Mill Creek April 30

I hoped to talk someone else into checking out Mill Creek north of Redlands with me but came up short. Only a 25 minute drive from my house, how could I let pass the rare opportunity for some truly local whitewater I thought. I drove Highway 38 into the San Bernardinos; despite the mid-late afternoon nearly every roadside pull-out was filled to the brim with cars associated with people escaping the heat by hanging out near the creek. Trash everywhere of course. I stopped at many of the pull-outs to scout the 2.5 miles of creek above the bridge. Some sections looked like amazing class IV+ but alas there were over a dozen straining logs that needed to be cleared before it could be considered a reasonable thing to run. It was steep and fast but perhaps a little shallow. 

I drove back down to the bridge at the mouth of the canyon and found a place to park and put-in just below where a suspended pipe crosses the creek. For all the scouting and inflation and suiting up the run was incredibly fast and I cleared 2 miles of the creek in a little over 20 minutes! The run was a mostly featureless sluicebox but occasionally a steeper drop or a sweeping bend would add variety. And there were plenty of rocks to maneuever around. I ran the one section that goes through some overgrown vegetation and managed to get strained out of my boat at the end, my only flip. It was fast and fun read-and-run but also a little too bumpy at times. The blooming yuccas were a nice touch. I debated trying my luck running more than 2 miles but noticed the creek getting bonier as the gradient lowered and knew I'd run into some weird hydro schemes downstream. I took out at the east end of Mentone. I quickly remembered that no one picks up hitchhikers in southern California and ended up walking the highway back to my car despite having my thumb out most of the way. I think it was worth doing and my curiosity was satisfied. Thanks to Chad for the beta on this run.

EF San Gabriel River April 28

After a fairly mellow West Fork trip the previous weekend, the next obvious San Gabriel target would be to get back on the East Fork San Gabriel for the first time since peak-COVID 2020. In contrast to the West Fork's largely dam released flow (with seemingly relatedly murky brown waters) and lower elevation catchment, the high headwaters and pristine snowmelt of the East Fork would mean healthy crystalline blue flow. Keith would be out of commission but Eric and Tim rallied to join for a 9-mile packraft run with 5 miles of wilderness below the Bridge to Nowhere followed by 4 miles of roadside whitewater. We knew there were several heads-up wood obstacles in the roadside section but had no idea what might await us in the hike-in section above. In the trip leader role I got to set the meeting time; I argued that good adventures start early and did not get any push-back.

The three of us met at the mouth of the canyon at a tidy 7am and drove up. We dropped two vehicles at our planned Graveyard Canyon take-out and piled into my car on up to the roadend Bridge to Nowhere Trailhead. I stopped briefly to look at the section of river below Cattle Canyon to get a sense of how the river compared to when I looked the week before (basically the same flow which should be an exciting level that I hoped would not rise too much as the day warmed and snow melted). Even at this early hour on a Friday the trailhead was already about a third full. Already packed, we hit the trail in no time. The stream crossings were non-trivial and reluctantly I think we needed to use the hiker strewn ropes for every crossing, which came up to our waists. These crossings were brisk wake-ups but we dried quickly when we resumed hiking. Overall we made good time on the way up. I noticed a complete lack of wood issues in the river, a good sign that we would have a high quality run on the way down. I pointed out the swirling white dikes of Swan Rock as we passed it by. Right before the bridge we spotted seven big horn sheep, an encouraging sign for the Sheep Wilderness. We all dropped packs at the Bridge to Nowhere and had a look around. 

Swan Rock

Some of the seven bighorn sheep near the bridge 

Keith and I ran the committing "Gorge from Nowhere" under the bridge last time but at the current flow it looked spicy with nasty hydraulics below some of the drops and the rock sieve below the bridge looked worse to deal with. I was relieved that Eric and Tim agreed this class V gorge was a skip! Eric and I walked across the bridge and had a peek around the upstream corner. There would be miles of first descent possibility for the brave and bold. After a snack in the shade we backtracked slightly to try using the trail I spotted at the rincon a quarter-mile downstream. This trail was pretty unpleasantly overgrown with poison oak (I shuddered every time I saw Tim or Eric casually blast through it), but very efficiently put us onto a nice shaded flat with good river access. We could tell the excitement was going to start right away as we geared up. We had a safety meeting to make sure we were all on the same page for this fast-paced run and then Eric led the charge. 

