Reeking of Wilderness
by Andrew Hume

When most of the rest of North America is freezing in the bitter and unrelenting cold of their winters—salting icy walkways, scarved and bemittened, noses frozen with wind-chill; or curled up in a nest of Village Voices in front of the oven—we Southern Californians are able to enjoy a calming float down one of nature’s more blessed habitats, the Los Angeles River, in a burst of warming sunshine. The LA sun always manages to peak its way through the brisk 65° clouds each December, and warm its whites, not-so-whites and downright browns into a toasty 70+° goulash of togetherness. I like to think this melted Crayoloric soup of understanding would make a color not unlike that of our precious LA River. It is our great city’s lifeblood.

Some rivers run melted snow from the high peaks of the Rockies to become a refreshing can of Coors. Some wash silt from their banks to help replenish the soil of America’s Heartland. While still others travel along at a healthy pace, assisting the movement of cargo throughout the trade centers of the Northeast and Midwest. Our beloved LA River, however, is mostly malt liquor, diapers and condoms. It is our city’s lifeblood, yes, but some bloodstreams push Hep A. We can think of Los Angeles as America’s kidneys and liver, where all the body’s toxins are broken down before they’re pissed and shat out into the Pacific Ocean.

Southern California winters are warm and scattered with disastrous flash floods. Los Angeles is quite literally a flooded desert. It’s a falsely created climate. Mother Nature got duped into making it a sometime rainy place. So, when the temperatures drop and the humidity rises, the moisture quickly condenses on the shittons of smog and tiny tire particles in the air to produce floods of Torahic proportions. It’s sorta fun to see all the fools driving around like it’s pouring down ball bearings and banana peels, but this shit is wild. The rains flood freeways in a matter of minutes, wash away precariously built houses in the various wealthy Hill areas (and we all giggle) and drown the occasional dog or blubbery child.

Most of this water finds itself into the LA River before it drains into the ocean. In times of peak flow, the river carries 183,000 cubic feet of water per second, that’s 14 times the flow of New York’s Hudson River. Mixed in with all the McDonald’s wrappers, guns and broken dreams, is the occasional sample of E. coli or Hepatitis (no joke). According to a 2004 report by Heal the Bay, an organization formed to promote clean water, 37% of Los Angeles County beaches received an “F” grade for microbiological pollution during wet weather. Thankfully, Angelinos recently passed Proposition O—a $500 million general bond measure to help the city of Los Angeles clean up the polluted storm water that flows to its rivers, lakes and beaches, so all the cute coastal fauna don’t have to eat barf and AIDS anymore.

The LA River begins in the San Fernando Valley, at the confluence of Bell Creek and Calabasas Creek, which flow down from the Santa Susana and Santa Monica Mountains. It runs 52 miles long and meets its last tributary, Compton Creek, shortly before emptying into the Long Beach estuary. We’d planned to canoe about 15 miles of it, beginning at Balboa Park in Encino (just before it becomes the concrete poured drainage system) and ending at the LA Zoo, off the I-5 (just before it becomes seriously diseased).

On the drive to the park, we joked prodigiously about the disasters we were certain to encounter—drowning, surly French Canadian trappers, Col. Kurtz’s minions, ninja turtles, etc.—all-the-while amazed the canoe hadn’t yet blown off the roof of the car. We arrived and pretended to say our last goodbyes to the friends that’d driven us, and headed down to the bank.

Despite the swarms of white plastic bags stuck in the trees on this leg of the river, it was actually quite pretty—almost natural. The water seemed relatively clean. Some fishermen watched us smirkingly, as we carried the canoe to the shore. They gave us the impression that boating wasn’t the type of shit that usually went down on this waterway. But we quickly shot back some bigtime ‘fuck you’ shrugs. As born sportsmen, we were forced to find our adventuring grounds where we could. “Social order be damned!” we thought mightily, as we set the canoe down on shore. We were courageous and rowdy, full of the vigor and vitality of our hearty forebears. We were Thomas Wolfe, exploring the robust streams of his Carolina boyhood. We were Ernest Hemingway, boozing and boxing our way through America’s great new adventures. We were Truman Capote, wildly fellating some runaway youth (no, I’m kidding). Finally, though, and for real this time, we were the great Jack London, trudging assuredly through the Alaskan snows in his continued quest for the much lored and heavily magical brothel at the top of the highest peak.

