"Peak Of The Bell Curve"

20-February 2022: As we went through this part of Eaton Canyon, we noticed more infrastructure that I guess we hadn’t really noticed in our past visits (which goes to show you how your perspectives and what you notice really changes with repeat visits).

Indeed, we noticed a couple of man-made waterfalls over old dams as well as a couple of buildings (one of which has an open door full of litter inside it).

There was also a surprising amount of water in Eaton Canyon, which made for some interesting stream crossings, especially if you’re wearing low tops and nothing Gore-tex…

It was about 9:25am that we finally got into the car as we had a bit of a balky start to the day.

Julie went to Long Beach to pick up the last of the Girl Scout cookies to sell, especially considering LBB’s supply chain issues this year, and so Julie was occupied until at least well after 8am.

We then had a hasty breakfast before getting into the car and then driving to my parents eventually getting there at around 9:50am, which was 20 minutes after our expected meeting time.

I knew with this late of a start on a Sunday, we were pretty much going to be going to Eaton Canyon Falls at the peak of the bell curve, which is typically not a smart thing to do, especially as waterfalls in the LA and OC area have blown up since the pandemic outbreak in 2020.

While I knew they had a lot of overflow parking, I wondered if it would have gotten so bad on this day that we might even be SOL on a day like today.

So with that, we loaded up the parents’ SUV and then we headed out at 9:55am.

The traffic on the westbound I-210 freeway was already quite heavy, but eventually we got to the entrance to the Eaton Canyon Nature Park, where we went straight to the overflow parking just as quite a few people tried to get paved parking and head in our direction.

In a bit of a first, we actually had to circle around the overflow parking, which was all full today, but we lucked out on our second go where someone was just about to leave when we pulled up.

Julie got out of the car to ask the person if he was leaving, and he confirmed it. So we patiently waited for him to pull out, and then we took his spot and finally settled in at 10:35am.

So we geared up, where I decided to wear the La Sportiva Nucleo High 2 GTX boots and Julie decided to go with her Merrill All-Out Blazed Aerosport Hiking Watershoe to see how things would go for a shoe that actually is designed to get wet and let water out.

Tahia was wearing Joshua’s hand-me-downs since she was growing and we didn’t want to invest in hiking boots for her if she was still growing.

That said, Tahia was dealing with a sprained ankle from horsing around in school and rolled it, which she was still dealing with even today.

Anyways, my decision to wear the boots instead of the Altra Lone Peak 5 Trail Runner this time around was largely because I didn’t think Eaton Creek would be flowing too high, and I’d be able to take advantage of the high top and Gore-tex of the boots.

This would be my typical SOP anyways, which I’d be reverting back to so I wouldn’t have to concern myself too much with rock-hopping over slippery rocks in an effort to stay dry.

Nevertheless, we started the hike at around 10:45am just as even more people were pulling into the overflow parking lot and circling around. So we really got lucky scoring a spot.

We then took a side trail that skirted between the paved parking lot and the Eaton Canyon Wash, and that was when we saw that this trail was flanked by a big bloom of black-eyed Susan sunflowers (according to our daughter’s Wikipedia look-up).

This was yet another evidence that Spring has already arrived even though we’re still a month before the Vernal Equinox marking the arrival of the actual transition to Spring based on where we are in our orbit around the Sun!

Even though a storm was forecasted to come in tomorrow night and through Tuesday (giving us anxieties about our upcoming Yosemite overnight visit this coming Thursday), it still felt like Winter was long gone, and the warm weather with the wildflowers confirmed it.

Instead of thinking of this hike in terms of getting to the waterfall as if we were fans, my focus was now more about looking around the scenery as well as checking out the crowds to see who’s using the trail these days.

I guess the last time I wrote about our experiences on this trail, it was actually about 6 years ago! That said, Julie and Tahia had been doing this trail with Wendy’s family a few times over the last 2-3 years since this hike was closer to her place.

That said, we also learned that this happened to be Mom and Dad’s first time doing this hike, which was a bit of a surprise since Julie, Tahia, and I had been doing this hike numerous times over the years of our waterfalling endeavors over the last two decades.

So I’m sure they’re going to look upon this experience far more differently than say my jaded been-there-done-that perspective.

Anyways, it didn’t take long before we got to the signed junction or fork where the parking lot and nature center trail merged with the overflow trail that we took.

Then, we crossed the Eaton Canyon Wash before getting into some semblance of shade and signage on the main trail to the eastern side of the wash.

From there, we followed the familiar mostly flat trail though it was definitely feeling a bit on the warm side since shade was few and far between in this section of the hike.

So many people were going to and from the falls, and there were even quite a few people dropping down into the wash perhaps to play in the water or go somewhere I wasn’t quite sure since that wasn’t the way to the waterfall.

Eventually by about 11:30am, we started to approach the underside of the bridge across the mouth of Eaton Canyon.

Finally, we were now going to experience a bit more shade than the surprisingly warm sun of February (going on 7 weeks of no real rain storms other than a freak lightning hail storm that came and went one night last week)!

As we went through this part of Eaton Canyon, we noticed more infrastructure that I guess we hadn’t really noticed in our past visits (which goes to show you how your perspectives and what you notice really changes with repeat visits).

Indeed, we noticed a couple of man-made waterfalls over old dams as well as a couple of buildings (one of which has an open door full of litter inside it).

There was also a surprising amount of water in Eaton Canyon, which made for some interesting stream crossings, especially if you’re wearing low tops and nothing Gore-tex.

During this part of the hike, I was still looking up to see if there were any signs of a trail or something obvious that might hint at where people might go past the first waterfall to pursue other waterfalls further up Eaton Canyon (not that I’m going to do it, mind you).

