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Eaton Canyon, with its 7 part-time and 4 full-time staff, stands out as the most heavily staffed Nature Center among all Los Angeles County Natural Area parks. This distinction can be attributed to the canyon being stupid popular, so much so it was the #1 most popular hiking destination in Southern California on AllTrails.com for half of 2023.

Determining the annual visitation to Eaton Canyon proves challenging due to the lack of reliable numerical data. Online traffic statistics from platforms like Google Trends and AllTrails.com are available, but their reliability is questionable as they do not specifically reflect the park’s visitation. Those webpages are prone to external rises and falls in traffic that may not reflect Eaton Canyon’s specifically. Additionally, factors such as changes in social media platforms, search engines, and the canyon’s fluctuating publicity further degrade the quality of this data.

So, another method will need to be used. There are a multitude of factors that impact visitation to Eaton Canyon including, but not limited to:

• The time of year
• Creek levels
• Current weather conditions 
• Current state of the economy
• Whether or not there is a super bloom ongoing
• Whether or not Eaton Canyon has gotten publicity recently
• Whether or not other nearby hiking trails are closed due to wildfires or construction

To address this, an alternative method has been developed and explored, with the specific criteria kept confidential to preserve its future reliability. This method categorizes each month into six classifications: Empty, quiet, normal, busy, crowded, and Disneyland, indicating the level of popularity. The warmer the color, the more popular the park during that month. After some serious number crunching, this was the result:

Notable events like the May 2020 lockdown visitation surge, the June 2020 – May 2021 reservation system, and 2023’s impressive water year show up in the data using this method, validating its credibility and ability to capture fluctuations in Eaton Canyon’s visitation rates. It should be remembered that each month is presented as a whole, recognizing that busy periods may have quiet days and vice versa.

According to this dataset, May is indeed the most popular time of year at Eaton Canyon. The canyon’s busy season lasts from January through July, whereas the quiet season lasts from August through December. This correlates well with when the waterfall is flowing at its highest capacity throughout the year.

With another wet winter in the books, a possible super bloom later this spring, and Big Santa Anita Canyon still being closed from the 2020 Bobcat Fire, it is plausible that 2024 will beat 2023 for the busiest year on record at Eaton Canyon. That being said, August 2023’s Hurricane Hilary renewed creek levels in the canyon, keeping the typical spring-early summer visitation surge cranking through November

For only the ninth time in 116 years of record keeping, back-to-back wetter than average winters have occured in this part of Southern California. The mood in mid-January 2024 was bleak as only 3.00″ of rain had fallen for the entire water year so far. However, as expected, the months of February and March can not and should not be counted out. After a behemoth atmospheric river and a series of moderate storms in February, the 2023-2024 water year is officially above average in Eaton Canyon as of March 2nd! The annual average rainfall is 19.60″. 

Despite the February 4-7, 2024 atmospheric river being so powerful in Los Angeles County, no appreciable flooding of any magnitude occurred in Eaton Wash. The over 8.00″ of rain that fell in the single storm was not even enough to move a log people had been using a bridge across the first crossing since winter 2023. The reason why was because rain rates failed to reach even 1.00″ / hr in the canyon, and with 30 years of vegetation growth since the last wildfire, soils were pretty capable of soaking everything up. 

Since 2019, the Oceanwide Plaza development in downtown Los Angeles has been in a stagnant state after the Chinese-owned company put the project on hold citing financial issues. Over the past 5 years, the 49-floor skyscrapers that tower over the Crypto Arena have sat empty, completely unused and abandoned. As reported by the Los Angeles Times, graffiti artists have been inspired in recent weeks to take over the project and tag every floor of the 3-building complex. It may be a coincidence, but now Eaton Canyon Natural Area has been hit by one of its biggest vandals in years.

After dark on Saturday, February 10, 2024, an unknown number of vandals walked Eaton Canyon and tagged nearly every sign, road blocker, map, and pole in sight. The vandals even spray-painted the driveway ground itself, several rocks below the Midwick gate, and boulders in the creek below the Pinecrest Gate. The cost of cleanup, including labor, will likely total in the hundreds of dollars. While graffitiing has been a problem for years in Eaton Canyon, this latest round featured graffiti in places that had never been tagged before, including several pieces of Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation property.

It is a misdemeanor to vandalize public property that causes damages of under $400. If caught and convicted, the perpetrators could face up to one year in county jail, a fine of $1,000, and an informal probation. Photographs of the graffiti will not be shown in order to discourage the act. The header photograph is of a different canyon in Southern California from 2020.