The Eaton Canyon waterfalls are oasis in the desertscape of the San Gabriel Mountains. A short, one mile hike gets anyone from the electric sprawl to a cascade of mountain waters in a box canyon, breathing rich oxygen from oak and bay laurel, where the city seems like an unlikely myth.
It was 330 on the Sunday before MLK Day, when I parked to take my daughters, 2 and 1 years old, to check out the falls. Enough time sitting in the house, car seats, sidewalks, cafes..these girls needed to be free- climbing boulders, chucking rocks, swinging sticks.
What better way to demonstrate the freedom MLK died for than to set loose two racially diverse girls into the American wilderness?
There are three public access points into Eaton Canyon- the closest to the waterfalls being the gated entrance to a fire road in a residential neighborhood nestled in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, surrounded by clifftop estates overlooking the public lands to the north and east.
Pulling up, I noticed no cars were parked by the gate, prompting me to read parking signs very closely: "No parking on weekends."
I parked a few blocks away, where the signs ended, then walked along a 12 foot high chain link fence topped with barbed wire to the fire road gate, where I read another sign stating,
"GATES OPEN FROM SUNRISE TO SUNSET. CITY OFFICIALS DO NOT HAVE KEY TO GATE."
So, we have to get back by sunset, I thought, and hoisted one of the girls over a shoulder, then got to the trail.
It was pretty packed- a church group milling around a small swimming hole, some tatted, shirtless homies pulling leashed pitbulls down the trail, Chinese couples in matching hiking gear, small groups of teen agers and college kids giggling in packs, a few elderly with backpacks and walking sticks; a busy holiday sunday.
There are normal delays when working with a two year old girl- not wanting to wear pants, or shoes, or wanting to observe the stinkbug crawl through the granite sand. Or, not wanting to be held while a parent tried to balance on wet logs while crossing the creek, flowing fast from snow run off. Also, she refused to follow the trail, or walk for more than three or four minutes at a time. Carrying 26 pounds of weight is alright, unless it's squirming and talking back, and can degenerate into tantrum in less than a second.
But the hike was great- cool, clean, a river of green. Time passed, and the sun blasted the canyon walls gold. Red tail hawks circled above without flapping a wing. The girls got their feet wet, jumped off rocks, grabbed handfuls of bay leaves and sage, ran down the trail and swung tiny purple flowers in their tiny hands.
I had no interest in having to walk back to the car without daylight, so before we had gotten to the falls, it was time to turn back.
The punchline to this little essay is probably already clear.
The gate was locked. Sun was still setting, but the gate was locked.
I was the first to stand around and wonder just how this came to be, so it was clear that many of the others who had parked at this gate had recently walked through it. A group of Asian kids walked up, radio blaring. A few bikers arrived. A Latino couple waltzed up.
"The guy with the key lives about a block away," volunteered a biker. "And he never unlocks the gate for anyone."
The task ahead was to carry the two girls down canyon about a mile and a half to another gate, then walk back up the road to my car.
It gave me an hour or so to ruminate on the situation, first walking through a pleasant fading light down a wide, flat trail, then, as it got dark, balancing across a comibination of slick logs and granite rocks to cross the river and get to the gate, then, walking up a dark street without sidewalks as SUV's whizzed by.
Here's what I imagined:
Mr. NIMBY, an older white male, lives very close to the fire road gate in a fabulous home perched on the arroyo, from which he takes in the view of the public lands at his leisure. Sunset is particularly spectacular, but he doesn't notice that, as he has the routine of walking to the fire road gate, and locking it with his key.
To get this key, he had to talk to County officials, for a very long time, perhaps make donations to certain campaigns. He had to express, in no uncertain terms, his issues, and press for a "local" solution.
Let me enumerate the many threats to his well being.
Too many people came "up" from the valley "below," a valley holding the highest numbers of Asians and Latinos in urban America.
They bring with them their problems- leaving trash, grafitti on rocks and structures, and sometimes, virile, unspaded pit bulls. They play loud rap music. Some smoke pot. Sometimes, they laugh loudly, and their car engines can be heard halfway down the block- all the way to the next house.
Five days out of the week, the silence and serenity of the wilderness surrounds him. But every weekend, they return, parking their cars in every available spot on his street. He has no idea who is walking his street, which is why he built a wall round his home.
He is in fear, even with a wall, some guns, elaborate alarm systems, a law enforcement agency a phone call away.
Who wants to live under these conditions?
So, he sets up regulations. Rational solutions to his irrational fears.
A gate. A lock. A key. Barbed wire to keep people from climbing out of that wilderness at night. Because the precise time, in hours and minutes, that sunset and sundown take place cannot be determined, there are no posted times of open and closure. The timing of opening and closing the gate then, is up to him.
Once a gate is closed, it will not be re-opened for any reason, because, who wants rules that aren't rules? The rules need to be respected. The gate gets closed at sunset. The gate re-opens at sunrise. Mr. Nimby decides exactly when that is. That's why he has the key.
Now, I know the presumptions of my imagination very well.
1) Rich white landowners always get cast in my imagination as fearful nativist racists who seek to compound their privledge the way they compound their interest. They use this political capital to control natural resources, exploit other nations/races, and destroy all threats to their self-perceptions as ruling class alpha males.
2) Rich white landowners consider themselves the "stewards of the land," which my imagination presumes means seeing the poor, the immigrant, the less educated, as threats to the "pristine wilderness"- eliciting an environmental elitism which cuts along racial and class lines. (Ed Abbey himself, God rest his soul, was afflicted with this myopia.)
3) Los Angeles is a city built for the automobile, not the human. Restricting parking near public lands/ rare open space in LA is a policy created by such rich white landowners/ stewards of the land, to limit the poor, the immigrant, the less educated from enjoying the uncrowded serenity of natural beauty that the rich white landowner considers to be his natural environ.
To be fair, the guy might not be white.
To be fairer, there is another parking area with an gate that is always open (1.5 miles down.)
I had a long time to get pretty specific about some solutions as well.
First, find out who Mr. NIMBY is. There must be public record of the private key holder to a fire road accessing public lands.
Second, write up a nice story about him for the local press. Or, if the local press doesn't want it, then on-line.
Third, advocate for a policy that gates to public lands be open on Holiday weekends until a certain hour, say, 8 PM, so that families carrying young children can enjoy the sunset at the waterfall, and leisurely return to their cars.
Fourth, explain that it's a safety issue. Had anything happened to one of my daughters because I fell in the dark on a rock in the river, or was hit by a car on the walk back, I would have blamed him, personally, for trying to keep people like me out of "his" neighborhood.
More later.
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