Since it’s been a while, we’ll do two hikes instead of one today. Walk with me, if you are willing to brave potential flash floods or almost guaranteed heat stroke, if the warning signs of the CA governmental LA county parks website are to be trusted. We’ll do Altadena’s Eaton Canyon in the morning, and El Prieto in the afternoon. Bonus appearance by some daily wildlife sightings hopefully satisfies readers’ yearning for the obligatory nature shots…

Eaton Canyon is easily accessible, has plenty of amenities for picnic gatherings and the like at the park’s entrance and a parking lot that is so overcrowded on the weekends that everyone recommends to hike only during the week. Follow that recommendation and you’ll be rewarded by beautiful landscapes, including oak groves, a (currently) flowing stream, cacti oases, wildflowers and eventually chaparral dotted hills.

These hills are now green – a very unusual sight, I am told, related to the torrential rains coming down across the last months. The river that you have to cross to get to a longer portion of the trail could not be forded when I visited, unless willing to hop barefoot across slippery boulders and shores. I erred on the side of caution, and still had a nice walk on the southern side of the stream.

Here, and in so many other locations, birds and lizards can be found if you approach quietly.

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An equally, if differently, beautiful walk yielded some fascinating history ( I learned much of it here.) Altadena’s “El Prieto” (meaning “the dark man”) was also known as Black Mountain for its resident, Robert Owens who had bought his own freedom from slavery and came to the free state in the early 1850s. According to the census, there were only 12 African Americans in Los Angeles at the time. Someone (eventually) more famous settled on this mountain in the late 1800s, Owen Brown, son of John Brown – yes, that John Brown – a white man whose attempt in 1859 to spark a slave rebellion at the Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia arsenal resulted in his hanging for the crime of inciting violent rejection of slavery.

Owen, the only Brown son to survive participation in the Harper’s Ferry raid, was a fugitive for 2 decades before he made it out West, where his sister had settled in Pasadena. He homesteaded on the mountain, now dedicated to his father’s name and legacy, and was buried on a plot of land that was part of the homestead, in the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains, after more than 2000 people, both black and white, had paid their respects during the funeral to this staunch believer in racial equality.

Photograph from the Altadena Historical Society/

His grave site in the Altadena Meadows attracted 1000s of visitors across the years, contemplating what the concrete headstone stood for. It read, “Owen Brown son of John Brown The Liberator, Died Jan. 9, 1889, Aged 64 yrs.”

Not everyone shared the admiration, however. Private landowners hated the intrusion and tried to keep people out with No Trespassing signs, eventually losing law suits to prohibit access. Early attempts to make the site a historical monument failed as well.

The gravestone went “missing,” twice as it turns out, rolled down the ravine by vandals or opponents of the preservation society. By sheer coincidence it was found the second time around, having been missing for a decade, during a 2012 hike by artist Ian White, son of Charles White, the Los Angeles painter who had only painted two portraits of White men, Abraham Lincoln and John Brown, among his vast portraiture oeuvre.

Shown at the Charles White Elementary School, L.A.

Things have improved since then. An (independent) dispute over land rights and zoning issues for a near-by gated community of pricey homes produced unlikely allies. The developer has become a supporter of the preservation efforts, helping the community to protect the grave and access to it, getting some of his needs filled in turn. All agree that no visitor center will ever be build for the grave site or parking provided for busloads of people. You have to find neighborhood parking and hike up, which will only happen if you are really determined. The historians involved in the process, USC historian Bill Deverell and Michelle Zack are “...planning to help develop curriculum and train teachers to integrate Brown’s story into the Civil War, its aftermath and westward expansion. Charles Thomas of Outward Bound Adventure plans to develop a lesson that includes discussion of slavery and the black wilderness experience, according to the project proposal.” (Ref.)

I was hot when hiking the short but steep trail uphill. Blooming Ceanothus dotted the hills with blue clouds, the sweet smell of wild sage suffused the air. The grave marker is re-installed, and someone had spread wildflower seeds. The view over the valley was unobstructed by clouds or smog, just beautiful. You could do worse for resting places! Well deserved by a man true to justice. May his memory be a blessing.

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Music today by Pete Seeger, appropriate for the grave site of an abolitionist.