Creative interpretations of Eaton Canyon, its history, its species diversity, its landscape and its future as expressed in poetry, prose, photography, art and video. Submit your own Trail Magic HERE.
Daybreak at the crossing. The icy rivulet flows somewhat broader than a stride. Strange. You pause, and then you leap. At the apex of your quick bow over the murmuring water, tingles envelop you, from your bare head to your sandaled feet.
Over a labyrinth of posts, braces, and crossbeams (trestles in frozen march across the canyon), a flatbed truck rolls slowly, carrying upright, crated & cradled, a circular mirror, diameter 100 inches, 4.5 tons of glass. The procession ripples in the water pooled below.
Lighter than air, a promise arcs overhead, transparent to the sun’s rays. The empty sky above the high rock walls, the alders swaying in the breeze, the stream gleaming among wavering shadows, all testify: in the end, no one can drive their dreams away.
When floodwaters stove the trestle bridge, a Throop graduate recalled envisioning a grace-heavy arch curving above the streambed, the abutments firm in rock, in earth, with the deck on spandrels set to the harmonies of the graduate’s dancing numbers.
A plain girder bridge with two piers. Thick concrete sinewed with rebar. Simple lines. There, under dense gray clouds, my father leans over the guardrail to watch the cutwaters battle the torrent. I listen to boulders thud past and downstream.
Robert Savino Oventile hikes Eaton Canyon regularly. His poetry has appeared in The New Delta Review, Upstairs at Duroc, and The Denver Quarterly. He is coauthor with Sandy Florian of Sophia Lethe Talks Doxodox Down (Atmosphere, 2021). Robert is the current Poet Laureate of Local News Pasadena.
At the room’s east end, behind glass, on a mat woven of khaki reed strips, among a haphazard group of clay and stone artifacts, a finely knapped obsidian spear point rests, black, symmetrical, sharp, as ready for use now as when mammoths strode.
Against the room’s west wall, a section of pine utility pole holds on four wooden crosspieces dozens of insulators, mainly glass, blue, grey, green, clear, a few ceramic, black, white, black and white. Atop the pole a stuffed porcupine squats in profile.
Most often dark, silent, shut, the room harbors stillness, the display case’s stasis, the porcupine’s repose. A raccoon ever seeks to warm its forepaws at an iron cookstove ever cold. Yet reveries haunt the room, remaining distinct in their vistas.
Break an insulator on the concrete floor and knap a shard of glass into an arrowhead. Giant ground sloths forage for leaves, dire wolves range in packs, condors wheel high, all amidst ample scrub and woodlands near mountains with thick snow caps.
Place an insulator on the reception counter to hold a loop of the ethernet cable and boot the laptop. The ocean encroaches inland, chaparral arches the interstate here and there, office towers sustain the touch of time, all under a sky without contrails.
Robert Savino Oventile hikes Eaton Canyon regularly. His poetry has appeared in The New Delta Review, Upstairs at Duroc, and The Denver Quarterly. He is coauthor with Sandy Florian of Sophia Lethe Talks Doxodox Down (Atmosphere, 2021). Robert is the current Poet Laureate of Local News Pasadena.
With the improvement of mobile phone cameras, our ability to capture Eaton Canyon in all its glory has vastly improved. MyEatonCanyon.com maintains a photo gallery of some of the best views we’ve seen in the canyon so far. However, when searching up Eaton Canyon online, there is an overwhelming number of photographs of one single feature; the waterfall. As gorgeous as it is, there is so much more to Eaton Canyon that goes under appreciated.
In this article, we’re sharing the 10 best locations to take unique photographs of Eaton Canyon you might not find anywhere else. In many cases, these vantage points are unremarkable compared to the rest of the canyon for most of the year. However, when the timing, lighting, and colors are right, these spots have repeatedly produced incredible photographs time and again. Summer is typically the best time to get colorful landscape photographs in Eaton Canyon. Without further ado, here are our 10 favorites:
#10: The Fifteen Sisters
Located in Coyote Canyon, the fifteen sisters is a single Western Sycamore tree whose trunk has been buried by debris flows within the canyon. Western Sycamore trees carry the unique ability to turn part of their trunk meant to be above ground into part of the their root system should they be buried by flash floods. Western Sycamores are often only found close to sources of water, and you’d rarely if ever see one on a steep mountain slope. This single western Sycamore has branched into 15 different trunks all of which are roughly the same size. In my opinion, I have not captured the beatify of this tree well enough. The window of opportunity occurs near sunrise in late autumn when the tree is nearing peak color, specifically after a night of heavy rainfall with isolated fog draped over the hills above. Such a combination I’d imagine would produce a stunning photograph, but I have yet to be lucky.
The tree is located at: 34.18415694903343, -118.0975114636475
#9 The Colosseum
Deep in Eaton Canyons’ mountain gorge is area I like the call “The Colosseum.” Here, Eaton Creek makes a full 180° turn just after passing the waterfall. This large bend has carved out a roughly 440 foot tall cliff that towers over the canyon. When approaching the turn from below, the mountain gives you the feeling of being in a colosseum. While the colors here pop best during solar noon, especially in May, June or July, the lack of shadows prevents one from really comprehending the colosseum.
