The San Gabriel Valley’s “Other” River
Rio Hondo
Part of the Hondo/San Gabriel/Legg Lake circuit.
Although it links to the San Gabriel River Trail via the Whittier Narrows Recreation Area (see the close-up of Legg Lake and Upper San Gabriel River bikeway), the Rio Hondo is actually a tributary of the LA River (Lario); as you’ll see if you click onto Google’s map, it converges with the mighty Los Angeles near Downey, just south of John Anson Ford Park.
Since there are probably more flood basins along this stretch of river than any other river path, there are more spots where you’re further away from residences and other structures, giving the feeling of being out in the country (tho’ you may not be able to tell what country.)
Thomas Guide pp 597, 637, 676, 705.
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On entering the Whittier Narrows Recreation Area Park, the concrete abruptly ends, although the river continues in a meandering course through lots of jungly overgrowth. At this point, the bike path swerves over into the park, where it cuts through picnic grounds, soccer fields, and greenery.
At the northern end of the path, near the gravel pits, you’ll come upon the aptly-named Peck Road Water Conservation Park (left). Below that is a long, extremely barren stretch of concrete river.
This park is one of the best for greenery: it has more tall pines and older growth than many other bike trail parks, since most of the others are built on landfill.
At the 10 Freeway the bike path makes a right turn and follows alongside the freeway, before dipping down under the road and onward to the south.
Further south, toward the 5 Frwy,
you run into the rust belt.
Viewer’s Comment
- I’m one-way bike commuting from my home in Monrovia to downtown LA. In the evening I take the MetroLink to El Monte and pedal the rest of the way home. I sometimes take the Rio Hondo bike trail, but the gate at Valley Blvd is locked. I squeeze my way through a gap in the fence and scurry down the
steep, concrete hill in my cleats. . . .
The ride North from there is quite nice passing several lakes (former gravel pits). The trail lets out onto the street right behind a small golf course in a quiet neighborhood.
– Mark
Hi, My friend and I are trying to find the best way to bike to work from Pico Rivera to Bell Gardens (Ford Park).
We found an entrance to the riverbed right at Ford Park, but when we tried to ride back to Pico Rivera, we couldn’t find any exits on the side of the river that we were on until we got to Washington, and that exit dumped us onto Washington in an area that doesn’t have any sidewalk or bike lane or anything.
The best place for us to get on/off would be on Telegraph or Slauson, but we didn’t see any possible way to get on/off the bike path in those areas. The gates were locked and chained.
Why are these entrances locked during the day? Who do I contact about getting the best route to work? Please advise.
Best,
Linda
The map showing the northernmost entrance to the Rio Hondo Bike path is not correct, so I set out from my house (after looking for hours at Google maps and Google Earth. I found it. The entrance is actually further north, on Live Oak av. in Arcadia. (Right next to the Arcadia Golf course at 620 E. Live Oak Av, Arcadia, CA)
If you go south on this bike path, you go alongside the golf course until it drops down next to the small lake at the Peck Road Water Conservation Park. I believe you can park at this park and get on the bike path here also. It is very pretty and scenic (See photo link below). I then continued south past the El Monte airport and turned around at Valley Bl. There are entrances/exits at Santa Anita (next to Sam’s Club) and also further south at Valley bl./Santa Anita Av. in El Monte.
I turned around, but ostensibly if you kept going south you’d get to Whittier Narrows and eventually link up to the L.A> River bike trail.
Anyway, the upper part of the Rio Hondo trail I rode was very uncrowded, and one highlight (Aside from riding next to the small lake) was a bunch of benches right next to the airport runway. I saw about 7 or 8 small planes landing. You are maybe only 100 yards from the landing strip, which is really cool.
PUBLIC PHOTOS