The action started immediately and rarely let up. Eddies and calm stretches were so few and far between that we tried to catch nearly every one we could find just to catch our breath. Needless to say I got almost no photos and the GoPro footage will have to do most of the work conveying the run. Initially we stopped to scout a few blind turns but once we got into the swing of it we read-and-ran everything. The flow level was near-perfect, the engagement and maneuvering around boulders constant, and the scenery stunning. The run was such a pleasant mixture of sunny alluvial stretches with wide valley views and shaded tunnels through the trees. The water was a refreshing temperature and a crystal-clear blue like I have seen nowhere else in southern California. Miraculously there was not a single wood issue on the entire 5 mile wilderness run. The three of us had constant smiles of joy for miles. The steeper first two miles were particularly amazing. I had a total of three flips, probably within the same quarter-mile of river, which normally probably would have frustrated and disappointed me but even the flips could not dissuade my enthusiasm on this run. The joy of an essentially 5 mile-long class III read-and-run rapid made this one of the very best whitewater runs I have ever done. Tim and Eric both agreed which I think says a lot.

Including scouting and a snack break, we covered the 5 mile wilderness run in a little over 1.5 hours. Everyone was still gung-ho to ride out the remaining 4 miles of roadside section and so we did. Almost immediately downstream of the trailhead we encountered the first of several wood obstacles. This first one was arguably the nastiest with a thick amalgamation of wood forming a partial sieve and siphon across the whole river. This was beyond our abilities to free and so we portaged and continued on. Along the main straightaway below Cattle Canyon we waved to a grey uniformed forest service group with all their phone cameras at the ready; I later found out I was featured on the Angeles National Forest Facebook page with a cautionary caption on river safety. We waved at various other people picnicking along the river on our way down. We had to do one more read-and-run portage around a log. We stopped to cut and remove four other wood obstructions including the thick log at the end of a long blind rapid. This took time but hopefully would be worthwhile if others chose to do the run with the remaining snowmelt. The run from below the trailhead now does not require any scouting and has only one easy portage.

We made it to Graveyard Canyon without incident, covering 9 miles of crystal-clear southern California whitewater. We closed the shuttle and parted ways with Eric. Everyone was jazzed by the excellent run. Eric and I improvised a stop at an Azusa market for some cold drinks and then had some tasty sit-down Mexican at Max's Mexican Cuisine, which I would happily return to. A most satisfying day to see the East Fork of the San Gabriel River in what was almost certainly the best condition it has been in historically in terms of flow and wood. Thanks to Eric and Tim for a great day out.

WF San Gabriel River April 22

At all times now I am consciously aware of the rare condition of flowing water in southern California and have a nagging need to catch as much of it as possible! This weekend I was looking for a mellow-ish packraft day trip locally and knew the East and West Forks of the San Gabriel should be running so that seemed like a good direction to head. With the previous trip to Bear Creek we had ended on about a mile of the West Fork. In contrast to the more continuous barreling freight train of the East Fork, the West Fork seemed to have more discrete rapids with pool-drop sections and a less pushy flow. There is about a mile below our takeout that should be boatable before hitting the reservoir and the West Fork Rd to Cogswell Dam would allow us to scout the entirety of the river above Bear. We snagged a choice parking spot at the West Fork Trailhead and strolled to the river to have a look. It was brownish and certainly less flow than on our Bear Creek descent weeks earlier but perfectly boatable and a friendly flow for getting Heather on the river. 

We loaded packs and started hiking along the foot/bike traffic only West Fork Rd, scouting features as we went. Some small branch and log obstructions I was able to remove then and there with a small handsaw. For a road it was a very pleasant hike with the river always to our side, mossy shaded cliffs, views of distant slopes of wildflowers, and at least a dozen cascading waterfalls, including several that plummeted right onto the road. The upward scouting turned into a game of Simon Says of sorts, where we tried to remember the sequence of particular wood obstacles we would face on the way down and the distinguishing features that would cue us in before it was too late to react; the further up we went the more obstacles stacked, taxing our memory. At a couple places we cheated by placing cairns at portages that we could knock down as we returned. Whenever something looked annoying or like a portage we would see another nice section above, luring us to hike onward. We hiked up about as far as I could have hoped, to where I previously parked to do landslide fieldwork, 4.5 miles up from the trailhead. Upstream was a risky limbo log spanning a rapid and so this seemed like a satisfactory place to put on. 

