Eaton Canyon in Watercolor
Art © Robert Sherrill 2024
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Canyon Bridges
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.
Poetry & Photo: © Robert Savino Oventile 2024
Speeding Vehicle Overturns, Knocks Out Power Pole Beside Midwick Trailhead
At 2:43 AM on the morning of Sunday, July 21, 2024, a driver racing up Altadena Drive lost control when rounding the turn by the Midwick trailhead. The vehicle smashed into two arrow curve signs, some boulders, and a power pole in the area. The wreck knocked out electricity to the immediate neighborhood, with SoCal Edison outages reported as far west as the neighborhood near the Altadena Country Club. This was the fifth time in 24 hours emergency crews were called to Eaton Canyon to render aid to injured persons.
This speeding vehicle is another example of the lack of safety at Eaton Canyon’s multiple trailheads. Altadena Drive is one of the curvier, steeper boulevards in the community, and as a result, drivers are often racing up and down the road at speeds of up to 50 MPH. Incredible views of the passing canyon gorge behind the Midwick trailhead may be contributing to these speeds.
The Eaton Canyon Nature Centers’ trailhead is the most popular starting point for hikers largely because it offers ample parking. However, the gates to the parking lot do not open until 8:00 AM, and that means anybody arriving before then is forced to park on Altadena Drive. During summer, hikers will often want to begin their hike well before 8:00 AM to avoid soaring daytime temperatures. This inevitably leads to people parking on Altadena Drive and walking in, and since there is no crosswalk, scenes with people running across the street during breaks in traffic are extremely common.
While there were no deaths reported from this incident, it may only be a matter of time before the combination of speeding vehicles and exhausted hikers trying to get back to their car becomes fatal.
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