Monrovia Canyon Falls

Day two of the long weekend and my only goal was to run a few miles outside and off road. I decided it was finally time to go explore the local mountains. I'd promised myself to do that early this year and didn't make it there often except for Glendora Ridge Road a couple of times.

I finally headed over to Monrovia Canyon Falls. I took the website suggestion of parking outside the park and running in. I was a bit worried about the population density of the trail based on the number of cars encountered by the website author. I hoped that a long holiday weekend and a Sunday afternoon in December might thin the crowds down a little. I was one of only half a dozen cars parked outside.

Parking outside the park added about a mile round trip to the run. Once in the park, I jumped on the Bill Cull Trail and followed it. On the lower part of the trail I passed to women hiking in. As I got closer and closer to the waterfall at the end of the trail, the trail got more and more crowded. I came across several large groups of people going in both directions. There are two other options for jumping on the trail and I think most people take the shortest route.

At the waterfall I took a five minute break to sit and enjoy the view. I should have carried my camera but there is a pretty good photo of the falls on the weblink. On the way back I took the trail to the Nature Center and then took the road rather than the trail back to the car.

It was a fun little run for a Sunday afternoon. I'm not sure that I will do it again. It's only about a 4 mile run. Because it is easy to get to, it is a very popular, i.e crowded. There is another trail that heads off from the park that looks interesting, up Sawpit Canyon Fire Road, on up Overturff trail to Deer Park Junction and even on to White Saddle and beyond. It looks very runnable from these photos (just keep clicking for a nice photo tour of the trail).

Two more days means two more runs. The last run of 2007 and the first of 2008. Up next the annual recap.