A recent list released by Fordor’s.com, a popular traveling website, has highlighted the San Gabriel National Monument as one of 9 natural spaces on Earth not to visit in 2024. The National Monument just north of Los Angeles was added to the list because it is covered in graffiti, littered with trash, and so heavily impacted by visitors that entire endemic species are being threatened with extinction. The situation has gotten so bad that piles of litter 3 feet high can sometimes be spotted in the East Fork of the San Gabriel River.
Although Eaton Canyon is not currently located within the official boundaries of the national monument, that could change in the near future. More on the efforts by Congresswoman Judy Chu and U.S. Senator Alex Padilla to expand the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument can be read here. One has to wonder whether such a designation would make any kind of difference at Los Angeles’s most popular waterfall hiking trail.
Here is a link to the 2024 “do not visit” list.