Hiked on February 2, 2026. Happy Groundhog Day!
I've hiked this area many times, starting with my first serious hiking year, in 2010. Especially early in the season, the Puente Hills lend themselves to hiking when it's colder at higher altitudes. Also, it's a relatively close, 30 minute drive from my house to the Seventh Avenue Trailhead. The Puente Hills Native Habitat Authority refers to this trailhead as the Hacienda Hills Trailhead.
There's a small parking area at the trailhead, room for two accessible vehicles and about three non-accessible (non-ADA) vehicles. But across the street, on Seventh Avenue, adjacent to the field for Orange Grove Middle School, is room for many, many, many more vehicles, so parking is not usually an issue. In the past, there were soccer matches on the field, however, so if that's the case, parking may be more limited.
There's a portapotty just inside the gate. Many, many signs near the gate warn that the gate is locked from 5pm until 9am from October 1 through May 31, or 6pm until 9am the rest of the year. So don't get started too early or too late. They also warn you may be cited if you're in the area during the closed period. The trails also close after rain or on Red Flag days.
In my opinion, the hours are far too limited, especially in the summer. Sunrise can be over three hours earlier and over two hours later than the area's open hours. It didn't used to be so restrictive.
Once inside the gate, you have the option of a wild dirt/gravel road or a winding, somewhat sheltered hardpacked trail, to the right of the road. Both merge together about a 1/3 of a mile from the gate, after the dirt road turns to the west.
Near that merger, the Coyote Trail heads south from the dirt road. The Ahwingna Trail continues to the west. That's the path I followed.
The dirt turns to pavement as the road begins climbing. A wooden fence is on your right, providing privacy to the neighbors below, and a canvas for the local gang taggers.
As the pavement ends, the Ahwingna Trail becomes a single-track dirt path, to heading off to the left. It's mostly single track the rest of the way, but with occasional intersecting use or defined trails. About 1/2 mile after the Coyote Trail junction, there's a junction off of Ahwingna trail, for the Native Oak Trail. That trail heads off to the right. Again, I continued on the Ahwingna, bearing left.
After an additional 1/2 mile, the Ahwingna Trail ends, as it intersects with the Schabarum/Skyline Trail. There is a chainlink fence in front of you, so you need to turn left or right. Because I didn't quite recall my previous path here, I first walked a little right, then a little left, past where I first intersected with the Scharbarum trail. There's a designed opening in the fence a bit to the left, which I passed through. I turned right after the opening, and eventually followed the dirt road there up Whittier Hill, where there's a large, empty, graffiti-covered watertank that is now the base for many microwave transmission antennas. Stopped up there and took some pictures.
This area overlooks a bit of the farthest southern and eastern bits of Rose Hills Memorial Park. The large Chinese temple thing is visible, down below. Meanwhile, left of that, at the base of the hill, would be Whittier. Several potential trailheads are down there.
You can also look north, towards the San Gabriel Mountains, northwest, towards the 605 freeway and the San Gabriel River, and east, along the Puente Hills. Further off that way would be Chino Hills, which I kind of wanted to hike this day, but got too late of a start to do.
I then headed down from the watertank, determined to make it over to the Nike missile area. But, again, I did not entirely recall where it was, so I just headed in the direction I needed to go. This put me on the southside of a barbed wire-topped chainlink fence. The actual Schabarum-Skyline trail is on the north side of the fence. The barbed strands atop the fence leaned north, to keep you out of the Rose Hills Property. There were no "No Tresspassing" signs, however, so I continued walking west, looking for a place where I could easily get myself from the Rose Hills side to the Skyline trail side of that fence.
I overlooked Rose Hills as I made my way over. They own all this area, and will eventually expand pretty much all the way to the fence, I assume. They also have a huge watertank for reclaimed water, to irrigate their vast property. No picture of that tank posted, but it dwarfed the graffiti-covered tank.
Lots of green grass, and lupine growing on the Rose Hills property. I took a few shots of those flowers as I continued heading west. That shot is still several pictures down below.
