LOS ANGELES (CN) — The man walked at an even clip through a creek shaded with elms. Holding a fishing rod, he glanced from beneath his cap as he passed an outcropping of rocks where a woman looked up from her packed lunch and asked if he had caught anything.
No, there’s no fish left in this river, he replied matter of factly, barely stopping to take a breath as he crossed onto a dirt trail. He had no time for small talk. Either that or he was eager to find a better place to cast a line. Somewhere. Not here.
The woman, Dianne Erskine-Hellrigel, watched through her large sunglasses as the man receded into the distance, her bright blonde lanyard pigtails brushing against her shoulders. Fishing season started in mid-May, and at another time the fisherman would not have left empty-handed, she said.
Later, as we walked back along a trail in Cattle Canyon dotted with yuccas, we passed an unkempt, bearded man with unruly dark hair, dressed in a long-sleeve shirt and pants. Not for the first time that day, Erskine-Hellrigel, an avid hiker and environmental activist from Santa Clarita with a warm, throaty laugh, was the first to say hello.
As he walked away, she seemed to recall meeting the man before, farther up the canyon. Back then he had been wearing a long velvet coat and was in the canyon mining for gold. Since he did not look like a hiker, she asked what he was doing and he told her he was mining for gold. He glanced over his shoulder and then produced a gold nugget the size of a golf ball from inside a deep pocket – enough to make a living.
But for Erskine-Hellrigel, with the environmental group San Gabriel Mountains Forever, gold dredging and mining pose a grave threat to the Santa Ana suckers and trout in the river.
“Part of the issue is that they're making a living pulling gold out of here, but all the fish are dying. They disturb the banks and the water becomes muddy, and the fish can't breathe, and so they go belly up,” she said.
Gold panning and dredging are not the only things affecting the environment at Cattle Canyon, at the East Fork of the San Gabriel River, which is part of a $10 million to $15 million improvement project to clean trash, scrub graffiti and remove invasive species of plants. The canyon is a well-trodden area that is a favorite weekend spot for Angelenos looking to escape the city and swim in the river, bathe in pools, or bungee jump from the “Bridge to Nowhere” at the end of a 5-mile hiking trail.
Diapers, trash, graffiti, manmade dams, trails and invasive species of plants are all making a mark in the East Fork, and it is not a good one. But with the improvement project, the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument is taking advantage of its 346,177-acre designation in the Angeles National Forest to make Cattle Canyon and the East Fork safer and less of an eyesore.
Dressed in a black wide-brimmed hat, gray pants and resting on hiking poles, Erskine-Hellrigel looked down into the gaping canyon from a steep road leading to a parking area. She said the 2.5-mile reach on the East Fork would include picnic areas, a new trail, and roving rangers to educate visitors.
