Hiking to the Santa Anita Canyon Falls

by Alyssa Ramos

I never thought I’d be posting an article about hiking, since I’m honestly not a hiking (or working out) type of gal, but my recent little adventure to Santa Anita Canyon is definitely something worth sharing! I heard about Santa Anita Falls through word of mouth on social media when my last attempt to see a waterfall in LA failed miserably due to the drought.

After thorough research, I convinced a few friends to come find the supposed falls you can jump in and slide down, and packed some lunch and wine to go find them! We were beyond happy about what we discovered, especially since there was actually water flowing when we got there!

It was a nice, easy hike to get to Hermit Falls in the Santa Anita Canyon, where you can jump off the cliffs into the water, and slide down the natural water slide, and it made for the perfect Sunday Funday!

I would definitely recommend Santa Anita Canyon, especially the falls, so here is everything you need to know to help get you there!

1. How To Get To The Main Santa Anita Canyon Area

There’s a ton of names associated with where it is so I’ll try to make it as easy as possible. Mapquest “Chantry Flat, Angeles National Forest” and follow the shortest directions it gives you. It’s located just 50 minutes from West Hollywood, and just East of Pasadena, in the Angeles National Forest.

When you get to the Chantry Flat Recreation Area, you’ll see cars parked along the side of the road, but keep driving up to where the actual park store is because you have to buy a parking pass for $5 and display it in your car anyway. They sell food and drinks there too and even had live music when I was there on Sunday!

2. Getting to the Hermit Falls Path

There are several paths you can take from the main area. The one we wanted to do was the one to Hermit Falls where I heard the fun activities were. You won’t see a sign for it at first so what you’ll need to do is find the “white gate” (where everyone is probably heading) and follow the paved road down until you get to a large bend that either continues on the paved road to the left, or veers off to a narrow dirt path on the right. Take the dirt path on the right.

You’ll see a little brown sign by the path that says “First Water Trail” and “Hermit Falls 1.2 Miles”, which is where you want to go, unless you want to see Sturtlevant Falls first (the 60 ft waterfall) which is 3 miles in the opposite direction.

3. Hiking to Hermit Falls

Prepare to get your mind blown by the awesome NATURE that you’ll see on this breathtaking hike down the side of the mountain. The first part of the hike requires you to zig-zag down a narrow dirt trail through the top canopy layers of the forest, where you’ll get some epic views of the mountain tops, and then the plush greenery below.

Once you get down to the “ground level” you’ll see the first man-made dam, and to the left of it, a bunch of cute little stones that are sitting in shallow water that you have to literally hop across. OH and you’ll also see some creepy little cabins, but that’s how you know that you’re going in the right direction.

After you cross the first dam, you’ll continue onto a path that leads you past a few more random cabins, and also along a mystical trickling river that’s really beautiful and refreshing. You definitely won’t feel like you’re in LA with all of the vibrant greens and sounds of actual water flowing! Maybe Avatar or Jurassic World, but definitely not LA!

You’ll cross another little shallow river to the right to continue onto the path – I fell off a stone here, so be careful – and make sure you don’t continue on into the forest on the left.

From here you’ll start hearing people chattering, laughing, and the occasional giant splash from the people jumping into the water, and then you’ll immediately see a birds-eye view of the whole area before you make your way over to it.

4. Cliff Jumping & Water Slide at Herman Falls

The main reason why I wanted to go to Santa Anita Canyon/Herman Falls was because I saw pictures of this “natural water slide” and heard that you can jump off cliffs there. You can imagine my excitement when I found out that BOTH WERE REAL!!!

I must warn you though…there are a few things that might be a little disappointing – there’s a lot of trash and some graffiti from the younger people who go there to hang out, drink, and smoke pot. About half of the people there were from that category. The rest were large, loud families that didn’t really bother us much except for the constant kids in the backgrounds of pictures.

Most of them were too scared to jump, so waiting in line wasn’t an issue at all. In fact, we sat on top of a large flat rock and ate our lunch and drank our wine before jumping, and watched everyone else do it first to gauge how scary it was. Here’s my opinions about each:

– The Natural Water Slide:

Looks really cool at first until you notice how narrow and jagged it seems. If you watch someone go down it, you’ll notice them bump against the sides a lot which seems painful. When I went down, I bumped around but the algae made me easily slide down into the first pool so quickly that I landed underwater with my feet in the air!

The next slide is more steep, jagged, and goes into the main pool of (freezing) water. Everyone was yelling at me to lean forward, which for some reason translated in my head to “lean back”, which I did while holding my GoPro on a stick behind me. I remember bumping around a lot, which didn’t really hurt, but since I was holding the stick, my elbow got bumped really hard on one of the rocks. The moral of the story is lean forward, and don’t hold a GoPro stick out.

– The 20-30ft Cliff Jumps

These were actually a lot of fun! It’s scary at first, and if you don’t know how to properly jump off a cliff to avoid painful landings, definitely read This first, but either way, you have to at least jump once! DO NOT DIVE or attempt any sort or in-air maneuver that will wind up with you going head first, because I did hit my butt and back on the smooth rock surface below the water both times I jumped.

Oh, and the water is freezing, in case I didn’t already mention that, but there are flat rocks back up a the top of the cliffs you can lay in the sun in!

– The 50ft Cliff Jump

If you’re feeling real ballsy, climb around the corner to the area where you’ll probably see a bunch of kids starring down over the edge of the cliff. I watched them while I ate my lunch from above, wondering what the hell they were starring at for so long, then finally one of them jumped and I heard a huge splash like 5 seconds later.

I didn’t jump off that one. I was too excited for my upcoming trip to Iceland to tempt getting injured jumping off a cliff in LA, but one of my guy friends did, and said the jump down was awesome, but getting back up sucked.

5. When to Go to Santa Anita Canyon

Us Sunday morning stragglers had intended on going at 12pm but didn’t end up leaving until like 3pm, and getting to Herman Falls until 4pm. There was still enough sunlight to be warm since it’s summer, but I definitely wouldn’t have minded if it was sunnier, so for that reason, I would recommend actually leaving early, and planning on getting there around 1pm.

Jump first while it’s sunny, then take some time to relax and eat/drink. We were still jumping at like 6pm, (we were also buzzed on wine) so you definitely won’t run out of sunlight HOWEVER make sure you leave around 6:30pm because A) That’s when all the little hipster kids start coming to hang out and do bad things, and B) It’s the perfect “magic hour” lighting to take pictures of the forest and river on your hike back.

Summer months are obviously better if you’re planning on going in the freezing water, although the cooler months would probably have more of a water flow.

6. What to Bring to Santa Anita Falls

Here’s a few things I brought that definitely came in handy for me and my friends, and a few things I forgot:

– Bathing Suit: Wear it there, there’s no where to change

– Lunch: Once you get down to the falls, there’s no food unless you go back up

– Mini-Wines: We had this genius idea to get the mini-bottles of wine instead of one big one which worked out perfectly! There’s a wine and liquor store in the little town right before the forest that sells them!

– Waterproof Speakers: Someone came towards the end of the day with a speaker, which made cliff jumping all the more fun!

– GoPro: If you plan on taking action pics, although it’s hard to jump/slide with the pole!

– Portable Chargers: All of our phones died from taking so many pictures…

– A Towel: The water is freezing plus it sucks putting clothes on over a wet bathing suit

– A Plastic Bag: For trash, wet bathing suits, etc.

– Cash: For the parking and anything you might want to buy at the store

– Bug Spray: After you get wet, and towards the end of the day, there’s a lot of bugs, which are not fun when you are exhausted and have to hike back.

Hope you go and have a great time!