A few miles further on, a doe watches warily from across the dry streambed. Mt. Lowe from Eaton Saddle Rock is what comes to mind when thinking about the trail to Mt. Lowe from Eaton Saddle. Rock walls, rock falls, rock slides, each forming a different zone, each zone with its own distinctive plant association. When the zone repeats, so do the plants. This is most barren zone, this area between the trailhead and through the tunnel at the head of Eaton Canyon.
Few plants grow here.
Aromatic brickellbush, easily ignored, struggles to find a toehold in shallow cracks. Overhead the white-throated swifts, acrobats of the air, twitter constantly. Rock falls of angular large gray boulders break the oak canopy. Little grows on them. But on the stable ledges left behind by the ice-plucked rock, are hanging gardens.