Mt Whitney Zone Forums Trip Reports Bridge to Nowhere

Not much of a TR, but had a fun hike above the Bridge to Nowhere today along the banks of the San Gabriel River. After deciding we would not be able to cross the river, we headed up the Heaton Canyon Trial up into the Sheep Wilderness. We only ran into 3 other hikers. Pretty steep and a nice training hike.

Getting back to the river. My two buddies and I could not understand how people can be so dumb and risk their lives crossing a river that could sweep them down and endanger their lives. I understand that this river is pretty easy to cross in the late summer and early fall, but this was ridiculous with lots of snow melt from a record water year here in So Cal. The water was extremely high and fast with lots of rapids. My buddy Jose, a Marine saved a couple of people today from being swept down the river. The person in the most danger was about 23 years old, 6 feet tall and around 160 pounds. He got into the middle of the river up to his hips and got stuck. In an effort to get back, he turned himself around and fell face first into the water. Jose carries rope and quickly took a couple of steps into the water and threw the guy a rope. The look on this guys face as he stuck it out of the water was frightening. Another person (from the same group) leaped towards Jose when he was in trouble and hugged him as hard as he could even after he was safe on land. Yet, other groups of people thought it was a good idea to try to cross. Most got a couple of feet into the water and turned around.

We left after helping the first group and enjoyed the rest of our hike, praying people would use common sense. In a talk I had with Search and Rescue personnel who were in the main parking lot at the trailhead, they said there had been several "dumb people" trying to cross the river in the last couple of weeks since the weather warmed up.