East Fork of the San Gabriel River- Misadventure7/6-7/7/2013
Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 10:16 pm
Backpacking the East Fork of the San Gabriel River- our experience
Saturday July 6th
Tom and I lazily packed our bags for our soon to be mellow 14 mile backpack down the Narrows of the East Fork of the San Gabriel River. I admit, we got a late start but we knew we would only hike about 6-7 miles our first day, so we weren’t too worried. We stopped by the ranger station at the entry station of San Gabriel Canyon Road and picked up our wilderness permits. We were planning on camping approximately 2 miles from the iconic Bridge to Nowhere, which would land us in Sheep Wilderness which requires permits for overnight stays. After picking up our permit we continued up the mountain road until we arrived at the parking area for the trailhead. At this point we realized our late departure had caught up with us in the form of cooler filled SUV’s carrying boatloads of people who had come for the day to cool off in the river. I decided to drop Tom off at the trailhead with both of our packs and I continued down the road in search of parking. At approximately 1.5 miles from the trailhead I found a parking space, and so I parked and jogged 1.5 miles to meet up with Tom. We were finally ready to head out.
Our hike was hot, to say the least. Luckily there were numerous river crossings the entire way to camp, so we had some cool water to lick the sweat away on this hot 95 degree day. After just a few hours we made it to a nice clearing about a mile away from the Bridge to Nowhere. It looked like a perfect spot to pitch our tent for the night, but it fell short of where I originally planned we would camp. Tom and I discussed our options and decided to hike onward a little ways to see what else we could find. As we were boulder hopping I mistakenly put my hand too close to a Yucca which pierced through the flesh on my finger like a razor. Immediately my finger started bleeding, swelled and turned blue/purple. After gauging my reaction to the wound we decided to fall back and camp in the site we originally spotted just in case my reaction got worse.
Once we got settled in at camp we decided to kick back, cook some dinner and drink some whiskey. Life was good. We stayed up until the sun sank and we ended up curling up in our sleeping bags around 9:30PM.
Sunday July 7th
12:40AM
There is a bright beam of light shining directly into our tent from the side opposite to where I am laying down. I suddenly wake up, look at the light and think, “ Wow, the moon is really bright tonight.” I was surprised so I looked out my side of the tent only to see that my side was pitch black. Immediately I realized that the light wasn’t coming from the moon, there was someone standing right outside shining a light into our tent. Tom woke up simultaneous to my stream of thought and started whispering trying to figure out what to do. He could immediately tell someone was beside the tent; After a few moments I yelled, “HEY!!!” in an angry voice. Then, “HEY” again. After not hearing a word I shouted, “ Tom get the gun!”, in hopes that it would scare this psychopath off. The light moved downward and then turned off. (As a side-note, we were camped backed up to a wall, and there was only about 5 feet between our tent and the side of the wall, so this person couldn’t have been more than 5 feet away from our tent. We were camped on a river bank, so all sounds were muffled by the river) Tom and I were both frantically searching for our things, my glasses, our lights, Tom’s knife. After about 2 minutes Tom unzipped his side of the tent and peered outside his side of the tent. We realized, retrospectively, that Tom’s side of the tent which was previously pulled taught and anchored beneath a large rock has been dislodged from the rock and was hanging loosely. Our adrenaline was pumping. There was no sign of the person. A second later Tom said, “Sarah, there’s a bobcat out there.” I peeked outside his side of the tent and flashed my light which exposed a pair of beady feline eyes perched on some rocks overlooking our tent. I then opened my side of the tent and to my shock there was a full grown mountain lion less than 15 feet away from us. “ Tom,” I said, “ That can’t be a bobcat, there’s a mountain lion out here!” (Tom and I think the cat perched above our tent was a cub). The cat immediately stopped in its tracks when it saw me poke my head out of the tent and just stared intently at me. Without thinking and fearful that it was going to start approaching us, I let out a loud HISS, which Tom will not let me live down. Looking back it seemed a little crazy, but right after I hissed the cat slowly slinked away down the river.
Someone was right outside our tent beaming a light in. Were the cats stalking him? Was it mere coincidence that all of this happened at once? If this person was out here alone, the cats could have spotted him and tracked him to our campsite. We didn’t know what to think and we weren’t about to go to sleep. Tom sat awake clutching his knife and shining his headlamp every 10 minutes for the next 4 hours as I lay in my sleeping bag, drifting in and out of sleep, never closing my eyes for more than 15 minutes without my subconscious jolting me awake.
At about 4:30AM light had just started to illuminate the canyon and our exhaustion got the best of us and lulled us to sleep. We woke up at about 7:30AM to find that we were both still alive and the sun was shining. In the morning we entertained each other with different theories.
In disbelief of the events that happened during the night, we packed up and decided to get the hell out of there. Before approaching the bridge on our way back we ran into my friend Peter who said he would be fishing up there this weekend; we said our hello’s, told him our crazy story and continued on the trail. After stopping off, we got back on the trail and started down the only portion of the trail that could be considered semi-technical. As I’m watching my footing and cautiously making my way across the rock face, Tom yells, “rock!”. A rock the size of a softball comes crashing down, followed by a small onslaught of rocks. One rock slams into the side of my foot, and I lean as close to the wall as possible, praying that a rock doesn’t hit my skull. The rock fall stopped, we skirted around the ledge, and I made it out with a busted foot, of which I’ve had worse.
Needless to say, we made it out of the San Gabriel’s alive. I ask myself, what would have happened if this weirdo’s beaming headlamp didn’t wake me up? We’ll never know…
I hope you all can learn from this story, never venture into the woods without some adequate protection!
