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.