Libby's Dad has been wanting to do a hike with the Moothart guys for a long time, and when the opportunity to do one the day after Thanksgiving arose, they were gracious enough to include me in their plans.
The idea was to go to the Bridge to Nowhere, an abandoned Depression era road project in the San Gabriel Mountains. Once upon a time, the idea was to build a road connecting Azusa with Wrightwood. To do so meant making a crossing in the San Gabriels, and they chose the canyon containing the East Fork of the San Gabriel River to do it in. But, before they were done, a large flood came down and washed away large parts of the road. The project was abandoned, stranding their recently completed concrete span in the middle of nowhere. It's now in the middle of the Sheep Mountain Wilderness. The bridge itself is located on private property - apparently owned by a bungee jumping company!
Anyway, Dad Moothart had done all his research, and we were anticipating a wet hike with many stream crossings, rugged terrain and a bit of a slog to reach the bridge. One source said it would take as many as four hours! That's just to go 4.5 miles. I was a little nervous.
We got an early start, meeting up in Azusa at 7:00 am to carpool the rest of the way into the mountains to get to the trailhead. The parking lot was already crowded by the time we arrived, but there were only a few hikers on the trail ahead of us. The rest of the cars belonged to a couple of anglers and a lot of recreational gold panners. Beards and beers were well represented along the lower stretches of the river. I wonder how much you can find in a day?
The hike itself didn't live up to my anxiety. It was a moderately difficult hike, but we never got our feet wet. We only had to cross the full river twice, and had to cross a narrower arm of it two times later on. Much of the hike is over cobblestones and gravel, though, resulting in a very uneven surface and sore feet by the end of the day.
A friendly prospector gave us a good steer for getting to the river. After beginning on the east side of the river, you cross over fairly early where there's a sheer cliff on the east side of the river. Then you follow it along the west side for a stretch until you reach the second washed out bridge's remains. From there you want to find a crossing to reach the east side. Once you arrive on the east side, you just stay there and look for a somewhat inconsistent trail.
The only hiccup we faced was that the prospector said there would be a peninsula that we would have to cross and go down the other side of (so to look for ways to stay above the river on the right). Well, there are two places that fit this description, and the first one requires some hand-over-hand crawling to get down a 20' face of bedrock from the road to the river. If you skipped it, you'd probably have to cross the river a couple of times. In general, I think you can stay dry but you have to make decisions about how much exposure and scrambling you're comfortable with.
The worst exposure was actually relatively close to the bridge. You've got to go across a slide's chute with a hundred feet of exposure and only a narrow trail crossing it in soft sand that just looks like a temporary solution (the trail arches up high to stay in crossable material, and I'm guessing that it doesn't have much higher to go before it runs out of the sand). In all, this is a trail that probably changes a lot between rain storms, so I guess any description I write here will probably be out of date rather quickly.
We arrived in a little more than two hours at the bridge. From above, coming down the road, it looks pretty unimpressive and at first I didn't believe it could be the bridge. But, after you cross it and look back, it becomes a lot more impressive. Which is relieving, considering the time and effort one invests reaching it!
The bridge! To Nowhere!Flickr
Since we got there earlier than we anticipated, we continued ahead to see if we could find the other end of the tunnel they bored through the mountain at the end of the bridge (its completely collapsed). We found something that may have been the tunnel, but it was so choked up with rocks we couldn't tell whether or not it was man made or artificial. Then we found a sunny rock by the river (it was chilly in the canyons all day) and had lunch before heading back. It seemed to take longer going back, and we finally arrived at the parking lot at 3 something, I think.
Overall, a great hike, and a fun time.
Oh! I almost forgot. Birds. I didn't see a whole lot of birds, but I saw some that I don't see very often, and one that was new. I finally saw my first Rufous-crowned Sparrow, a truly handsome bird which has been a bit of a nemesis for me. They live in the Whittier Hills, even, and I just haven't been able to find one (though I think we've heard them before). I saw a pair calling and flying from one bush to another before they disappeared, again. No pictures, though.
Other highlights were a Golden Eagle right above the bridge, a Townsend's Solitaire near the bridge, several groups of Canyon Wrens (easily our most beautifully colored North American wren), lots of Rock Wrens in the wide rocky river beds (first time I've seen them since the Sierras in July), a single Kingfisher, and lots of Black Phoebes.
Overall, a great hike, and a fun time.
Oh! I almost forgot. Birds. I didn't see a whole lot of birds, but I saw some that I don't see very often, and one that was new. I finally saw my first Rufous-crowned Sparrow, a truly handsome bird which has been a bit of a nemesis for me. They live in the Whittier Hills, even, and I just haven't been able to find one (though I think we've heard them before). I saw a pair calling and flying from one bush to another before they disappeared, again. No pictures, though.
Other highlights were a Golden Eagle right above the bridge, a Townsend's Solitaire near the bridge, several groups of Canyon Wrens (easily our most beautifully colored North American wren), lots of Rock Wrens in the wide rocky river beds (first time I've seen them since the Sierras in July), a single Kingfisher, and lots of Black Phoebes.
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