FIRST FALLS

by

Mark Barkawitz 

    There used to be two ways to get up to First Falls in Eaton Canyon.  You could start at the Nature Center and hike 1.1 miles up the canyon trail to the White Bridge, then drop down to the creek and continue hiking for another half-mile up the switch-back canyon into the mountains.  Or you could get dropped off on Pinecrest Drive in Altadena and take the short-cut down the Mount Wilson Toll Road.  Then at the White Bridge, likewise drop down into the canyon and follow the creek on the winding, dirt trail that parallels and crisscrosses it.  The mountains are steep on each side back there, making it impossible to see ahead or behind the next switch-back turn.

    Spring’s the best time to go, when the winter run-off fills the creek.  But be careful off-trail, where the poison oak is lush.  You don’t want to mess with that stuff.

    I still remember the first time I hiked up there with my little brother Bruce and our St. Philip the Apostle classmates Dick Alfano and Pat Lawrence, who wore coke-bottle eyeglasses and his hair parted down the middle.  As we hurried around turn after turn, we began to wonder if there really was a waterfall—as we’d heard through the grammar school grapevine—within walking distance of our Pasadena homes. As we tired, we slowed and complained, laying blame on each other for this wild water chase. But then a faint, rumbling sound gradually became audible.  It grew louder as we continued deeper into the mountains.  Once again, we quickened our pace.  Suddenly, there it was: a real, live waterfall!  Admittedly, it was no Niagara Falls.  But the creek water above cascaded thirty-or-so feet down into a swimming pool-sized pond that was plenty deep enough for swimming where the course-sand bottom graduated deeply towards the waterfall.  We stripped down to our boxer shorts, stepped cautiously over the rocks in the shallows, and waded out into the cool water, taking turns dog-paddling under the pounding falls for as long as we each could stand it.  We laughed and dunked one another.  We climbed a dead tree that leaned conveniently against the wall, then hung and dropped from its only limb into deep water.  When the afternoon sun passed across the top of Razorback Ridge—on the southwestern mountain peak—it cast us in cool shadows.  We shivered with goose-bumps and dressed while still wet, and then ran back down the canyon, vaulting ourselves off boulders, our feet soggy in Jack Purcell tennies and JC Penney desert boots. 

    As we grew into our later teens, we brought our girlfriends, backpacks full of munchies, and dogs up into the canyon for a day of fun and passing sun at First Falls. 

    But some things have changed since my youth.  The Mount Wilson Toll Road is now closed due to landslides from heavy rains years ago and has remained so due to our state’s budgetary constraints.  The chain-link gate on Pinecrest Drive that guards the road’s entry is securely pad-locked and razor-wire loops atop the fencing.  On the Eaton Canyon Trail, road directions are now affixed on metal posts like street corner signs, making it seem less an adventure, merely an enjoyable hike. North of the White Bridge, where the switch-backs isolate its visitors, many of the large boulders—stoic remains of melting glaciers at the end of the Ice Age—are now defaced with gang graffiti.  The park rangers do their best to prime out the offending tags—the spray-painted fingerprints of gangbangers—with a rock-colored gray.  It’s safe enough up there when the foot traffic is heavy.  But like the rattlesnakes that occasionally sun themselves on a hot summer day, you need to be aware of their presence.  I usually take along my golden retrievers (which the dogs appreciate) and strap a big, hunting knife conspicuously on my side. Like the Boy Scouts—I’m prepared.  That tree limb-walking stick I hunt up when I’m deep in the canyon—it isn’t really for walking at all.  Know what I mean, jellybean? 

    And that old, dead tree that used to lean vertically, conveniently against the wall at First Falls has disappeared completely, no longer accommodating the dare-devil antics of adolescence.