But alas, that’s still elusive to me, and that’s probably a good thing given how many rescues and fatalities come out of that, especially around the 2013-2014 time frame.

It seemed like in recent years, I hadn’t seen a peep about the upper waterfalls of Eaton Canyon, and perhaps a forest service closure of the affected area from the lower parts of Eaton Canyon (i.e. the popular parts) did its job.

After what seemed like 6 more stream crossings (which seemed to be more than I remembered from the past), we’d eventually get to the Eaton Canyon Falls by about 12:10pm.

As expected, there were many people already there, and it still retained its more party-like atmosphere as opposed to people just enjoying Nature.

That said, as I was jaded with this familiar view of Eaton Canyon Falls, I overheard someone else react to this falls with awe as if they hadn’t seem something like this in the Los Angeles area before.

Again, it just goes to show you that everyone experiences waterfalls differently, and I’m sure it must be quite a treat for this woman to finally see in person what I’m sure must have gotten her attention on the socials.

There was even one guy who kept the party vibes going when he was playing New York by Jay Z or something like that, which really seemed out-of-place here since we’re talking about the opposite side of the country.

And there was probably someone else playing mariachi music as well.

Indeed, Nature this place was not, but at least it brought all kinds of people here and everyone seemed to be in good moods and happy to be around this place so I guess that’s something to marvel at considering all the different backgrounds of all these people.

We took some time to have a Korean pear as a snack, took our obligatory photos and videos, and then as even more people descended upon this place, we finally headed out at 12:30pm.

On our way out, it didn’t take too long before we found ourselves out of Eaton Canyon, but as the family headed further down the Eaton Canyon Wash, I went ahead and explored the upper path going up and over the bridge towards the residential area.

This was the very first time I checked out this path just to see what the neighbors or residents of the immediate area overlooking Eaton Canyon might be experiencing.

I was also surprised to see that there was the continuation of what appeared to be the Altadena Crest Trail, which made me wonder if those trails were the ways to get up towards the upper waterfalls of Eaton Canyon.

Anyways, by about 1:05pm, I made it up to the open gate where the residents would be coming in and out of.

Not surprisingly, there were red curbs all around the immediate street to keep people from crowding this area and finding street parking, yet I still saw people who didn’t seem to be local to this neighborhood walking the residential streets here.

And so I guess they must have found more distant parking in the residential areas that probably had overlooked signage prohibiting non-permitted people parallel parking here, or perhaps they found parking down by the public road and then hoofed it to this shortcut.

It was a bit smelly at this gate because there were a pair of trash cans as well as some private property signs and gates, so I didn’t linger here for long.

Nevertheless, I was quite surprised at how many people were going up and down this entrance even though the vast majority of people were down below alongside the Eaton Canyon Wash.

I wondered what the residents must think about all this activity going on here.

Anyways, I went back down through the gate, changed my GoPro batteries, and then headed back down towards the bridge before following the familiar wash trail.

That said, my curiosity was piqued about where the Altadena Crest Trails would go, but that would be for another time.

I was now pretty much focused on catching up to the rest of the family, and I was making good progress though I was getting some strange looks from people going to the falls and probably noticing that I’m wearing a GoPro on my head that’s recording live.

Without a hat on, I’m sure I looked pretty silly.

Anyways, eventually at around 1:45pm, I caught up to the rest of the family by the overflow parking area, and apparently they did make a brief stop at the Eaton Canyon Nature Center to check out some of the poppies that grew there.

Now, the overflow parking area was full of cars, but this time it was mostly people leaving as opposed to looking for parking spots.

So we eventually got out of the parking lot at 2:15pm, and then headed towards Pasadena since Julie and Tahia had a KT (King Taco) craving.

We eventually got to the 90 minutes free parking structure, where we once again scored a spot as someone left just in front of us, and then we headed over to the KT.

We wound up getting an assortment of tacos (pretty much one of each meat they had except for the head, tongue, and mouth, and this meant we got the carne asada, carnitas, al pastor, and then we tried suadero and chicharron, which we hadn’t done before).

We also got burritos of the usual carne asada and al pastor, and we got two carnitas quesadillas for dad and Tahia.

There were absolutely no leftovers as this meal really hit the spot with us.

Julie and I liked the chicharron taco so much that we might replace our typical carne asada burrito with a chicharron burrito since that was quite flavorful and didn’t need to be drenched by the spicy salsa verde like the carne asada did.

Next, we walked over to this fro-yo place called 21 Choices where Julie, Tahia, and I each got a dessert, and we got back to the car at 3:25pm, which was pretty much in time for us to get out of there before our 90 minutes were up.

From there, we headed east on the I-210 through the fairly moderate to heavy traffic towards the I-605 and eventually to my parents’ place.

We got there at 4:05pm where Tahia and I were shooting hoops in my parents’ driveway, and then we finally headed home once we had our fill.

Indeed, this day felt like an unexpected spontaneous family day.

I guess with us not having done a family hike over the past 3 weeks (mostly because I was busy learning how to make YouTube videos and still blogging and stuff), this felt like something that we needed to do more of while we still can (and before the weather really heats up).

So I’m thinking coming in March, we’ll probably be back to doing weekly hikes (even if a lot of them are going to be repeats), and we’ll probably take advantage of Fridays instead of waiting for the weekend zoo.

Plus, I don’t mind doing the repeats since we mind as well use the GoPro on each of the repeats for more fodder on my video making efforts.

That said, we still have to make up for second go at the Bridge to Nowhere when we can take advantage of longer days and perhaps less treacherous river crossings.

Anyways, we said our goodbyes to Mom and Dad, and then we eventually got home at 4:50pm to end off this fun day, where I now had to get back to work with all the new materials on our familiar escapades of today…