Last weekend I went on what was probably one of the most magical adventures I have ever been on, less than one hour from Los Angeles.
Everyone knows this place as the Bridge to Nowhere, but more accurately, it’s the East Fork of the San Gabriel River, the river that runs parallel to the LA River through most of LA. We caught up with it just north of Azusa in a pretty easy 10 mile hike—5 miles out, 5 miles back—through a canyon that used to have a road through it until a 1938 flood washed it out. 1938 was the same year, incidentally, that huge floods in LA prompted the paving over of our river banks.
We’ve had quite a bit of rain this year, so the wildflowers were absolutely explosive. (This is something called Sticky Monkeyflower. Not kidding.)
As were the forests of yuccas, many as tall as me.
Since there used to be a road here, there were still some old structures.
But the absolute best part about the hike were the multiple river fordings. I think we did least a dozen, some up to our hips.
Which we didn’t mind at all since it was a cloudless 80-degree day. In fact, we started planning for the next time, when we swore to hike in with innertubes.
Suddenly the river drops down into a canyon, you round a corner in quite literally the middle of nowhere, there’s a bridge, which was completed in 1936—just before the road meant to meet it washed away.
And what could be more natural for a bridge in the middle of nowhere than bungee jumping? In fact, the bridge itself is owned by Bungee America. It felt like we were watching a Juicy Fruit commercial.
Then back out the way we came.
Past the fields of blackberry bushes (a great reason to come back later in the summer).
By some ridiculous rocks that looked like they’d been spatter-painted.
And through all the perfect little swimming holes, some of which, I thought, looked awfully similar to the soft-bottom section of the LA River.
When I was in college, we used to tube down Boulder Creek, which looks a lot like this, except it winds through the middle of a major metropolitan area. What if some day we could do the same in the river that runs through LA? That it could be so clean again, and so natural, we could actually…use it? (Although there are some who have—illegally—kayaked it.)
I put my bare feet in the water at the end of the hike and imagined tubing from Burbank to Downtown, stopping for beers in Silver Lake along the way. I think it could definitely happen.
More photos from the Bridge to Nowhere, and here’s how to get there.
