A solar eclipse viewing party scheduled for the morning of Monday, April 8th at the Mount Wilson Observatory has been canceled, the Mount Wilson Institute says. In a Facebook post dated April 2, 2024, the institute writes “10 inches of new snow [has caused] road closures at the Observatory. Another snowstorm is forecasted for this Friday, April 5.” The powerful winter storm is expected to drop snow levels down the 2,000′ locally according to the National Weather Service office in Oxnard.
A total solar eclipse will be visible to parts of North America on Monday, April 8, 2024. While Southern California will miss totality by nearly 1,000 miles, a large portion of the sun is still going to be blocked by the moon. If viewing the eclipse from home, be sure to use solar glasses and never look directly at the sun.
Crescent sunbeams at the Eaton Canyon main parking lot during a partial solar eclipse on Saturday, October 14, 2023. Eaton Canyon during 70% totality. It doesn’t look very different! However, in person, the sun was not warm at all and temperatures began dropping.
Western Sycamores and White Alders are two of the most common tree species in Eaton Canyon, the former of which being considered a keystone species. Both of these tree species are also considered ‘relic’ species as they no longer exist across the Los Angeles Basin at the extent they did during the ice age 11,000 years ago. Today, their habitat is limited to the canyon floors where water is more regularly available. Both of these tree species require lots of water and cool summers to get through their infancy. With climate change making summers in Pasadena 7.2°F hotter than they were 100 years ago, there is no longer any such thing as a “cool summer” locally. Even worse, these higher temperatures mean increased rates of evaporation which dry up the creek faster than it normally would. Between 2006 and 2022, it is believed that there were no successful Western Sycamore or White Alder saplings at all below the first waterfall at Eaton Canyon.
All of that appears to have changed, however.
Western Sycamores (yellow trees) huddle on the wash floor where there is enough water, avoiding the slopes
Since October 2022, weather stations around lower Eaton Canyon have reported between 73.06″ and 78.78″ of rainfall. This is currently the second wettest 24-month period on record, and there are still 6 months remaining in the water year. Records go back to 1909.
In spring 2023, something happened at Eaton Canyon that hadn’t been seen since 2019; creekside tree saplings. Winter 2023, despite its huge rains, lacked significant flash flooding in the canyon to destroy the wash. Thousands of Western Sycamore and White Alder tree sapling sprouted alongside the creek and began to grow. The worry, of course, was that summer 2023 was going to be too hot and dry for these saplings to survive just like every other summer of the past 2 decades had been. Indeed, July 2023 was record hot with more afternoons over 95°F than any other July on record. As a consequence, many of these young saplings began to perish especially in the lower wash where the creek had begun to dry up.
Muddy creekside depressions like this are a nursery for native tree saplings
As Tropical Storm Hilary took aim at Southern California in late August 2023 and community members began sandbagging their homes, climatologists awed at the sheer rarity of such an event. The California Current is typically far too cold to support tropical entities making landfall in Los Angeles County, but in 2023, the perfect combination of ingredients made it happen. A midsummer deluge was certainly going to have an impact on Eaton Canyon, especially now that we had an entire new generation of tree saplings fighting for survival alongside Eaton Creek. The deluge came, no saplings died to flash flooding, and the creek was rejuvenated.
Eaton Canyon soaked at the height of summer 2023, precisely what these new trees needed
As of March 31, 2024, another winter of soaking rains without extensive flash flooding has kept these young tree saplings alive. Now, they have made it a full calendar year and have a much better chance of making it to adulthood. A repeat of 2023’s tropical storm Hilary is unlikely, but with the trees having developed some form of a root system, they will be better equipped to handle the drought and heat coming this summer.
A young White Alder emerges from decaying Mule Fat
Gliding over floodwaters, a raven scans the horizon while another listens to the wind. None of their mocking deceits are of use now, just imagining dry ground, mountainside perches in dead trees, and all the carrion the rippling expanse will yield.
On a sloped mesa brushed by warm breezes and thick with poppies in bloom, yellow and orange, look to the red sun low over the blue water and remember, deep in the canyon, just past the gray boulders, the two black birds pecking and picking at the eyes and ears.
The most impeccable mimic courts mockery. To see and listen to the point of synesthesia may imply concord but also blind silence, silent blindness. Yet a void of sight and sound, opening, might allow audiovisuals to arrive and remain distinct.
Two circle back and observe, chattering and wing gesturing. They dip over a ridge. Returning, one carries a small bottle, which the bird drops to the road. The bottle breaks. The other lands, grabs a shard with its beak, takes off. The birds fly from view.
After a canyon walk at dusk, return to the car, get in, lock the doors, crack a window, switch off the interior light, tilt back the seat. Shrouded by heavily tinted glass, sink into the plush black upholstery. Breath slows. Eyes close. A raven peers into the darkness.
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.
