December 7, 2006

I drove an hour and a half yesterday to get my car fixed, which didn't happen, so I "consoled" myself by detouring up the San Gabriel Canyon to check out the river... since I was in the neighborhood anyway. I'm always amazed at how you can go from LA sprawl to apparent wilderness in a matter of minutes. It's geography. The cities are in the valleys, and steep mountains rise from their edges. But even in this undeveloped land, the city encroaches. The grafitti on any vertical surface belies the fact that we're only 10 min from the NE edge of the endless sprawl of Los Angeles. You can see one large work of "art" on the big rock. But you can't see, that at this point in the corridor, where I scrambled down the bank from the road, seemingly every tree and rock was emblazoned with indecipherable tribal symbols in spray paint, and gouged into the tree trunks with clannish zeal. The littered evidence of a 1000 weekend "picnics" marred the ground. Note to self, avoid this spot on the weekend, but Wednesday afternoons are desolate.

Even in the midst of the urban residue, when I turned over this rock, six or more little California newts were huddled together in the moisture. Only this one stayed until I got the camera out.

This is a cold, high gradient river with trout, and the endangered Santa Ana sucker. Here's a view in the same direction, from farther downstream.

Near this spot, I pulled up some minnows that were hiding in a tiny patch of water weed, in a quiet spot, behind a massive rock. One of our "colorful" western fishes.

By reference to Inland Fishes of California by Moyle, I take this to be an arroyo chub, Gila orcutti. An amazing animal, that can live in these cold, high, mountain streams as well as still, warm, low oxygen pools, during the long, rainless summer, in coastal arroyos (creeks). This is the only native fish that occurs in the little creek that runs near our house. There it contends with exotic turtles, bullfrogs, Gambusia, green sunfish and swamp crayfish, but is aided by the constant flow of "stormwater" from the irrigated lawns of suburbia. Though it rains narry a drop all summer and most of the winter, the grass and trees grow tall and green, from water flowing hundreds of miles from the Sierras, via the California Aqueduct.

Anyway, here's another shot to show what these little minnows must contend with, not to mention the several dams that begin just downstream of this place. And these are no lowhead dams. I pitty any fish that has to make the descent voluntarily or otherwise. And no aquatic creature has the strength to scale the height of these concrete and steel ramparts.

If that weren't enough, these waterways are scoured with raging torrents of water and boulders when it does rain. Once carried over the dams, they are dumped into miles of concrete culverts that are, here, called the Los Angeles River. This "river" has, at best, two inches of water sliding over its flat cement floor for most of the year. So a poor minnow really has no place to go but into the sea and the jaws of pelicans, cormorants and sea lions.

On a brighter note, this lovely flower grew from a pocket of soil among the rocks of the riverbed... at least until the next rain.

Enjoy!