Box Springs Paragliding Mar 28

It has been a while since I posted anything about paragliding but since my spring break is rapidly turning into a "staycation" and I happened to play around with my GoPro I figured I might as well. This was my 75th flight at my backyard Box Springs launch, but what made it notable was that it was the first time I have not flown here solo. I had a social hike up the Two Trees Trail with Chad and we met his cousin Jake at the upper carpark. A short jaunt along the Edison Trail and then surprisingly good burro trails led to Chad's launch about 200 ft higher than my standard launch. It was about 2 pm, earlier than I typically launch, and so I was quite happy to take my time learning by watching the other two launch and fly. The launch was slightly awkward between the wind, long weedy grass, bushes and boulders, and slightly cross wind but Chad managed to get up quickly. He gained good height above launch but I could see he had variable conditions with strong lift then equally strong sink. He had a solid 25 minute flight and landed before Jake launched. Jake gained good height right away. 

Thinking this could be a good condition learning opportunity I decided to descend down to my standard launch I am comfortable with. Sure enough I was able to easily ride lift up above the upper launch, which was a good note for future reference. There was a steady west wind such that headward progress was particularly slow. Other than the occasional jolty lift the conditions were smoother than I expected. I worked the bowl to gain height and then ventured over the C and around the corner to the Moreno Valley side with the best patches of poppies. I hit some sink and so fought back headward to over the C then back to the bowl for more lift. I topped out at about 3300 ft, a thousand feet over my launch but could see that Jake was well over 4000 ft further back above the main ridge. I could have worked the bowl further and then gone deeper over the range like Jake but wanted to take the opportunity to fly over Two Trees Canyon, the rock climbing area, and tag my house. I was able to milk a little more lift near the end of Blaine but not quite enough to climb back up to the top of the bowl and so after a few passes came in for a landing on the south field. My flight was a little over a half hour. Jake won the day flying well over an hour and managing to top land near his parked car. All in all it was a nice afternoon out and I learned a lot from flying with others. Psychologically I find it a lot easier too.

Deep Creek Mar 23

Keith organized Tim and I into standby for a Santa Margarita or Deep Creek run; Santa Margarita was at 270 cfs and dropping in the morning while Deep Creek seemed to be holding at 950 cfs so we met up and drove out to Hesperia. We parked at the Mojave Dam and did the usual 6 mile PCT hike-in in about 2.5 hrs. From the trail we got some views of some juicy looking rapids and a few nice slopes of yellow wildflowers. Snow level was probably less than a thousand feet in elevation above us. After the Rainbow Bridge, Kinley Creek had a good amount of water in it, prompting a brain-freeze barefoot walk across it. There was a 2 person inflatable boat attached to a rope across the creek at the hot springs. When we first arrived there was only one person that had hiked in the same way as us, but within 20 minutes there was nearly a dozen people that had come down from Bowen Ranch and crossed in the boat. We ate our quick lunches while soaking in the hot springs for about 20 minutes then it was time to go, already somehow about 3pm. 

I immediately noticed that the willows were less of an issue than I remembered and the boulder garden rapids had cleaned up considerably at this flow. We would later find out the flow was actually 1100 cfs, nearly double what I had previously run. It was fast and a little pushy with lots of split second decisions and blind commitments. I was feeling a little off for some reason and so played it a little cautious, portaging a few of the rapids that Keith and Tim ran including the nice bedrock corner rapid (frontispiece) and The Flume rapid. The Arid Piles portage sucked but we got through it, hopefully without poison oak contact, and put-in back at the Rainbow Bridge. The whole section to the bridge took us a lot longer than I think we were expecting. 

There were a few more long and complex rapids between the bridge and Prime Time Falls including one more long one I chose to portage. The dramatic spray of Prime Time Falls was an easy cue of when it was time to portage. The falls looked impressive at this flow and I questioned why I tried to run it on my first time down this section.

Group photo thanks to hiker!

