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.
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| Swan Rock |
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| 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.
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