Where to begin! Eaton Canyon is pretty grand and I must say, it might be the most pretty canyon I have spent time in in the entire Angeles Forest. Harvard Branch has always caught my eye as I’ve come down the idlehour trail. The thing is filled with large pine trees and winds all the way up to… a mountain called… MOUNT YALE!! It would make more sense to name this branch Yale Branch and name the currently unnamed branch to it’s north, Harvard Branch, but whatever, who cares. AW~ somewhat famously explored 1 N Harvard and 1 S Harvard but according to this forum’s records as well as the internet’s, there was no recorded exploration of this bad boy. What follows is possibly the first ever trip report of this lovely canyon and what it has to offer!
Matthew Neylon and I, Matthew Jackson, set off Sunday morning by bike to Idlehour campground. Matthew was stoked to do some mixed activity exploring which is rare these days. Definitely a great candidate for a Eispiraten member!
The campground was totally dead and we didn’t even bump into any backpackers leaving. Lame. Stashed the bikes and began our trip into Harvard. Harvard is dry during the summer and will sometimes flow after decent rain. However, the flow begins lightly 1/8th of a mile in and what follows is just tons and tons of blackberry bush.
The canyon forks with the branch on the left leading to a trickling waterfall. The main branch on the right opens to a bowl shaped wall with a big impassable waterfall in the middle and tons and tons and tons of blackberry choking the floor.
We decided to scramble up a sketchy exposed ridgeline to bypass both falls.
Found what looked to be a solid animal trail that led us to a metal box?
Then we became extremely surprised to find a frickin cabin ruin! This bad boy had a slightly buried foundation and wood stove that came with a smoke stack pipe.
Slightly north by 20 ish feet of the cabin was a metal pot that looked untouched and hole-less from target practice.
We never explored the branch that continued passed the trickling waterfall so that will be for another adventure! Harvard branch continues just a little ways past the main waterfall until it hits a 15 ft or so fall that may be bypassable with extra work.
The exit from the canyon was not going to be downclimbing the scramble so Matthew and I hopped onto this shelf above the main waterfall and beelined to the idlehour trail, which was 750 feet away. This was interesting to say the least, because we followed a faint trail up through a bay laurel forest that just led us straight to the second highpoint of the idlehour trail, at peak 3162. Some crawling was required but this faint trail would be the best way back into the upper harvard branch for any explorers in the future!
Here is my track with the waterfalls and cabin marked.
