Realizing it might be our last opportunity to do local boating together, Heather and I drove early morning Sunday out to the East Fork San Gabriel River. I stopped briefly at the take-out to check water levels and annoyingly saw a group damming a channel with logs. Happily the river still had plenty of water (450 cfs?) though it was noticeably lower than a week previous. We found one of the last prime parking spots at the Bridge to Nowhere trailhead and walked the old road down to the river which put us on about a hundred feet below the nastiest log sieve on the whole run.
I led the way. We had a few miscommunication issues on this first 3.5 mile paddle but otherwise had no major mishaps. I stopped to cut some obscuring tree branches at one spot and we still had to do one portage around a river-wide log strainer. We stopped a few times to catch our breaths and Heather wanted to scout the rapid under the highway bridge that she flipped on in 2020 (it was a much different and more straightforward rapid this time). Arriving at the Graveyard Canyon takeout I was quite annoyed that a giant church group was the culprit in damming the river to create a baptism pool. They completely blocked the trail to the parking area with their canopies, AV gear, and chairs and so we had to find a different way up. It was only slightly humorous that they had giant speakers that required a giant generator, and the speakers were only barely winning the battle for noise. I ran the roughly 3.5 miles back to the car and we loaded everything up at about noon. It took us about 1 hour 15 minutes to do the run so now we were debating whether to try another lap or not.
Heather voted for another lap after we visited the small general store and this time we put on at the Cattle Canyon bridge for more straightforward access and a 3 mile section. This lap we did non-stop other than the quick portage, taking us 35 minutes total, overall much more satisfying to blast through without stopping. We noticed considerably more people hanging out along the river this second lap. The church group was still in our way at the takeout. I ran back to the car in 30 minutes and then we were off, happy to get some more whitewater and exercise. We both agreed the second lap was a good choice.
I always find the roadside East Fork section to be bittersweet. It is great to have a local sometimes-river but I always see so much evidence of disrespect for the land and for other people. There are trash and graffiti everywhere, crime-scene toilets, and it is generally a well used and abused section of river. And yet hopefully not everyone trashes it and there are always plenty of friendly faces and kids waving, excited and surprised to see people paddling by them on their local river.
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