#8 The Canyon Mouth
Eaton Canyon spent quite some time with a rather unphotogenic canyon mouth following the 2005 flood. The flash flood destroyed all the White Alders next to the creek, and repairs to the Mount Wilson Toll road kept the scene from feeling exceptionally natural. However, a new generation of White Alders has since grown up and covered the (in my opinion) ugly parts. Now, the canyon mouth has a small forest at its base with steep, desert cliffs towering overhead. Here, the view is best in the low sun months of November, December, and January, especially when the Western Sycamores are nearing peak color.
#7 The Subtropical Rainforest
Poison Oak is considered a climbing shrub, one that can be both a bush or a vine depending on what its environment will allow. Eaton Canyon is often a very dry place, but during certain times of the decade and in certain areas, the park can look much more like a subtropical rainforest. Nowhere is this more prevalent than near the intersection of the Meadow Trail and the East Bank Trail within the L.A. County Natural Areas district. Inside a thicket of brush lies one of the largest Western Sycamores in Eaton Canyon wrapped in a huge poison oak vine climbing tens of feet into the air. We’ve seen poison oak climb trees, but nothing like this! This plant is truly reaching for the sky. As a result, the scene looks like something you’d find in the Santa Cruz mountains or the Amazon rainforest, not dry and dusty Eaton Canyon.
#6 Mount Markham From Eaton Saddle
Located at the top of the canyon, Mount Markham sticks up like a sore thumb to 5,745′ and serves as only of the only high elevation north-facing slope in Eaton Canyon. A pair of long, narrow rock fields on its northeast flank are a reminder to the trees that sit in rows in-between that they live on borrowed time. With over 100 inches of snow falling per winter, this scene has the potential to create incredible photographic opportunities.
#5 Bigcone Douglas Fir Logs
If you’ve spent any time walking around Eaton Wash, you may have noticed huge tree logs sitting out in the desert far from any other tree. How did they get here? Well, these are Bigcone Douglas Fir logs that washed down during Eaton Canyon’s major flash floods over the past century. They are fantastic proxy data for telling us how large the floods in the canyon can get. There are over 100 of these logs scattered throughout the wash portion of the canyon, many of them making for some incredible photographs. Take a walk through the wash and look for one. Position yourself to add some mountains, rocks, and a nearby Yucca, and you’ve got yourself an incredible desert photograph!
The most impressive, however, are those above the fourth waterwall. These logs are only accessible via mountain climbing gear. Eaton Canyon actually qualifies as a slot canyon in some areas, one of the very few slot canyons in Southern California. These channels are so deep and narrow that Bigcone Douglas Fir logs floating down the canyon during major flood events can get wedged in-between the canyon walls where they remain indefinitely.
This photograph by William Hunt shows one of those logs suspended 20-25 feet above the canyon floor. Note the people for scale. As I understand it, this log is between waterfalls #4 and #5.
#4 Meteorology
Every now and again, nature puts on an incredible show of weather for visitors to Eaton Canyon. Monsoon thunderstorms, Santa Ana winds, blizzards, flash flooding, wildfires, cloud formations, rain shafts, and even rainbows have made an appearance in the canyon in recent years. Each one has its own unique challenges for photographers, but with a fair bit of luck and the right timing, simply astounding moments can forever be preserved.
#3 Change
There will come a day in the not so distant future where nearly everything in Eaton Canyon is forever changed. The whole park, from the course of the creek to the route of the main trail, will be mixed up and set anew. Aerial imagery and historic photographs of Eaton Canyon show that the wondrous park has always been in a constant state of change, with flash flooding, human encroachment, wildfires, fault lines, and landslides all switching the park into a new version of itself. Nothing is safe from the tides of change. As a result, any photograph of Eaton Canyon that adequately captures it in its present state can serve as a good memory.
#2 The Garden Of Eden
Most astounding in July, the Garden of Eden is one of my most favorite locations in Eaton Canyon to photograph. The combination of desert, forest, cliffs, sky, and color all come together to produce a masterpiece. Unlike other photographs, five major color groups are present in this location, with reds, greens, blues, greys, and browns all being prominent. The vantage point is located right on the connector trail between the Midwick Entrance and the Eaton Canyon Trail at 34.18552027558575, -118.10156651797024.
It embodies Eaton Canyon’s diversity unlike any other location. It is a view that isn’t always pretty, especially when skies are overcast. However, like with many other images on this list, the right time and lighting can make it simply mesmerizing.
#1 The Aquatic World
Unphotographable in a single shot, the aquatic world of Eaton Canyon is the most marvelous yet ignored place in Eaton Canyon. Only visible in late spring after a wetter than average winter, the underwater portion of the canyon offers stunning views of algae, cliffs, waterfalls, miniature mountains, and wildlife. Underwater cameras set to slow motion capture the beauty best, and a certain level of zen can be achieved here too.
