The wait for water. Keith and I had been monitoring the latest storm with great interest. As it came through Riverside the intensity was decidedly less than advertised but we still hoped some local rivers would appear. We monitored the USGS stream gauges for the Santa Margarita near Temecula, Big Rock in the San Gabriels, and Deep Creek in the San Bernardinos. We scheduled a 5:30a check-in to see what happened with the gauges. Santa Margarita and Big Rock had too small of a response but Deep Creek peaked at about 1500 cfs, almost certainly too high. The only trip we knew of did it at 100 cfs but we both felt pretty sure we'd want more water than that, like say 400 cfs. So we played the waiting game, watching the latest readings came in just after the top of each hour. By noon we identified that it was decaying at about 80 cfs per hour and by 2p we decided to give it a try. We drove over the San Bernardinos to avoid the Friday traffic, and started hiking across the dam at the confluence with the Mojave at 4:15p.
The hike. The trail is actually the Pacific Crest Trail and is adapted from a perfectly graded former flume high on the hillside. Graffiti, trash, unfortunately nothing special. We could see most of the river from the trail which gave us a good sense of the obstacles we'd face: bouldery rapids and water filtering through thickets. We were pressed for time and were already getting worried about the dropping creek level and so decided to put on at the rainbow bridge about three miles up. By the time we inflated and suited up it was 6:15p when we finally put on to the foamy brown river.
The put-in. Almost immediately we encountered the worse stretch of thickets which we had to plow through. This was unpleasant and also slowed us down considerably. After a few minutes of working our way to the best channel, we were back onto a better behaved creek. The creek was fast. Conveyor like pools prompted careful looks downstream and quick decisions of where to maneuver before committing to a particular line down a rapid. It was a little bumpy overall and it was clear we actually would have benefited from more water (should have gotten an earlier start!). There were some moments of fun and the bedrock sections were rather nice apart from the ever-present graffiti.
The bashing. Everything was straightforward enough until we reached the mini-gorge of Prime Time Falls (frontispiece), a solid bedrock drop with two paths and two tiers each. Keith smartly made the decision to portage while I stared at it looking for a good line. There wasn't one. The top left had a nasty slot with a lateral wave but a clean second drop into the pool below. The top right was a straightforward drop, which led to a bony second drop that landed on bedrock at the edge of the pool. I chose left; I chose poorly. The narrow passage led me too close to the left wall where the lateral flipped me and I got bounced upside down the rest of the falls. When I came up my paddle had drifted off out of sight into the foam, I could taste blood, and my elbow was pretty severely bruised. Adrenaline was doing its job though and we searched for my paddle as quickly as we could, finding it beached just downstream.
The race for light. Every minute was a minute closer to darkness and so we speed on as best we could. Fortunately the quality of the river generally improved through this stretch, though there was still the occasional tight passage between clumps of vegetation. We had gone two miles, we were losing the light. We had one final right turn before we reached the stream gauge where the valley opened up and I thought we would get just enough light to finish our run when we came across two people on the left (wrong) side of the creek. As one of them was up to his knees in the water my first impression was they were fishing and camping there and I was about to plow past with little acknowledgement when one of them asked us for help. We'd have to save downstream for another day.
The rescue. Turns out we had two local kids from Hesperia that had hiked down from the bridge and now found themselves on the wrong side of a flooded creek. They had tried crossing unsuccessfully, drowning two cameras and soaking their clothes in the process. They had no flashlight other than on their nearly dead cell phones. Without us they would have continued hiking down the left side, probably until it was too dark and their lights were used up. Rescue would not have come until the morning and they were looking to have a miserable night ahead of them. To say they were excited to see us was an understatement. We paddled upstream a hundred feet to the calmest part of the river in this stretch and used the throw rope to setup a fixed line. I sat one of the kids in my boat and explained how to cross. The fastest part of the current almost got him but he figured it out and made it. The second kid crossed a little smoother. I then swam across while pulling on the throw rope. They were ecstatic. I had Keith help me peel my wetsuit off my stiff left arm and we then began collapsing our boats. Fortunately I found an excellent foottrail that led us up the hill back to the PCT, where uneventful hiking took us back to our car and one of their severely pissed off moms.
So it was a strange trip between the late start and the legitimate rescue. We ended up having a flow of about 550-450 cfs while we were on the creek and we both agreed that more would have been better. We only ran about 2 miles of creek but made really good time ticking it off in about an hour and it was worth it to get out. I'd love to do the full 14 miles that are boatable sometime. Thanks to Keith for the trip. Photos of me thanks to Keith.
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