LOS ANGELES — This spring I will get to do something I haven’t been able to do in almost two years: hike into parts of the Angeles National Forest that have been off-limits because of the Bobcat fire in 2020.
The fire that swept over some 115,796 acres has kept some of my favorite spots — Sturtevant Falls in Big Santa Anita Canyon and the Devil’s Punchbowl in Valyermo, to name a couple — off limits. The U.S. Forest Service’s closure order is scheduled to expire April 1.
The fire started Sept. 6, 2020, and was pretty much contained by late October. Little by little, parts of the forest reopened, including the main Mount Wilson Trail from Sierra Madre. I’ve hiked that trail since and have seen some signs of charred brush, but for the most part, it’s in good shape. Other places are not. The Cogswell Dam area of the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument burned so badly that biologists and forest rangers rushed in to rescue endangered fish and frogs and move them to safer habitats.
