Larry Wilson column-Pasadena Star News-10-6-06:

Larry Wilson: Ignore signs, go hike

I've been pining for a return hike along the old Lower Millard Canyon trail ever
since we ran a front-page photo of it Sept. 19 to illustrate part of the
proposed route of the unifying Altadena Crest Trail.

That longed-for passage would finally create a clear, unbroken path from the
Arroyo Seco on the west of the town to Eaton Canyon on the east.

Not that this would be a walk in the park, unless your park was agonizingly
steep both up and down here and there and required some boulder-hopping.

But a path nonetheless, one that could be negotiated by a walker in good shape
in the course of I suppose three or four hours, given a few rest and lunch
stops.

Eagle-eyed readers will recall that some of the sycamores in that picture had
ugly "Private Property" (true enough), "No Trespassing" (not true at all) signs
tacked to them.

Yes, as it has been for over a century, that part of the Millard Canyon floor is
technically private property. The vast difference, though, from your or my
living room and Lower Millard Canyon is that the trail, as is so often the case
in wild lands, is property with a historic easement and public right-of-way
through it.

In other words, you may indeed go hiking right past those signs, telling them
and those who posted them to in effect go fly a kite.

The signs were certainly tacked up in order to scare you away. But the best way
to make sure that they have no meaning except in the tackers' minds is to keep
exercising our historic right to hike there.

You and I are free to walk Lower Millard Canyon. I'm planning a hike soon, so if
you haven't been there - a glorious, peaceful place - fear the revenuers and
would rather have someone along, drop me a line and I'll organize a group of us.

As the conversation heats up again among trail advocates and those who would
block us from our right to get all hot and bothered and ankle-twisted in the
great outdoors, some interested parties are noting that it's not just
pedestrians who have used the trail, a byway since the days of the Hahamongnans.

As one e-mailer wrote recently, "It should be clear historically that this trail
was in the past used by horses from the late 1780s onward, and bicycles from at
least the 1880s onward."

The equestrians I am sure of; the old bikes with wheels made of steel or other
hard material and with high seats, I am less positive about.

But I am not one of those walkers opposed to sharing the trails. For the
entirety of the Altadena Crest, bring on the mountain bikers, bring on the
ponies, I say. There's room for all. There's just no room for the tiny group of
naysayers pretending their "trespassing" ploy will ever hold water.

larry.wilson@sgvn.com

Larry Wilson is editor of the Pasadena Star-News.