Yesterday a friend and I took a trip to an unlikely natural landscape that was hiding just miles from suits and skyscrapers: We went brown water rafting in the LA river.
Yes, LA has a river. No, the water isn't really brown, although it is plenty sketchy.
A couple of decades as an emergency physician have disrupted my circadian rhythms sufficiently that I wake for up to an hour every night, usually between 3am and 4am.
I keep a Kindle close at hand to let my mind wander during those quiet hours. Common queries ran the spectrum from Where are they now? to What would be interesting to explore off the beaten path?
For example: What happened to the friend from shop class who spent high school mountain biking and doing cocaine? Where is the emeritus university professor who taught my high school AP chemistry class and always seemed to be offering a creepy after school massage to a cheerleader who stayed after school for extra help? Are there rivers near me where I could use the inflatable rafts we have in the garage from the California road trip we took during the summer of 2021?
For those who were wondering: the friend started his own bicycle company, the professor was fishing and hiking up until his death at age 81, and a section of the LA river is officially a sanctioned recreation area.
The last was the most surprising. Abutting my childhood home in Mar Vista was a tributary of the LA river. It was concrete and trash punctuated by putrid puddles of rotting algae.
This was the work of the US Army Corps of Engineers, who sought to avert the periodic flooding that was threatening the nearby houses and businesses, and determined that concrete walls were the best option to contain the floodwaters.
The flood mitigation project, begun in the 1930s, transformed the natural landscape. Growing up, the LA river was a dystopian graffiti-filled backdrop for thrill-seekers and outlaws trying to evade the law. It represented the ultimate urban wasteland.
I learned about the Friends of the LA River, a group that had organized locals and reclaimed a section of the river near the Frogtown neighborhood for recreational purposes.
They'd developed a neighborhood known as a haven for artists into a spot with a river walk and bike lanes, an outstanding independent cafe, and a lunch destination where every sandwich is named for an NPR host. A couple of outfitters were offering guided river tours by kayak.
Being a DIY kind of fellow, I read up on the area, noticed that small groups were allowed to paddle without a permit, and hatched a plan. I reached out to a friend who was equally eager for an absurd pretext to pursue adventure, and we set a date. It was on.
For a neighborhood nestled between freeways and trains, Frogtown was surprisingly charming. Art galleries. Bespoke stores where you could pour your own essential oils and mix your own paint from natural pigments. Upcycled t-shirts that were redyed, screen printed with local designs, and resold at concert prices (i.e., $40 for a t-shirt).
The water was less visibly feculent than I'd feared. I glimpsed a fish that was slightly under a foot in length swimming where we put in. There were islands, trees, and we even portaged past a series of 2 foot tall waterfalls early on. Vibrant avian life was everywhere: we spotted great blue herons, back crowned night herons, snowy egrets, black backed stilts, and even double crested cormorants.
That's not to say it wasn't polluted. Trash was everywhere. A small film of bubbly surface scum accumulated along the front of the raft at one point in the journey. In the middle of one island we found a couple of shopping carts reclaimed by the earth, overgrown with weeds like backdrop from a vintage Planet of the Apes scene.
Assuming I don't develop hepatitis A from my contact with the water, it was a delight to raft the LA River, and something I'd happily do again with the right companion (in case you are considering it: someone who adapts easily, has a high threshold for being grossed out, and is not a complainer).