I had only been back in the country a few days when a relatively dry winter started dropping some precipitation. I had a commitment in the morning but flows for the Santa Margarita looked surprisingly good and Keith managed to talk me into an afternoon run. We caravaned from my house at about 12:30p and set a shuttle at the end of the avocado fields, which gave us a 6 mile gorge run and avoided the 6 miles of reedy, willowy mank. We suited up at the Temecula Jack In The Box and walked the couple hundred feet to the foamy brown creek.
I generally led the way, having last run it in November and remembering most the the rapids allowing us to read and run. As we turned the corner and entered the gorge it became immediately clear that the 600 cfs flow led to a dramatically juicier river than the 350 cfs I had previously experienced. Some steep rapids were filled in and much easier, but others had sticky hydraulics and challenging holes. I would not have felt comfortable running the river solo at this flow!
I did a good job recalling the rapids which allowed us to move quickly. We had a great time in some of the mid-gorge rapids. The river right waterfall was following pretty well; surprisingly the river left falls was dry.
I had a clean run for the first 4 miles but then had a slew of upsets. A couple I was able to self-rescue fairly easily. Another I got very separated from my boat and needed Keith's help wrangling it and throwing me a tow line to cross the river. This did a lot to kill my confidence and it took me several more rapids before I got my groove back. Again I was very surprised at the power of the river at this flow. Perhaps we should have scouted a few of these rapids.
Despite my mishaps it took about 2 hours to get to the take out. Fortunately we found a convenient access point and trail to get us straight back to the cars. Traffic was horrendous going back (we even stopped for pizza to break up the misery), but it was well worth it to see this special SoCal river in pushy conditions. Usually we are paddling to chase a rapidly decaying river coming down from a peak flow but the gauge revealed we actually had another peak while we were on the river and the flow went from 600cfs up to 800cfs!
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