Safe Travels!!
Saturday July 6th
Tom and I lazily packed our bags for our soon to be mellow 14 mile backpack down the Narrows of the East Fork of the San Gabriel River. I admit, we got a late start but we knew we would only hike about 6-7 miles our first day, so we weren’t too worried. We stopped by the ranger station at the entry station of San Gabriel Canyon Road and picked up our wilderness permits. We were planning on camping approximately 2 miles from the iconic Bridge to Nowhere, which would land us in Sheep Wilderness which requires permits for overnight stays. After picking up our permit we continued up the mountain road until we arrived at the parking area for the trailhead. At this point we realized our late departure had caught up with us in the form of cooler filled SUV’s carrying boatloads of people who had come for the day to cool off in the river. I decided to drop Tom off at the trailhead with both of our packs and I continued down the road in search of parking. At approximately 1.5 miles from the trailhead I found a parking space, and so I parked and jogged 1.5 miles to meet up with Tom. We were finally ready to head out.
Our hike was hot, to say the least. Luckily there were numerous river crossings the entire way to camp, so we had some cool water to lick the sweat away on this hot 95 degree day. After just a few hours we made it to a nice clearing about a mile away from the Bridge to Nowhere. It looked like a perfect spot to pitch our tent for the night, but it fell short of where I originally planned we would camp. Tom and I discussed our options and decided to hike onward a little ways to see what else we could find. As we were boulder hopping I mistakenly put my hand too close to a Yucca which pierced through the flesh on my finger like a razor. Immediately my finger started bleeding, swelled and turned blue/purple. After gauging my reaction to the wound we decided to fall back and camp in the site we originally spotted just in case my reaction got worse.
Once we got settled in at camp we decided to kick back, cook some dinner and drink some whiskey. Life was good. We stayed up until the sun sank and we ended up curling up in our sleeping bags around 9:30PM.
Sunday July 7th
12:40AM
There is a bright beam of light shining directly into our tent from the side opposite to where I am laying down. I suddenly wake up, look at the light and think, “ Wow, the moon is really bright tonight.” I was surprised so I looked out my side of the tent only to see that my side was pitch black. Immediately I realized that the light wasn’t coming from the moon, there was someone standing right outside shining a light into our tent. Tom woke up simultaneous to my stream of thought and started whispering trying to figure out what to do. He could immediately tell someone was beside the tent; After a few moments I yelled, “HEY!!!” in an angry voice. Then, “HEY” again. After not hearing a word I shouted, “ Tom get the gun!”, in hopes that it would scare this psychopath off. The light moved downward and then turned off. (As a side-note, we were camped backed up to a wall, and there was only about 5 feet between our tent and the side of the wall, so this person couldn’t have been more than 5 feet away from our tent. We were camped on a river bank, so all sounds were muffled by the river) Tom and I were both frantically searching for our things, my glasses, our lights, Tom’s knife. After about 2 minutes Tom unzipped his side of the tent and peered outside his side of the tent. We realized, retrospectively, that Tom’s side of the tent which was previously pulled taught and anchored beneath a large rock has been dislodged from the rock and was hanging loosely. Our adrenaline was pumping. There was no sign of the person. A second later Tom said, “Sarah, there’s a bobcat out there.” I peeked outside his side of the tent and flashed my light which exposed a pair of beady feline eyes perched on some rocks overlooking our tent. I then opened my side of the tent and to my shock there was a full grown mountain lion less than 15 feet away from us. “ Tom,” I said, “ That can’t be a bobcat, there’s a mountain lion out here!” (Tom and I think the cat perched above our tent was a cub). The cat immediately stopped in its tracks when it saw me poke my head out of the tent and just stared intently at me. Without thinking and fearful that it was going to start approaching us, I let out a loud HISS, which Tom will not let me live down. Looking back it seemed a little crazy, but right after I hissed the cat slowly slinked away down the river.
Someone was right outside our tent beaming a light in. Were the cats stalking him? Was it mere coincidence that all of this happened at once? If this person was out here alone, the cats could have spotted him and tracked him to our campsite. We didn’t know what to think and we weren’t about to go to sleep. Tom sat awake clutching his knife and shining his headlamp every 10 minutes for the next 4 hours as I lay in my sleeping bag, drifting in and out of sleep, never closing my eyes for more than 15 minutes without my subconscious jolting me awake.
At about 4:30AM light had just started to illuminate the canyon and our exhaustion got the best of us and lulled us to sleep. We woke up at about 7:30AM to find that we were both still alive and the sun was shining. In the morning we entertained each other with different theories.
In disbelief of the events that happened during the night, we packed up and decided to get the hell out of there. Before approaching the bridge on our way back we ran into my friend Peter who said he would be fishing up there this weekend; we said our hello’s, told him our crazy story and continued on the trail. After stopping off, we got back on the trail and started down the only portion of the trail that could be considered semi-technical. As I’m watching my footing and cautiously making my way across the rock face, Tom yells, “rock!”. A rock the size of a softball comes crashing down, followed by a small onslaught of rocks. One rock slams into the side of my foot, and I lean as close to the wall as possible, praying that a rock doesn’t hit my skull. The rock fall stopped, we skirted around the ledge, and I made it out with a busted foot, of which I’ve had worse.
Needless to say, we made it out of the San Gabriel’s alive. I ask myself, what would have happened if this weirdo’s beaming headlamp didn’t wake me up? We’ll never know…
I hope you all can learn from this story, never venture into the woods without some adequate protection!
Safe Travels!!