Prime Time Falls

Immediately below Prime Time is another rapid nearly as intimidating, a steep, bumpy channel that slams into a wall below. We all portaged this and each had our own struggle trying to ferry across the flow to get downstream. At some point Tim flipped and I lost my paddle recovering his. Tim and Keith each flipped a couple times; I had some close calls (and a few portages) but no flips. We past the last rapid of consequence above the bend above the gauge and floated out casually the rest of the way, spotting a few beavers en route. We took out at 7 pm (late!) and carried boats up the dam access road for the nice clean asphalt area at the top. We all had a great trip. I'm getting excited for the possibility of trying out the full 14 mile run starting near Arrowhead at some point. I'm guessing 800-1000 cfs is probably my sweet spot now that I have seen it at 1100 cfs. Thanks to Keith for making it happen.

Malibu Creek Mar 8

A run totally off my radar, Eric roadside scouted a few sections of Malibu Creek on Monday including a neat bedrock gorge section and reported back that it looked great. Apparently Malibu Creek has a very different much lower rate of fall following rains compared to most SoCal rivers and so we put together a foursome of Eric, Keith, Gavin, and myself to check it out Wednesday. It seemed rare and worthwhile enough that I rallied to restructure my work week to make it happen. Keith and I carpooled from Redlands, battling the morning traffic width-wise across Los Angeles for over 2.5 hours. Thankfully Gavin and Eric arrived early to set our shuttle and so we met them at our Piuma Bridge put-in, 5 miles upriver of the Pacific Ocean. I did not know what to expect and so got worried when I walked underneath the bridge to find a channel with a mere trickle in it; thankfully it turned out the water was in the furthest channel initially hidden out of sight. It took much longer than it should have to get ready and we finally pushed into the river around 11am.

It started initially as a class II bash through confined vegetation obstacles, then some flow joined at the confluence of Cold Creek a few minutes on. Some sort of concrete weir was passed and then soon the sandstone boulders began. There were some interesting sections with quick blind turns around car+ boulders and some scouting and portaging the more choked sections. At the flow we had things were mellow and fun, low stress as we worked our way down. It was just a beautiful pleasant day out. 

Bedrock became more prominent, improving the quality of the rapids considerably and starting the best quarter-mile section. The scenery and whitewater unburdened my mind.

We could see the sandstone walls closing in to a narrows downstream with an excellent drop-pool section including a single fairly clean 8-foot falls. This reach was truly spectacular and I felt a long way away from southern California, let alone Los Angeles. Just before the last pool at the end we stopped for lunch to savor this spot a little longer, only a mile into our 5 mile run to the sea. Healthy looking dudleyas hung from cracks in the towering cliffs. The sandstone had some nice tafoni in places.

The next mile was a mix of vegetation and smaller boulder slaloming, overall decent quality but with few standout features. The 100-foot tall Rindge Dam announced itself very clearly. We found the bypass trail on river left easily enough and I took care to work my way down the muddy trail dodging boat puncturing yuccas and poison oak. The spray and winds at the base of the dam raged impressively.

Oof. The mile below the dam was thoroughly choked with rocks and logs which slowed us down and caused light despair at our rate of forward progress. We pulled out the hand saw a few times to clear some channels and a couple other times I lifted branches to allow the hardshellers passage. A straining branch caught Eric and forced a swim; we spent probably 20 minutes trying to find his paddle when it miraculously appeared braced against a rock downstream. There were a few good moments in there amongst the jank.

The vegetation chokes became less frequent but also the creek gradient notably dropped too. The canyon began to open up and before too long we could see fancy homes and palm trees. We passed underneath a low bridge then under Pacific Coast Highway, then riffles into the coastal lagoon and river mouth. I was happy to avoid dealing with saltwater on all my gear but the others paddled straight into the ocean and played in the waves for a bit. It was a beautiful clear day with Palos Verde Peninsula and Catalina Island visible on the horizon. 

We walked the beach trail about 10 minutes back to the parking lot. All in all it was a great trip. It took us a little over 5 hours to go 5 miles but I really enjoyed the run. The highlights were the fantastic bedrock gorge section and fighting through the vegetation ended up being worth the novelty of paddling all the way to the sea. Thanks to Keith, Eric, and Gavin for an awesome day out. It was refreshing to see that there was still some more to explore in southern California.