News

MyEatonCanyon.com is meant to be a user-led Web site, and one way we do this is by encouraging visitors to submit their own photographs. This article was written to detail how to submit your photographs for our photo gallery page. 

First, there are several things we must go over. The photographs featured in our photo gallery are top-notch images. We won’t just choose anything. When submitting your photographs, please refer to this checklist to ensure your submission will be taken seriously by our team.

1. Please ensure all photographs are of good quality and belong to you before submitting.
2. Please ensure all photographs you submit are of Eaton Canyon. Anything that is taken in the canyon from the Equestrian Park to San Gabriel Peak is fair game. 
3. Please do not send in as many photographs as possible. When submitting, choose about 4-6 pictures you like best. The more selective you are the more seriously we’ll take your submission.
4. Try to take pictures of things other than the waterfall. We know the waterfall is beautiful, but we have lots of waterfall pictures already. There is so much more to Eaton Canyon!
5. Try to avoid sending in selfies. We’re sure you are very pretty, but the purpose of the photo gallery is to showcase the natural beauty of Eaton Canyon.
6. Don’t give us all your amazing pictures all at once. Spread them out a little bit over a few weeks. The photo gallery turns over with time. Even the most amazing photograph will be taken off eventually. If you spread out how frequently you send us pictures your images will be represented on the page for a much longer amount of time.
7. We will take photographs from any year! If you’ve got pictures of the canyon from before 2000, we’d love to have them even if they aren’t of perfect quality.
8. Not all photographs that pique our interest will be put in the photo gallery. Some pictures may have a practical use on other parts of the Web site. We’ll notify you if we’d like to use it elsewhere, such as in a page header or to illustrate an article.

Next, here is how you can submit your photographs: 

This explanation is for folks who don’t already know how shared albums in Google Photos work, so if you do, just make sure you do steps #1, #2 and #6.

1. Users can upload photos to the “Submissions” album in Google Photos here. Upon visiting that link, click the blue “Join” button just below the header. Go back into Google Photos where all of your pictures are located.
2. Add your photographer credit line. This is done for each photo you plan to submit. Use the circled “i” (for Info), then add your photo credit in the Description box. Easy peazy! Please use the following pattern for the credit, inserting your name and the correct copyright year for the image… Photo: © Your Name 2023
3. Select the photographs of Eaton Canyon you like best by hovering over the first photo, selecting the check mark on the top left of the photo, and then selecting other photographs you also like.
4. Once you have selected a bunch of the photos you want to share with us, tap the “+” icon on the top right of your computer screen. Select “New Album” and create a new album of your photographs. Name it whatever you wish. After naming it, select the check mark on the top left of your screen to finish creating this new album.
5. Conduct a quality check of the photos you selected. Remove any blurry ones, pictures with people inadvertently photobombing you, or duplicates. You can remove photos by selecting each one just like before, selecting the three dots on the top right of your screen, and selecting “Remove from Album.” This does not delete the photograph, it only removes it from the album you just created.
6. Once you have a set of 4-6 quality photos you really like, select all of them and again press the “+” icon on the top right of your screen. This time, however, select “Shared Album.” A pop-up will appear with all group photo albums you are a part of. Had you completed step #1, one of them should be called “My Eaton Canyon Photos Submission.” Select that album.  
7. You’re done! You photographs have been added to an album for us to view. If we really like your photo, we will put it on the photo gallery on our Web site. If the photo has a practical use elsewhere on the Web site, we may email you notifying you this is what we would like to do.
8. We will clear images out the submissions album as frequently as possible. Unfortunately, if you don’t see your photo on the album anymore and it isn’t on the Web site, that means it didn’t quite make the quality cut we’re looking for.

Happy photographing!

Here are three examples of photographs that would probably not be featured: 

Here are three examples of photographs that would likely be featured:

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The community has spoken, and the wisdom of crowds works magic yet again. The results of our “Guess the Purpose” January poll about the Midwick gate pole are in.

Yes, 80 percent correctly guessed that the pole installed smack in the middle of the gate once featured a turnstile. We don’t have a photo of the turnstile mechanism in our archives, so if you have a picture please forward it to us for publication at [email protected].

Several clever folks reckoned the pole once held a fire department sign with a code number. That was an excellent guess, as there was signage of that nature at some Eaton Canyon trailheads to inform firefighters about the type of terrain they would encounter ahead.

Nobody was fooled that the pole was installed to prevent motorcycles from zooming down the canyon’s trails. As an aside, even bicycle riding is not allowed on the hiking trails within the Eaton Canyon Natural Area administered by the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation. However, trail bikes are allowed within the Angeles National Forest portion of the canyon. If you park in the lot near the Nature Center or in the Equestrian Park overflow lot, you should always walk your bike until reaching the park boundary.

Photo: © Edgar McGregor

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Since October 1, 2022, Eaton Canyon has seen 21.24″ of rainfall, 13.28″ of which fell during the December 26 – January 16 time frame.  Rainfall in the canyon is measured at Eaton Dam, just south of the reservoir. Eaton Canyon is not known for it’s excess water, with the river not frequently flowing past the canyon mouth for more than a few months out the year. Plants throughout Eaton Canyon are adapted to drought, with even our native coffee ferns being able to go months without a drink of water. That being said, compounding drought, human encroachment, invasive species, and hotter summer temperatures are endangering some species in the canyon.

Another flash flood struck Eaton Canyon on the morning of January 10, 2023 after a whopping 5.14″ fell on the canyon. It was our 48th wettest 2-day period since 1908. The flood was nearly as large as one that occurred on December 14, 2021. Here are notable changes that occurred within the wash:

A significant landslide occurred 0.4mi from the bridge, just downstream and around the corner from the Eaton Canyon Waterfall. A negatively sloped wall came down, and several tons of rock and debris dammed up the river. The flash flood was still in progress when the cliff came apart, and copious amounts of sand and gravel backed up behind the rock slide, immediately filling the new watering hole that was just created. (34.19543946797055, -118.10191245661396)

A downed Mexican Fan Palm that was deposited at a location near the Walnut Canyon / Main trail intersection (34.18561917195616, -118.10078717633861) during the December 14, 2021 flood, was moved downstream to a location due east of the main Eaton Canyon sign at the north end of the main parking lot during the January 10, 2023 flood. (34.178346250196846, -118.09578901171221). These two locations are 0.65 miles apart from each other! Observers noted the palm tree floating past the main trail’s first crossing at 10:29 AM on the morning of the 10th. The palm tree was moving at just over 10 MPH.

Mule Fat (Baccharis salicifolia) is the species of plant that typically lines the riverbed in our wash. It is more hardy against flash floods than your average plant, but it too occasionally falls victim. Two areas on the right side of the riverbed between the Midwick entrance and the first crossing were significantly eroded away with this latest flood, ripping out tons of mule fat and lots of boulders that kept them in place.  The two locations were nearby each other, once at 34.18293865515512, -118.09807790466684 and again at 34.18321650828237, -118.09888545820216.

This eroding riverside also destroyed a temporary waterfall that was filmed in the Trail Magic article “Slow-motion waterfall,” which can be found here.

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