It was a beautiful sunny day and the water was fairly warm so I somewhat hesitantly put on my drysuit, wishing I had given myself a bathing suit option. We quickly got into the swing of things and navigated the first few remembered obstacles with ease. At one tricky sequence with a split channel we had some miscommunication and I led us down the bumpier bushier channel but otherwise things went fairly smoothly. We had some nice straight riffled sections with open views thanks to the abundant dead trees and some tighter turns that closed us into shaded tree tunnels.

Heather portaged a few of the things that I ended up running. Given the incredible logjams we saw it was amazing just how boatable this run was. I ended up portaging four times, three of which were short detours around river wide strainer logs, and one longer portage with a full stack of logs clogging a couple hundred feet of the river. A particular scenic highlight was the forested section above Bear Creek with some nice waterfalls plunging in riverside (frontispiece) that felt like it could have been in the lush Pacific Northwest.

Upon arrival at Bear Creek about 100 cfs of crystal clear water was added and the rapids downstream had a bit more punch to them. One of these Heather portaged and another she pinballed her way down but to her credit she went the whole run without flipping. She was feeling tired and satisfied when we eddied out at the parking lot footbridge and after some discussion I would run the remaining mile down to the OHV area solo and she would meet me with the car. This bonus section had some great rapids. The steepest rapid on the whole run had a protruding log I stopped to saw, opening the fun rapid for descent. Our timing worked out well with Heather beating me to my takeout by a couple minutes. Our hike up the West Fork took about 2hrs to go 4.5 miles while scouting, while my 5.5 mile run down took a little over 2 hours. Not a bad little SoCal outing. Before heading out of the range we detoured over to look at the East Fork. It had a wonderfully swollen flow of crystal blue snowmelt and looked great! I'm hungry for more river! Thanks to Heather for snapping some photos of me while portaging and letting me check out the lower extra credit section of the river.

Carrizo Plain April 15-16

Carrizo Plain was a longstanding blank on the mental map of places I have been, and seemingly a total blank for pretty much every Californian I mentioned it to. It occupies the in-between-land west of Bakersfield and east of San Luis Obispo. It is a vast and largely still intact grassland plain 5 miles wide and 40 miles long, sitting unusually high at 2000ft elevation. It is a closed basin with its waters never making it to the Pacific, instead ponding at the alkalic ephemeral Soda Lake at its center. The lake was briefly mined for sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) in the 1860s. Centuries before, Native Americans passed through, painting intricate and multi-colored pictographs on sacred sandstone rock outcroppings. In 1960 the existing Spanish land grant was parceled out into over 7200 2.5-acre sections by overenthusiastic or deceptive developers; aqueduct water was never routed to the valley and so a 25 square mile area contains a gridded scar of named streets with no buildings or residences persisting to this day. South of this area is the less disturbed portion of the Carrizo Plain housed within a national monument, but even the monument has copious private inholdings including active cattle ranches. Before all of it there was the San Andreas Fault, what I had best known the Carrizo Plain for because of its classic landscape features like Wallace Creek. The topo maps still refer to the band along the fault as the "San Andreas Rift Zone"; the mountain range at the eastern margin of the plain is the aptly named Temblor Range. The area is strikingly vast and empty for California, more like Wyoming or the Snake River Plain than anything. Sooner or later I knew I wanted to visit the Carrizo Plain, if nothing else for the geologic pilgrimage to visit Wallace Creek. Our dramatically rare wet season led into a dramatically spectacular wildflower bloom (I refuse the term "super"), and word on the street was that Carrizo Plain was easily one of the top places in California to see the bloom. So if we could tolerate everyone else in California jockeying to invade this isolated valley on one of the few weekends before the heat burned all the flowers to a crisp, then this would be the ideal time to check out the Carrizo Plain. More enticing to me was that it was a BLM-managed national monument so apart from a few specific rules (like "no vehicles within 100 ft of water bodies"), I could fly a drone to heart's content. This I did, expending four full batteries taking in the sights from the air.

