What joy to be out of frosty New Mexico and enjoying a good old Southern California holiday heat wave! As it turned out, the day after Christmas Los Angeles boasted a record high temperature of 85
°F! Perfect canyoning weather! This time Sara and I took my brother on his first canyoning trip. Although I had now been down several neighboring canyons in the area, Lower Eaton Canyon seems to have gained the consensus as the best canyon in the San Gabriel Mountains so it was one I was thoroughly looking forward to seeing. Unlike its neighbors, the canyon supposedly featured long sections of narrows, about ten abseils, and deep pools that offered jumps or slides (rarities in the San Gabriels). It is funny to me to think of the warnings from parents and grandparents to make sure I did not let anything happen to my brother when the one hour drive through trafficked freeways (something they deal with on a daily basis) was easily the most dangerous activity of the day.
Like all the surreal starts to San Gabriel canyons I have been to, we parked in a well-to-do suburban neighborhood at the northern edge of the Los Angeles Basin and began walking past the dog walkers, joggers, and bikers, our helmets and wetsuits curiously dangling out the side of our packs (although my third time doing this, it's still a weird experience). The resulting looks of confusion and worry are usually best dispelled by a friendly "hello" to passersby. We found the access gate to the old Mt Wilson Toll Road easily enough and began the long, switchbacked walk up past the fire station. Despite being early morning in mid-December, we roasted and sweated on the steep 2100 vertical foot climb. Through the haze and light smog we were presented with panoramic views of the Los Angeles Basin- we could see downtown, Palos Verdes, even Santa Catalina Island. Easily enough we found the old road (now overgrown and collapsing trail) which contoured in and out of a couple side canyons of Eaton Canyon. After a final descent down a loose slope, we arrived at the canyon bottom, a couple hundred feet above the first obstacle.
After a snack, we suited up and I gave the obligatory crash course in canyoning techniques to my brother. I braved the first slide of many- brrr! We may have been sweating on the way up but I could tell the way down was going to be cold. Sara and Michael followed after. The canyon was surprisingly playful and we found deep pools, slides and jumps in quick succession. My brother adapted quickly, finding his own jumps as we went. After a half dozen slides and jumps I was feeling impressed with the quality of the canyon but getting worried we were not actually going to have to do any abseils!
But then another turn in the canyon and we reached our first rappel. The canyon certainly had much more water than Little Santa Anita did a week before. Glancing around, I could see just how exciting this canyon would be to descend in high flow- a totally different beast. After the abseil we immediately had a fantastic 15ft slide into a deep pool- easily the best that we did. The canyon narrows continued to an impressive horizon line- carefully looking over the drop we could see we reached abseil number two, a beautiful waterfall plunging down a water-sculpted chute which poured into an overhanged pool (frontispiece). This was one of the more spectacular narrows in this canyon. After a few more short jumps and swims the canyon opened up and we had a long intermission of boulder scrambling (which thankfully warmed us up a bit).
The canyon then began showing signs of narrowing again. A few more short jumps and we saw the first (of many) signs of graffiti (the rest of the obstacles in the canyon could be climbed with logs or bypassed by use trails). This was particularly sad to see in such a beautiful canyon that felt remote up to this point. We worked our way down, noting that pools in this lower section tended to be filled in with sediment. Along the way we passed several enormous logs, a couple which were spectacularly wedged overhead from flood events.
Just when I was getting worried that the graffiti and trash meant no more abseils we found ourselves at the top of a very large drop. Worried that my 150ft rope might not quite reach, I briefed the other two on contingency plans before descending. As it turned out the length was perfect- the ends of the rope were 1ft out of the water on either side! Sadly graffiti covered nearly every rock and surface beneath this falls. After a fair bit of stream walking we reached another horizon line, this one our last. I peered over the large rock wedged at the top of the falls and had a very surprising sight- below were no fewer than 30 people staring back at me, mostly families out on a day after Christmas walk. I had not experienced such fanfare outside of Zion and it felt silly. I carefully rigged this last drop (Eaton Falls), making sure not to drop the rope on anyone's head. One by one we made it down and pulled the rope after. People had all sorts of questions about what we were doing! The rest of the walk back to car we wore our wetsuits as it was starting to get cool in the shadows- again lots of strange and worried looks dispelled by smiles and answering the occasional questions. My favorite from a youngster: "What are you doing?" "Going down all the waterfalls." "Why would you do that?"
Round trip took about 7 hours. It turned out to be a great canyon enjoyed with great company. If I ever did it again it would be in high flow conditions.
