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Formally returning the Henninger Flats area in the front range of the San Gabriel Mountains to the Tongva people is a fine idea, and one that, somewhat behind the scenes, is in the works.
But public paranoia that such a proper transition of “ownership” means that there will soon be a gambling casino at Henninger is just plain cuckoo. Knock it off, knuckleheads.
I put ownership in quotes because the very idea that something that was simply stolen from the natives of the San Gabriel Valley can in any real sense be given “back” … well, it just turns the stomach. Creating a cultural site on the mesa up above Altadena, Pasadena, Kinneloa and Sierra Madre is such small recompense for tragedy. But it’s a start.
I first found out about the proposal for a change at Henninger in a post earlier this month headlined “The Reservation Next Door” by Phil Hopkins on the Local News Pasadena website — motto, “Provocative Stories in the Making.”
“Local News Pasadena has confirmed that the County is planning to transfer ownership of Henninger Flats to the 700-member Tongva tribe, thereby creating a new tribal reservation in the San Gabriel Mountains and within a five-mile uphill hike of Altadena and Pasadena,” the story goes.
We can quibble, ‘cause the actual hike from the Pinecrest Gate in Altadena is a round-trip of 5.3 miles, so it’s only half that distance up. But I can reliably inform, having spent an entire childhood hiking that route, as the Eaton Canyon entrance to the Henninger trail was right down the block from my elementary school, Arthur Amos Noyes, that the initial portion of the Mt. Wilson Toll Road sure feels like it’s five miles.
It’s practically straight up. Last time I went to Henninger was on my mountain bike, and the ride down was so out of control it’s a good thing I didn’t fly off and land in the parking lot of the Eaton Canyon Nature Center, which I misidentified in this space last week as the McCurdy Nature Center, as it was called until the devastating fire of 1993. The center’s docent naturalist Susan Hopkins set me straight, and also informed me that the plant called witch’s hair is not an invasive, but a native.
LNP continues: “According to Helen Chavez, Assistant Chief Deputy and Communications Director for Supervisor Kathryn Barger, Tongva representatives have expressed strong interest in the property. In turn, County agencies including the Los County Fire Department, the real estate division of the Department of Public Works, along with a representative of the County’s Chief Executive Officer have met to ‘get their arms around some of the details,’ said Chavez.”
Then there was some absurd speculation about Henninger consequently being a potential site for a casino. Anyone who has hiked to it knows this could never be true. Yes, there’s a road — a dirt road, made wider than your usual mountain hiking trail only because the old toll road was built in order to transport the first huge mirror for a telescope on Mt. Wilson up it. It’s why you will still sometimes see headlights on the road at night when a Forest Service or county truck is coming down. It is a very turny, rutted road. Casino-bound motorist gamblers will never commute on it.
Last week, the LNP issued a correction: “We have subsequently learned that the Gabrielino / Tongva Nation is not involved in the potential transfer of Henninger Flats. It is another organization, with ties to the Gabrielino-Tongva Band of Mission Indians. Additionally, we did not make clear that the current plan does not include construction of a casino on the Henninger Flats property.”
But, yes, there is something going on there. Last June, a longtime hiker wrote to me: “The county spent close to $1.5 million to restore the potable water system at Henninger Flats and then abandoned it. The forestry station is closed, the campgrounds are closed, the visitor center is closed. I camped up there for decades, and took my daughter camping there, and have seen full campgrounds and giant groups of Boy Scouts there. All gone, abandoned. I called the LA County Fire Department’s Forestry Division, which runs the thing, and had a remarkable conversation in which an apparently human representative told me over and over that it was closed because it is closed, but I can’t get anyone to tell me why it was closed, or whether or not it may ever re-open.”
And now we know why. Who’d like to join me on a strenuous, three-hour up-and-back hike to check it out? I’ll pack a good lunch for the Flats.
Write the public editor at lwilson@scng.com.
 
 
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