Eaton Canyon Sept 11

My last visit to Eaton Canyon was way back in January 2016. This would be late season in the middle of an epic drought but we held out minor hope that the remnants of Hurricane Kay passing through the day before would boost flows slightly. It did not. What it did do was ensure that we were absolutely drenched in sweat on the hike up due to the extreme humidity despite our 7:40am start to our hike. The hike up to Henninger Flats was straightforward enough; apparently we just missed seeing some bears. Once we branched off onto the Telephone Trail we had to be rather careful with all of the poison oak infringing on the trail. I enjoyed the moments of downcanyon views out into the LA Basin and the patches of crunchy fall leaves covering the trail. 

At the creek I was disappointed to find it barely flowing. In hindsight we would have been fine without wetsuits but we all put them on since we had them. At our suit-up spot I found a cute ensatina salamander enjoying the moisture from the previous day's dampening.

The creek flow was very low and went dry completely in many places. There would be no jumps, slides, or swims and the deepest wade was just past my waist. It certainly was not the waterpark I hoped for (and looking at my 2016 pictures proves the contrast) but we were all happy to be outside and it was new to the others.

We worked our way through downclimbs that would have been slides and some dry waterfall rappels. The rappel into the short gorge section definitely lost some of its appeal without water splashing and a deep pool below. We stopped at one point for a snack but for the most part made steady progress. Some of the banded gneiss we saw was particularly beautiful, better than I remembered.

The second to last fall was nice as always except this time had a swirl of water-seeking bees to rappel through which was not a high point for any of us. I opted to take off my wetsuit at the bottom of the falls, a decision I was happy with later. Here a group of two behind us almost caught up. I forgot how long the slog was between the last two rappels.

The last falls (Eaton Falls) had its usual fanfare with about thirty people dipping toes in a meager muddy pool at the base of the trickling falls. None of us made any embarrassing moves and I think all of us got rounds of applause on reaching the bottom. The hike out was fine. We were back to the car around 3pm. Thanks to the others for a reason to get outside.