An impressive atmospheric river brought half of Los Angeles' average annual rain in two days so many SoCal kayakers were hoping to put the tail end of the storm to good use. After lots of back and forth it ended up being only Eric and I willing and able to rally for an early morning run at the San Gabriel River. Our plan was to do the wilderness and roadside run on the East Fork (Eric and I both agreed our last time was one of the very best days of paddling we had ever had) but we first detoured to have a quick look at the West Fork. The West Fork looked decent, certainly runnable, but lower than I had ever paddled it. We then drove on to the East Fork takeout. To our surprise the East Fork was actually lower than the West Fork. We knew right away that we would find the wilderness run of the EF disappointing and so decided hiking up the WF was our best option available. We dropped my car at the hilltop parking lot less than a half-mile up valley from the OHV area and then on the short distance to the WF trailhead. We hiked the road alongside the WF without incident, seemingly making good time as we chatted and watched for wood hazards in the river and trucks going too fast on the gated road. Both of the road bridges had logjams and we found one other place to portage. The further up we went the shallower the river seemed and so at the most prominent log jam I remembered from last time we put in 2.5 miles up from the trailhead.
The going was mellow overall but a little scrape-y and with a couple low logs across the water to manage. At the Bear Creek confluence some crisp snowmelt boosted the flow of the muddy WF for a much more enjoyable juicy final mile of the run. Here about eight solid rapids provided more engaging paddling. At the first major rapid below the highway bridge we stopped to scout, deciding the protruding log seemed too dicey for the deep hole most of the flow was directed to and so took the left channel bypass. A couple more rapids led us into the OHV area where we took out, going 3.5 miles in 80 minutes. I stripped my suit halfway and ran the short 0.4miles back to my car, strapped our boats to the roof, retrieving Eric's car, then driving over to the East Fork shortly after noon.
The EF looked exactly as it had a few hours before and Eric and I hemmed and hawed at whether it was worth a run. I think we both were pretty close to giving it a pass but we were suited and our boats inflated so it would be little additional work and I pointed out that I was not sure if anyone had run both the WF and EF in the same day. I think the thought of a novel double header pushed us over the line so we dropped Eric's vehicle at our Graveyard Canyon takeout and drove on up to the roadend trailhead. We hiked the switchbacks down to the river and put on after a few short minutes.
The EF run seemed less memorable than usual at this particularly low flow. Even more bumps and scrapes than the WF, I seemed to spend most of the time trying to find the deepest channel. Cattle Canyon boosted the flow a bit with muddy water. Being a cold Friday it was nice to have the river banks not be crowded with trashy people and their trash but there was as much or even more graffiti than I remember. It is funny how invisible we were to the few people we saw since they were not expecting to see anyone float past; we passed within five feet of a gold panner on the shore without them noticing us float past. We had a few overhanging branches to avoid throughout the run but happily zero portages compared to the several that existed the previous season. It took us a cool 40 minutes to cover the 3.5 miles of river back to Graveyard Canyon giving us a total of 7 SoCal river miles for the day. Just as we were about finished sorting gear in the parking lot we spotted two cars with kayaks strapped to the roof driving up the road and so we stuck around to chat up Keith and Sam who were about to do a EF run. We closed our shuttle and chatted some more. I saw the ranger starting to go around issuing parking tickets which I took as my cue to leave. I parted ways to join the Friday traffic battle, thankfully a little before peak chaos.
More water would have been great but Eric and I were sure that we made the best choices given the conditions we were dealt. Big thanks to Eric for being keen to rally for the early start and going for the double header.
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