Ground Breaks on Azusa Wilderness Park
On Tuesday, Los Angeles County and the Rivers and Mountains Conservancy broke ground on phase one of a new gateway park at the entrance to Azusa Canyon.
By next September, the park at 100 N. Old San Gabriel Canyon Road is expected to open. Features will include: a new gate, a roundabout, a camping area, road realignment, a new parking lot, native vegetation and bioswales, playgrounds, two river overlooks, picnic areas, restrooms, and an extension of the San Gabriel River Bike Trail. Later improvements will include a cafe and rental pavilion.
L.A. County Supervisor Hilda Solis proclaimed, “To be here today for the Azusa Wilderness Park Phase One […] is very profound for so many people.”
During her time in Congress (2003), Solis pushed for the watershed study that protected the San Gabriel Mountains. Mark Stanley, executive officer of the Rivers and Mountains Conservancy (RMC) and Water Conservation Authority, agreed with the supervisor.
“The vision for this project began in the early 2000s,” Stanley said. “The goal was to create a place that would better serve the surrounding neighborhoods while also welcoming visitors exploring the canyon and traveling to the nearby Angeles National Forest.”
The location of the park may be the heart of Azusa itself. Nathan Nuñez, a descendant of the Xaapchavit clan of the Eastern San Gabriel mountains, explained the meaning of Azusa in the Serrano language.
Nuñez said it comes from “Asuksa, or Asuksa Vitam, the people of Asuksa, or the place of their grandmother, or the place of the little bend.” He gestured toward the river bend just outside of the park site, and told of how his family’s presence in the area began at least eight generations ago in a nearby mountain village, prior to the annexation of California.
“This place is significant because it’s the entrance of the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument,” Nuñez noted. “[It’s] a spot to stop, a spot to be present, a spot to be able to learn the history and the beauty that these mountains have to offer us.”
Azusa Mayor Edward Alvarez summed up the sentiment they all shared. For the Canyon’s four million annual visitors, “when you come here and you’re by yourself and you just sit down on the log or on that block wall, you feel immediate peace,” Alvarez said.
Then Solis gave the Water Conservation Authority an oversize check for $1.8 million (from Prop A and Measure A) to fund phase one of the park’s construction, and ground was broken.
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