Rain and closer to snowmelt season had us hoping we could get in more San Gabriel paddling. The constant rain was annoying but at least the roads and trailheads were pleasantly unbusy. We had a look at West Fork first and saw the river to be flowing noticeably higher than two weeks earlier; at this flow it would be fun and a little pushy but I certainly hoped for more than 2 miles of paddling and so we headed over to look at the East Fork. The East Fork looked to be decent; it would be a little boney in places but overall a worthwhile flow since we were here and so we drove up to the Bridge to Nowhere trailhead. A couple friendly gold panners briefly chatted us up with curiosity. The rain was obnoxious enough that we just suited up and inflated boats in the carpark before strolling down to the river.
Onward and downward. There were LOTS of log issues. From memory I stopped to remove or cut logs at 8 different spots, a couple of them taking considerable work. Because of this it took us about 1.5 hours to go the 3.5 miles. At the takeout we were a little pressed for time but I was hopeful to try to do another clean run where we could enjoy the fruits of our log cutting labors in a non-stop 35min-ish run. I changed out of my drysuit and got super lucky with a hitch from the first car I stuck my thumb up at. Nice guy Raul was out for a Sunday drive with nowhere specific to be so dropped me off at the end of the road and I was able to point him to the road he could take over to Mt Baldy.
With the car back at the takeout we quickly strapped the inflated boats to the roof and drove back up for another lap. This lap ended up being cut short. At about 1 mile into the run Heather had a flip and swim banging her knee and her hand in enough pain she thought it might be broken. I carried stuff up to the road nearby and ran the mile back to the car in my drysuit. A pile of wet gear was thrown in the car and off we went. Thankfully Heather's pain subsided such that she concluded it was a sprain but it was the right, if disappointing decision, to bail on our run.
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