Eaton Canyon in February 2019. Photo by Peter Saephanh.
Eaton Canyon is a study in Los Angeles history, both in what is expected and what is unexpected. Like all of LA County, the area was first inhabited by Native Americans whose culture was threatened by Spanish missionaries in the 1700s and virtually eradicated by American ranchers and homesteaders in the 1800s. In the 1860s, two guys named Benjamin who were once public servants retired to Eaton Canyon to become winemakers. They owned separate plots of land, and although they likely knew each other, I couldn't find any documentation about their relationship. Whether they were friends or foes, it would have made a great reality TV show, but reality TV didn't exist back then.
Two two Benjamins were Benjamin Eaton and Benjamin Davis Wilson. Eaton was formerly a judge and Wilson was the second mayor of Los Angeles. Mount Wilson, the peak that towers over Eaton Canyon, is named for Wilson because he was widely credited as the first white guy to summit it. He did, however, follow a hunting trail that had been used by Native Americans and possibly the Spanish as well.
Wilson was the grandfather of General George S. Patton, but interestingly enough this is not the only tie that Eaton Canyon has to World War II. The Eaton Canyon Project, a secret operation led by scientists from Caltech, produced the first artillery rockets ever used by the United States military. Five concrete bunkers, each with reinforced concrete walls a foot thick, housed over 500,000 pounds of rocket fuel in the canyon. The 146-acre complex also included machine shops and administrative buildings, employing a few dozen scientists and more than 3000 amateur laborers. These laborers were made up of the same type of folks who typically pitched in with the home front war effort at the time: “homemakers, barbers, and preachers.” They worked around the clock in three different shifts to design, produce, and test solid-fuel rockets.
A hiker navigates a river crossing in February 2019. Photo by Peter Saephanh.
In the end, those rockets exploded over Sicily and Guam, as well as Iwo Jima; the casualties in that bloody battle were no doubt increased by the 20,000 Eaton Canyon rockets that were deployed there. Despite the rocket testing process in the canyon, which was audible to the local residents, the entire project was effectively kept under wraps and even today it is not often discussed. In 1993, a wildfire burned off much of the vegetation that had been concealing the bunkers, exposing them after being forgotten for fifty years. I'm not sure whether the bunkers still stand: the most recent mention I can find of them is in a 1995 Los Angeles Times article that seemed to indicate that they were about to be razed for a housing development.
Today the land straddles the border of Pasadena and Altadena, and spreads into the Angeles National Forest. Eaton Canyon Natural Area is a picturesque expanse that includes a nature center and hiking trails. One of those trails is the Mount Wilson Toll Road, a former, well, toll road that follows the route up the mountain that was developed by Benjamin Wilson. It is no longer accessible to cars, but can be traversed toll-free as a part of an 18-mile hike up to Mount Wilson and back. If you're not up for that kind of trek, you can enjoy a pleasant in-and-out hike into the canyon that ends at a waterfall.
There are two waterfalls, actually: an upper fall and a lower fall. The lower fall is easy to get to on a clearly-marked trail. The upper fall is incredibly dangerous. After two hikers died in 2011 and one more in 2013 – not to mention the dozens of rescue missions the US Forest Service has executed in the area – the trail to the upper fall was officially closed. Violators face jail time or a $5000 fine. On a recent trip, I couldn't figure out where the upper waterfall was or how to get there, and I'm sure that the route has been intentionally obscured.
Eaton Canyon Falls in 2016 drought conditions. Photo copyright 2016 by Anna Boudinot
The lower fall is well worth a visit and offers none of the danger of its partner. The hike has relatively little elevation gain, is mostly shaded, and can be completed in about two hours round-trip. Thanks to the creek that runs through the canyon, the surroundings are more lush than what you see throughout most of Los Angeles these days. I visited on a weekend, and the trail was packed with hikers of all ages and dogs of all sizes. In drought conditions, the climax of the hike was not a raging torrent of water rushing over a cliff, but a rather subdued waterfall that John Muir once called “a charming little thing, with a low, sweet, voice, singing like a bird.” That song has changed slightly since Muir's time: the canyon now echos with the voices of modern-day Californians wading in the frigid water and taking selfies. After you're done literally and/or figuratively soaking in the views, head back through the canopy of trees with a reminder that no matter the war of the past or the chaos of the present, it's important to appreciate the little joys in life.