As I continued the rough boulder scrambling with plenty more spots of bushwhacking through overgrowth, I especially had to pay attention to more sections…

This trail was actually surprisingly benign though I did at one moment jab my shoulder against a protruding branch, and it actually put a hole in my…

That really made me feel bad, and it was probably the last bit of reinforcement that I really pushed our luck with this bit of an adventure when so many…

…I guess that just goes to show you just how urbanized the Eaton Canyon Falls hike has become that now I’m the outlier when I show up in proper gear…

I was kind of hoping that we wouldn’t need them for this trip since the storm that blew by here two days ago should be long gone, but then I knew that the cold…

As we went through this part of Eaton Canyon, we noticed more infrastructure that I guess we hadn’t really noticed in our past visits (which goes to show you…

Although this trail didn’t look all that steep from where we were standing, it became obvious that once we committed to the steep scramble, we pretty much…

…in one moment, Dad managed to trip and fall down on the trail, where he actually landed on a yucca plant as well as split his pinky, which was bleeding…

Maybe it was a good thing that there wasn’t more water here or else there would be no way to even get a look at even part of the falls without getting right…

…all this barefoot walking (especially since I was wearing Chacos) made me very wary of poison oak exposure… as both Jay and I were bushwhacking…

She blamed me for telling her that it wasn’t the falls so she didn’t want to do the hike, but she didn’t want to hear the truth that she didn’t own her…

But just as Mom and I were about to turn and walk downstream, Dad suddenly took a spill and fell belly-first next to the ground that we had stood on…

The cop was still there issuing citations. I took the opportunity to ask him where the nearest legal parking spaces were. At first, he gave me a smug answer…

So I made sure that each of my steps were sure and steady even though my face, legs, and arms were being whipped and scratched by the twigs of the fallen trees as I was scrambling…

…we did notice another party with dogs that were also whimpering. There was something about this place that dogs didn’t seem to like apparently…

Sure enough when we finally got to the familiar entrance for the Eaton Canyon Falls, we saw that the gate to its large parking lot was indeed closed…

It was an unfortunate circumstance since the mood had now soured from what should have been a serene and peaceful hike through the forest in pursuit of another one of the waterfalls along the…

Eventually at about 9:20am, Julie rushed us out of the house just as I was dialing into my meeting. Fortunately, I didn’t have to do any presenting though it would have been good to see…

It was unnerving to see this many people out here on a Friday, and I’d bet that on the weekends, it would be even worse. Maybe lots of people were already out of school…

In my mind, I was thinking that all the caution that we were practicing was essentially getting thrown to the wind the moment you start involving people who don’t take this seriously…