A traffic-battling drive across the Los Angeles Basin found us camping at Los Alamos Campground north of Santa Clarita after first choice Oak Flat was closed. After breakfast at Wheeler Ridge/Grapevine, we drove west across the Central Valley, past the chaotically apocalyptic infrastructure of the Midway-Sunset Oil Field, and on to twisting turns of Highway 58 to access the north (really central) portion of Carrizo Plain. Highway 58 was slow going with many cars (including ours) choosing to stop at the many pull-outs for our first taste of flowers coating the hillsides. There were some poppies but yellow was in high fashion.

 

Once through the Temblor Range we turned off to head to the boardwalk trail at the west end of Soda Lake. Here we caught up to the flower hordes! Cars spread out on the side of the road for distances of more than a quarter-mile of either side of the trailhead. We parked and walked out to the lake briefly, taking the opportunity to take some close-up photos of the many types of flowers. Unsurprisingly the lake was full to the brim.

We then drove on the rougher Simmler Road to the east side of the lake. Here too were plenty of cars parked in pullouts for roadside flowers, a vast carpet of yellows and golds seeming to extend as far as the eye could see. Even at this distance we could see splashes of orange poppies and shadow-like purples on the distant Temblor Range.

While planning our trip using aerial photos, I had previously visualized this as a place I was interested in flying my drone. I was not disappointed! The flower-lined channels and pools were a fantastical array beyond my imagination. I marveled at each view as I maneuvered the drone. Unreal! 

We drove on to base of the Temblor Range, turning up a side road for yet another drone view of yellows and purples. We witnessed a funny phenomenon where virtually anyone stopping or detouring up a side road prompted others to do the same. Basically there were thousands of people stumbling their way around the plains, not wanting to miss any potential show of colors that others might have spotted.

A short distance further was Wallace Creek, which was also surprisingly popular given the less dramatic display of flowers in its vicinity. We strolled the trail out to the famous creek jogging to the right due to progressive movement along the San Andreas. And yes without fail I had to fly the drone again. In every instance the drone's view was vastly superior to the ground view and Wallace Creek was no exception. 

We drove onward along Elkhorn Rd, making slow progress with the many oncoming cars on this one-lane dirt road. I found another place worth flying a drone past with particularly nice splashes of color. 

We drove up Hurricane Road to the crest of the Temblor Range, now in search of a camp spot. The obvious spots near the top were all taken. Thankfully the ridge road had a barbed wire fence across it which seemed to be enough of a deterrent to keep virtually everyone out. We drove a few miles along this deep two-rut road. I was expecting a better road and progress was extremely slow so I abandoned my idea to drive out the full length of the ridge and we instead found a flatish spot on the ridge to set up camp with great views in nearly every direction. I flew the drone over the flower covered slope in front of us and we both settled in for a mellow night. Other than one truck that drove ahead of us we saw no further cars. The temperature was perfect for sleeping and we had an excellent chorus of birds chirping in the grasses.

In the morning we returned back the way we came along the ridge road. Yet another drone flight over some of the colorful slopes to the north of us and then we worked our way back down Hurricane Rd, thankfully much less crowded.

On the way down the switchbacks of Hurricane Rd we noticed alien looking flowers; a tubular cone-shaped stems that tapered up to deep red-purple flowers. We found out later these are called desert candles. Super neat and bizarre!

We drove Panorama Road across the width of the valley to Soda Lake Rd, and then took that south. I flew the drone over this portion of the valley, which had interesting patterned ground extending as far as I could see in all directions, apparently the masterwork of countless colonies of giant kangaroo rats!