Finally, as I reached the section with the eucalyptus trees, where the trail is basically just the tree-lined road wide, with the Rose Hills fence on the south and a fence to keep you out of the former landfill to the north, there was a chained gate section of fence, with a wide enough gap that I could pass through. I checked carefully to be sure neither my head nor my hips nor my chest would get stuck in the gap. Once so confirmed, I slipped on through to the other side.
The area north of the Skyline/Schabarum trail will eventually be a large regional park. Ground breaking hasn't happened, yet, so I imagine this is far off in the future. For now, it's just a fenced off area with many signs telling you not to mess with the equipment there, or face prosecution.
The good news is, whenever construction actually finishes, there will still be the Schabarum trail, linking this new park to the existing Schabarum Park in Rowland Heights, and points east of that, as well as west, from this future Hacienda Hills park, down to the San Gabriel River. From there, the San Gabriel River trails link down to Long Beach, or up to the mouth of the San Gabriel River canyon. Along the way, you'd also be able to travel up to Legg Lake (Whittier Narrows Recreation Area), or link with the Rio Hondo trail, and also the Santa Fe Dam (Irwindale), and Encanto Park (Duarte).
All of these trails are multiple-use trails, open to hikers, mountain bikers, or equestrians, although the number of horse riders is rapidly diminishing.
After the eucalyptus-lined dirt road, the trail veers left of the paved road, on a series of switchbacks that lead up to a hilltop. At the top are many antennas and some park benches you can sit at. Currently no restroom facilities up there, nor, as far as I can tell, any water, for either people or horses. Nice views, though.
Incidentally, just before you reach the top, there's a sign indicating the Schabarum trail to the right, or a trail to a scenic rest area, to your left. Ignore that sign. The scenic rest area is at the top of the hill, and the Schabarum trail will take you there. The other trail was super overgrown, and just took a longer way to the same place.
At the top is a small shack, maybe two or three times the size of a phone booth. That used to be the guard shack for entrance to this hilltop location, which was where a radar installation and launch site for anti-aircraft Nike missiles was based. During the Cold War, this would have been where missiles were launched at incoming bombers. Of course, once ICBMs were a thing, the anti-aircraft battery seemed sort of pointless, so the Nike missiles were retired.
Maybe a half-dozen people were up there when I got to the top, the largest concentration of people I saw during my hike. Other than that, it was just singles and pairs, and a few larger groups of hikers. This was a Monday afternoon, of course, but, still, it was pretty empty. Undoubtedly busier on weekends.
From here, it was back to my car. The only variation was, instead of returning entirely the way I came, I continued on the Schabarum Trail maybe 1/2 mile past the Ahwingna Trail, and returned via the Coyote Trail. No significant difference in distance. Just wanted a bit more variety to my hike.
By the time I got back to my car, the Alltrails recording said I had a little over seven miles, and gained 1237 feet. So not a bad day. Roughly the same distance, but 800 feet less altitude gain than my previous hike.
Not surprisingly, it's pretty green out there. There hasn't been any significant precipitation since New Year's, but it was a wet couple of weeks around then, and the ground still has plenty of moisture.
The warm weather since then has meant lots of growth, but it's not necessarily good for wildflowers. They'll have to compete with plenty of grasses, as opposed to their normal preference of germinating ahead of the taller grasses. Also, the heat will shorten their lives. As annuals, they want to bloom and seed quickly. Too hot, and they'll die before they can flower, or their bloom will be cut short, saving their energy for seed development in the earlier flowers.
No rain in the forecast for about another week, at least, so there's a fair chance this'll be it for significant rain in our rain year. Ten day forecast shows some "occasional showers" or "scattered showers" periods, which means maybe heavy rain, maybe light rain, maybe no rain, so I'm not expecting a lot of rain, although the long-term pattern allows for significant rain into April. This year, I fear the early spring could mean a very long fire season.
In the meantime, enjoy the greenery! Funny enough, I saw some of the greenest, largest poison oak leaves I have ever seen, so keep an eye out for that, too!
BTW, I don't always note this, but I can say that dogs on leashes are permitted on these trails, too. There are some shaded areas on this trail, but it will warm up fast. And, as noted above, no apparent water available on the trail, so if you bring a dog, bring some water for them, too.
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