EISPIRATEN

One more use of the toll road before they start fixing it up. Did I say I hate Horse Flats trail 8) ? Broad marine layer covered Pasadena, and there was a sign after a landslide that said "Danger-Road Closed"...I'll note there was a sign on the other entrance side last time I past through here. Anyway, great stuff up here. After getting confused for a few mins between the campground loop,toll road, & Henniger Flats I decided to check out the helipad...ahh too far, so down a trail named 'telephone' for the leftovers of an aborted attempt at putting telephone poles up Eaton....to get into Eaton proper was sort of smirky funny, a drainage basically blown up by erosion after bad human travel...starts of in a downclimb and becomes increasing sketchy. Instead of this snickery tom foolery, I went down the secondary route, which although well traveled, has a start of thick poision oak.

Down Eaton(canyoneering), and now to the waterfall above
Eaton Falls. There were 13 people here? Including a group of 3 with a fire going...+ trash & new graffiti. Eaton Falls was like standing room only. It was about 12:30 now and hot, almost like the beach with bikins,etc. Trail traffic heaviest Ive seen it, passing by one person every 30sec.

I then drove over to Pasadena Glen, bummer, it said private road and there was no parking either.....

Almost like winter&rain in the morning....from the early bird parking...


Almost to Henniger....


Helipad left, Muir peak right


Waterslide after the point of no return


Camera battery ran out after careless video taking....

^^^^water looks a little funky. Did you swim in it?

Yup, swimming is still essential in that part. I thought the water quality was still very good..the creek still had a flow and the algae was mostly at the bottom. Last time I was here there was zero visibility cold dark water(those pics are at my Flickr photostream page 10&11 .... http://www.flickr.com/photos/13833920@N03/page10/ )

Some video capture

Top of photo waterslide...
http://tinyurl.com/6jz5kd

Shortly after waterslide...
http://tinyurl.com/5vt4a2

Last photo spot...
http://tinyurl.com/5rsx5g

Heres a video that I didnt have a spot for in a posting from last storms back last winter(not Eaton).....
http://tinyurl.com/664xt4

And last but not least going back on subject, the sound of Eaton....

Click to download file

AW wrote:...I decided to check out the helipad...ahh too far, so down a trail named 'telephone' for the leftovers of an aborted attempt at putting telephone poles up Eaton....to get into Eaton proper was sort of smirky funny, a drainage basically blown up by erosion after bad human travel...starts of in a downclimb and becomes increasing sketchy. Instead of this snickery tom foolery, I went down the secondary route, which although well traveled, has a start of thick poision oak.

I'm curious about the 'telephone' trail...does it start somewhere on the road that loops out to the helipad? Where is the secondary route relative to the aborted telephone route? That area is pretty damn steep if ya ask me. Cool stuff though.

BTW, I agree...that horse trail does blow goat balls. It'll be a good thing when the toll road re-opens.

nice video, looks fun.

the Telephone trail is marked as helipad as a fork choice on the trail toward Idelhour(named toll road). Shortly on the road, there is a ascending path that is part of a loop for the helipad. But going down the road, there is a clear choice of descending to the bottom of Esme canyon, which is traveling upcanyon in Esme. ..suppose better to call it a switchback to other side of Esme canyon.The trail then goes level on the north side of the canyon...it offers a view of Muir peak and Eaton canyon. As soon as the trail hits above Eaton canyon it proceeds still high above the canyon bottom gradually losing elevation. At the end of the trail would be advisable to turn around for a hiker and not try to setup a loop with the Idelhour trail. There are still paths before the end of the telephone trail that can be taken before the end, but all of them end up at the same place(unless a person is Ok with a clean rappel of 50+ ft and missing the waterslides).

In this case most people get frozen in that first drainage and will do whatever it takes to use it...but there is usually more than one way to skin a cat...ok bad analogy, but I like to do whatever is easiest for me. Admitedly for this canyon, one person is expected to jump often enough...have to follow along on that one. Its all good fun though serious at times.

Crikey. I've seen that trail across Esme canyon as I've hiked out towards the helipad. Have been meaning to explore it. I had briefly looked for info on it but didn't know to search for 'telephone'. Now that I've looked in the right places, I see Brennen has some info on it. Thanks AW.

I wonder if those water tunnels I've seen pics of are out that way.

I dont know for sure where those tunnels are, but they are not a part of the telephone trail. If he took a left turn, he likely ended up on the Henninger Flats trail. The water tunnel in Eaton canyon is near a place called third falls...hehehe (this place can have some confusing names, third falls is downstream of the pool after 'the pool' but before the dam ). and Brennan describes how the other side as somewhere above Eaton Falls...anyways thats not it.

I think he is referring to the marked(now) Henninger Flats trail. It goes downhill and back towards all the facilities. Havent taken that route so just a guess.....marked it in green...

Hey AW, I did Eaton on 9/14 too! Took a friend down to introduce her to canyoneering. I think we started around 8am from the parking area so we were probably behind you. Did you slide/jump on the 2nd to the last waterfall (where the guys had the fire)? We had to set up an anchor (as usual).

Rick,

For slide falls, I have walked down and slid down...to be honest for me the canyon ends at third falls , for some reason it turns into a slog for me...the path down from the top of slide falls though is getting eroded...soon it will vanish or have mangly ropes.

So you introduce someone into one of our best canyons? Is it not all downhill from there?

Well ... I tortured her first by taking her down Silver on the Side canyon the day before. It was much brushier than I remember (lots of Poison Oak) and the flies were horrendous ... not to mention the heat. She said she never wanted to do another canyon ever again (though she did like the pot farm). I told her she had to at least do Eaton with me. After the 2nd or 3rd plunge she perked up and by the end she was totally into it. Of course I didn't bother to tell her there'd be swimming involved ... but she likes to swim so it worked out well.

I wanna play in the waterfall

Nice pics, AW. Was that OK in just a shortie? I might just have to go in there before another rain and the water gets too high... Eaton is a gem.

wouldnt recommend a shortie..unless one is swimmingly quick.

Should be one my last canyons for the time being. Still a lot of vegetation around these parts...but I still love canyons.