We drove out the south side of valley and joined the pavement of Highway 166, shifting our thoughts to the drive home and beyond. As we came down the grade towards the Central Valley we both spotted a particularly scenic and unique display of colors draped on hills of layered sedimentary rocks unlike anything I had ever seen. As we drove on the allure was too strong and I convinced Heather to turn around to find a place I could fly my drone. It was not until I put the drone up in the air that I realized the hillside was several miles away, much further than I anticipated. I brought the drone back, unsatisfied. Looking at Google Maps I could see there should be a road a little further down and lightly begged for one final detour. We turned off onto Elkhorn Grade Rd and onto dirt past the Purina cat litter mine. Yes this was it! I put the drone up in the air for one final flight and snapped away furiously at the near-perfect combination of wildflowers and geology. Every new view from the drone delighted and I easily blew through my final battery. I genuinely had seen nothing quite like it before. The last photo below is my favorite and would be the frontispiece except it is not even in the Carrizo Plain.

We drove home without incident, other than more lengthy traffic. Although it was far from an adventurous weekend, overall it was highly satisfying to see the rare and at times otherworldly wildflower display and to fill in a blank on the map. Thanks to Heather for being game to check out something new, waiting patiently through my drone piloting, and lending her capable vehicle.

Bear Creek April 8

A SoCal first descent! It is becoming increasingly hard to find new first descents in southern California, particularly high quality ones. This would be the year though! Interestingly this major tributary of the West Fork of the San Gabriel had been a dream of Mike's for over 13 years! He and others had run the bottom 2 miles but there should be miles of boatable creek above with the right conditions. Several years back he even convinced Keith and I to come meet him at the West Fork takeout after some rain, up to our arrival completely secretive about our target. Unfortunately the water was much too low that time and so it sat as a long-term goal until now. Charged by recent rains but also a persisting snowpack, we seemed to be guaranteed water this time. Gavin drove up from San Diego and Keith and I carpooled to meet at the mouth of the canyon at 8:30a. We jockeyed gear and drove up the canyon, which probably had a 1000 cfs coming out the base of its full reserviors. We set a car at the West Fork takeout, another at the Bear Creek Trail trailhead as an emergency egress, and drove to the Hwy 39 roadend past Crystal Lake. The advantage to starting here is that most of the hike would be downhill.

Before we had even left the carpark, I was thankful to be packrafting as Mike and Gavin worked to creatively strap their boats to Mike's custom wheel setup. They rolled their way up the perma-closed Hwy 39 to the prominent ridge separating the Bear and North Fork San Gabriel catchments. They continued on along the ups and downs of the ridgecrest road. Progress was slow, breaks were frequent, and by the end of the hike I was somehow carrying four paddles. In a few places were snow patches on up slopes requiring them to flip the kayaks upside down to pull them up the hill. After gaining close to 500ft in elevation between the road and ridge, we dropped down a very steep fire break to meet the Bear Creek Trail near its prominent saddle. Shortly before this point I caught a rather cute little horned lizard. 

Get a packraft already...

Blainville's Horned Lizard

If you thought the going would get better on the named Bear Creek Trail you'd be wrong. This trail seemed like it was probably always a narrow slope hugger, but after all the recent storms it was precariously washed out in numerous spots. A misstep in many places would mean a nasty fall down a steep slope. These were tricky enough to maneuver with my backpack so I was quite happy to not be dealing with a giant awkward kayak. Several of the stream crossings were washed out. Gavin reported the water tasted excellent. In other places we had downed trees to maneuver around or collapsed manzanita that we had to crawl underneath. For a trail the approach was rather slow and tedious. The closer we got to the creek though the better the wildflowers. There were places where the trail was a carpet of tiny blue and purple flowers and other places where it was yellow-orange poppies. For the last quarter-mile we got our first view of the creek which sounded like it had a healthy roar. Switchbacking down this last 200ft of elevation drop was particularly tricky and one part of the trail was so washed out we could not follow it and had be beeline down the loose slope to the creek. As a final obstacle there was a wall of poison oak to breach before reaching the creek, 5.5 miles and many hours from our vehicle. Apparently there was a camp here at some point named Upper Bear but we saw no evidence of it.

