Henninger Flats Hike from Eaton Canyon

 This morning I walked into the Eaton Canyon Natural Area and just kept going.    I walked through the parking lot, around the native garden, on to the wide trail that leads down to Eaton Wash, then on to the steep Walnut Canyon trail which leads to the Mt. Wilson toll road and on up to Henninger Flats.

This is the view from Henninger Flats.  The view is expansive.  If you enlarge the photo, you can see St. Lukes in the foreground, downtown Pasadena and downtown LA at the middle left and if you look hard toward the center of the photo there are the vague outlines of Catalina Island with its two conical hills.   Directly westward, toward Santa Monica, you can see the Pacific Ocean.

 The Mt. Wilson toll road dates back to 1891.    All the way up the road, you can look down the mountain to see tiny cars traversing the streets below.   I thought this contrast was interesting -- the old dirt toll road on the left somewhat paralleling the shining sliver of 210 freeway down below.  The freeway is the white line toward the upper right of the photo.

Though not an easy hike, I crossed paths with many other hikers, some runners and a few mountain bikers.   Here's a mountain biker making his way up the trail in the face of the morning sun.