The walk
The route leaves Chantry Flat on pavement and immediately gives away every foot you will have to earn back. Three hundred and fifty feet of descent in the first two-thirds of a mile puts you on the canyon floor beside Big Santa Anita Creek, and from there the trail turns upstream and stays gentle.
Past Roberts Camp the canyon closes in. Alders and bay laurel meet overhead, the cabins of the old Santa Anita canyon community appear on both banks, and the sound of the road is gone completely.
Sturtevant drops about fifty feet off a granite lip into a shallow pool. The amphitheatre holds cold air and stays shaded through the morning.
The return regains the elevation lost from Chantry Flat, including the paved grade at the end.