We made it to the creek and were thoroughly in the middle of nowhere with no feasible way out other than the unknown creek below. The creek looks great; wonderful flow and crisp clear waters, steadily fast for all that we could see. I just wished it was not 1:45p by the time we arrived and 2:45p by the time we finally put on! I cautiously took up the middle of pack position to start. Almost immediately I felt awkward and redialed my seat inflation. Once that was set I found the flow to be a nice level; not too pushy but generally pillowy cushioned whitewater that felt real smooth and comfortable over the many short drops. The creek had lots of quick response read-and-run sections with brief breaks every few hundred feet, but also unknown horizonlines requiring scouting. We had to portage several rapids due to wood issues and a couple rapids due to unpleasant boulder landings but generally it was quite runnable despite averaging a steep 270ft drop per mile in this upper section. There were few standout rapids, the highlight was mostly the constant engagement and maneuvering with few eddies. We had to contend with a few mid-rapid limbo logs that added to the whitewater challenge. Every view up the river was a satisfying one; cascade after cascade. It was fun and it was beautiful, but progress was worryingly slow for being so late in the day. It took us over 2 hours to arrive at the West Fork of Bear Creek, only 1 mile below our put-in. I was feeling a little off at this point but thankfully restored with water and a snack. The gradient would steadily drop from 270ft/mi to 200 to 130 so we all hoped to soon be making faster progress lest we fall into darkness.

From West Fork Bear Creek we had a few more notable rapids to navigate including a tricky S-bend I was happy to portage. The canyon exited the narrow confines beneath a canopy of trees into generally more open sections of canyon with big sweeping walls with hanging meadows and steep cliffs. The creek started to shift into more read-and-run class III+ and we started to make better progress. I really loved this section, enjoying the constant stimulation of the river and the rapidly changing scenery. On one of the outside bends of the river there was a particularly dramatic spring emerging from an overhanging cliff as a picturesque freedrop waterfall. At some point here about 2 miles up from the West Fork San Gabriel we crossed from first descent territory into the section of the creek Mike and others had run before. Now we would be making much better pace firmly in read-and-run mode. At least we were until I noticed my boat deflating way too much. I stopped to top it off. Within about 5 minutes it was soft again! I clearly had a leak worse than I ever had. I stopped twice more at 5 minute intervals before deciding it was going to be worth spending 15 minutes trying to do an emergency field repair. I quickly found the culprit, a deceptively small pinprick near my stern floor section. With difficulty I tried several different patches. A small piece of Tyvek held the best and slowed my leak to an acceptable amount for the duration of the run. Onward! This section reminded me a lot of the East Fork San Gabriel below the Bridge to Nowhere.

We turned a corner and unceremoniously drifted into the West Fork San Gabriel, now a juicier 600cfs river rather than our 200cfs creek. With a mile to go on this bigger river I figured we were basically done but it turned out we still had a few more legit rapids to go, this time with wave trains and holes to navigate. Mike flipped at the top of the punchiest rapid and was able to self-rescue himself while we collected his boat and paddle. Before long we continued on through a few more nice rapids including a nice continuous one with our takeout bridge as a finish line. A hundred foot stroll up the hill led us to a very comfortable gear sorting area with concrete, picnic tables, and fences to lay gear out. What a trip! We were all ecstatic, if a little tired. I could not have imagined carrying a hardshell as far as Mike and Gavin did and feeling good at this point! I would definitely consider it a packraft run despite my puncture.

I waited with the garage sale of gear as the others drove up the hill to close our shuttle. I chatted with a few curious folks that I could tell struggled to comprehend exactly what we had just done. After 40 minutes they returned, we loaded up, and parted ways. Though it would have been nice to have been not quite so long a day, I was thrilled to be a part of Mike's dream (13 years in the making!) to first descent the upper section of Bear Creek. In all we hiked 5.5 miles on our approach, running 4.7 miles of Bear Creek (150 cfs to WF Bear Creek adding about 50 cfs?) and an additional mile on the West Fork San Gabriel (600 cfs?). Looking at lidar afterwards there seems to be another 2.5 miles upstream of potential run which would include a formidable gorge section with multiple bedrock waterfalls. The bar has been pushed slightly upward, but the greatest challenges still remain for the taking. Thanks to the team of Mike Farrell, Keith, and Gavin, especially Mike for letting us be a part of it.