At the same time, we also had to be careful not to get too close to any of the cliff walls because it appeared that the bighorn sheep also inadvertently kicked down some rocks that rolled rapidly…

As we were just starting to head west on the road, we saw a cop going the other way. Just as we had passed each other, he had turned on his siren lights, which made me scared that perhaps I might…

As we were driving the road out of Monrovia Canyon Park, we had to wait for a ranger to move as his/her truck was blocking the road. It was at that time that we had noticed that they had half-closed..

Anyways, the road seemed busier than I would have expected for a weekday, and when we noticed that there were a ton of cars parked at a vista point, we were wondering what all the fuss was about…

I even overheard someone conversing amongst his own family saying something to the effect like “that’s why we come here; to get away from the craziness down there…” I couldn’t have said it better…

Julie was having doubts about stream scrambling, but given how dry the conditions were, I’m sure the stream scramble was now much easier than it would’ve been had we had to climb the waterfalls…

…the air was noticeably thinner up here. I guess we were just getting old now as such effects didn’t really bother us in the past (or at least I didn’t remember it)…

The force of the winds were becoming even more apparent as we were driving through the local streets along both Base Line and Etiwanda Ave. That was because we saw a handful of downed trees and…

As we were anxiously making our way up Santa Anita Ave, we ultimately got up to the twisty mountain road leading up to Chantry Flat. That was when we found ourselves following a caravan of…

Ultimately, we would go on the familiar winding road up to Monrovia Canyon Park. We were worried about the parking situation here given the past troubles the last time we were here. At first…

So we kept forward hoping perhaps to find a plaza or fast-food restaurant to stop at to see what was going on. But moments later, Tahia started puking. And it seemed like she was heaving quite…

…there was a bit of unusual circumstances on our way out as we heard a loud circling chopper hovering right above the canyon. It was kind of ironic that we saw some memorial dedicated to “Arturo”…

Then, we turned left at the familiar signposted junction for Paradise Falls. Tahia was doing quite well during the hike, and we were still proceeding with Julie in front and Tahia trying to play…

Then, as we were climbing the last few switchbacks, it started raining at 12:20pm. This was definitely not a good sign. When we encountered another pair guy hikers who were coming back down…

…there seemed to be at least a half-dozen or more wasps or bees swarming about me. Apparently, my orange shirt might have attracted them as if I was a flower to them…

The long flat stretch of hiking that Julie and I typically took for granted on all of our previous hikes now didn’t seem to straightforward as I was carrying an extra 30 pounds on my back…

We followed this road until the pavement eventually looped into a little cul-de-sac with a picnic area, but then the road turned back up and there was no apparent trail to keep going…

I was a little disappointed that he didn’t mention our website, and the thought did occur to me whether I should tell him. But I wanted to ensure we stayed anonymous so I didn’t say anything about…

We did spot a couple of guys going the other way. However, their pants looked muddy and wet, and it made us wonder if we were in for something harder than we had thought going into this excursion…

So on this Labor Day, Julie insisted that we go out to a waterfall. I thought the idea was absurd since we had such a dry year and I was almost certain there weren’t any waterfalls worth…