G
rowing up, Brenda Kyle could see the San Gabriel Mountains from her backyard. But she wouldn’t set foot in them until she was 40. Her parents had chosen to settle in Duarte, California—a quiet community at the base of the range—because the chaparral, oaks, and willows of the San Gabriels reminded them of their native Mexico. But to Brenda and her siblings, all wilderness looked the same. Born in Chihuahua and raised in Los Angeles County, Kyle thought of the mountains as little more than a point of reference—the backdrop to a Dodgers game, a familiar sil- houette on her drive home. “They weren’t real,” she says. “The moun- tains were right there, but it seemed like a faraway place.” Slowly, though, her perception changed. A chance visit to the waterfall at Eaton Canyon led her to take her daughter on weekend hikes. Then Kyle started jogging in the canyon after work. In 2010, she enrolled in a field
biology class at a local community college and brought into focus what had been right in front of her face since childhood. “It was an ‘a-ha!’ moment,” says Kyle. “I discovered I like this kind of work.” Kyle is now a volunteer docent with Eaton Canyon Nature Center and a staffer at Amigos de Los Ríos, a local nonprofit dedicated to connecting underserved Angelenos to parks. I met her through San Gabriel Mountains Forever, a coalition of environmental justice organizations, youth and immigrant advocates, and national environmental groups like the Wilder- ness Society, my employer at the time. Together, we worked to create a national monument in the San Gabriels—to channel the community’s love for the natural wonder at our back door into a plan to protect it for future generations. Through the coalition, I’ve met hundreds of people with stories like Kyle’s. A first foray into the mountains inspires return visits. Day hikes lead to backpacking trips. And gradu- ally, as each visitor falls in love with the mountains—the escape they provide from the pollution, concrete, and gridlock below—a conservationist is born.
52 · LAND&PEOPLE · SPRING/SUMMER 2016
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