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.
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