people in the San Gabriel Valley. On Wednesday, Oct. 2, dozens braved warm temperatures to hike to the lodge. No motorized vehicles are allowed to reach the site. Keene said people came not just from the San Gabriel Valley, but also from Huntington Beach, Long Beach, Los Angeles and Beverly Hills.
Besides unique trees and various kinds of humans, the patch of forest around the camp also attracts a smattering of wildlife, including deer and California black bears. These animals haven’t seen many people in four years so they may be more likely to approach folks, Keene said.
The site’s Facebook page reminds people not to run from bears. Instead, to act bigger, make noise and scare them off. Keene said he saw a mamma bear and her three cubs three weeks ago on a nearby trail.
Volunteers from two groups spent four years rebuilding the trails, while other workers rebuilt cabin roofs and added a new water system. The nonprofit Restoration Legacy Crew did reconstruction work on the main trail to the camp, the Gabrielino Trail. The San Gabriel Valley Trailbuilders did trail work on a spur, the Winter Creek Trail, he said.
Shortly after the Bobcat fire. which broke out in September 2020, a volunteer cuts a log fallen on a trail, while another log is still burning. The Sturtevant Camp and lodge in Big Santa Anita Canyon will reopen to visitors on Oct. 5, Oct. 6, and every weekend thereafter. (photo courtesy of Sturtevant Conservancy)
Heavy rains had washed out sections of the trail to the camp. Tree limbs, even full trees, had fallen and blocked the trail. Crews used power saws to cut up logs and clear the way, he said.
“Because of all our volunteers, the trails have never been better. They are nicer and smoother,” Keene said. However not all nearby trails in the canyon are open. The Mt. Zion, Mt. Wilson and Newcomb Pass trails are closed.
The bears became a problem almost immediately, when folks in the lodge left suddenly at the first sign of smoke in September 2020. Later, bears began feasting on the uneaten brunch left behind in the lodge.
“The bears thoroughly trashed the kitchen, ripped the refrigerator apart. A cast iron skillet was found with a bite taken out of it,” Keene described.
They continued to come back, even after the human food was gone. They tore into the wood siding of the building looking for grubs.
“We are constantly in the midst of repairing bear damage,” he said.
More recently, the bear population have moved down canyon, away from the camp, he said.
With restoration nearly complete, the next task is stewardship — or making sure the trails stay clear and trash is picked up, he said.
One female volunteer brought her young daughter, and the crews began to see the child as a kind of mascot, or looking glass, foreseeing the lodge and camp into the future, Keene said.
“Everything we do is for that kid, to make sure it is there when she grows up. We are all the beneficiaries,” Keene said.