We set the canoe in the water, fully prepared, now, for any strange or strong, powerfully stout bit of intense danger this river had prepared for us. Sam stepped first into our craft, a stern look on his face, a burning look of bravery and determination…and he fell in instantly. He hadn’t even canoed a bit yet and was already flailing, mostly under water, but kept partially dry atop a helpfully positioned bit of shrubbery. We paused our exploration there, momentarily, for a laugh—a loud, strong and bearded laugh—before repositioning the boat and entering, all three, very carefully. The boarding was a success this time, and we were off, amid a surprising wealth of wildlife—egrets, herons, cranes, diving ducks and floating ones. There were hundreds of them, their necks somehow free of the ever-prevalent killer, the 6-pack ring. The cranes were all a glorious and healthy white, while I’d’ve expected them to be greyed and coughing—so close were we to LA’s stink and sprawl. Not one, however, shook uncontrollably or talked to himself or even begged “bus fare” from us.

We floated safely for only a short time, though, before coming upon our first hazard, a perilous bit of rapids fashioned of errant shopping carts. We’d made it only 10 yards and already danger directed our laughter right back at us. These carts, normally the bearers of good tidings—tidings like milk or pasta or, Tide, for example—had become threatening, as the water rushed through them at speeds upwards of swift walking. We had no choice but to portage and circumvent the assured jeopardy that slowly scraping 60 pounds of 3-inch thick plastic over grated steel in 4 inches of water would bring. It was all a success. We’d officially gathered our outdoorsy wits now and cracked a Colt 45 to celebrate.

We were soon out of the woods and began to track the freeway southeast. There were paintings on the walls of the bridges we passed under. We knew we were approaching civilization. We smelled smoke as we came upon the next bridge. It was some kind of camp. The nomadic hobo, we guessed, but didn’t stop to trade, as we were a bit frightened by their strange yelps and wished not to be marauded, barely an hour into our trip. Then the water slowed and shallowed and we walked, A LOT.

After years of hearing possibly overblown news reports of the dangers of flooding in the LA River, we’d been afraid to enter it that day, thinking it might be too high and fast to properly navigate. But even after some rain the night before, it wasn’t shit that day. I’m sure there’s truth to the news reports. People do die after all. (Please don’t read this and die due to my flippancy.) But that damned media was liberally spouting water that just wasn’t there that day. So we fucking walked, Sam and I pulling ‘Princess Ryan’, who sat in the center of our adventure-hungry craft (eating bon bons, no doubt).

We were able to float, the three of us, a few more times before coming to a big God dam. I’ve seen bigger, sure, but this one was worth some praise. We portaged again and sent out some recon to figure the best course of action. It was too big to scale, we determined, and too much of a bitch to walk around. The true outdoor spirit hit us again, and we went straight into the stomach of the monster, not quite knowing what would happen but unafraid of everything, save the regret that would someday hit us if we avoided this moment of great adventurist potential.

From there we forged on, empowered. We walked. The water smelled vaguely of detergent. It was unnaturally warm in parts, due, we figured, to the fact that it was probably treated sewage. The warmth felt nice, though, as the sun had gone hidden. There were no longer any animals but the occasional set of mallards. We asked the folks on the bridge, as we passed through Sherman Oaks, if they might know where the good muskrat trapping was. They ignored us, and we briefly learned to navigate the deeper water along the corners, where we could float. We had to shimmy a bit in the center, scraping our oars on the concrete, as we traversed from the deep water on one turn to its brethren across the way. It went fairly well until the front began to drag, and we’d spin about into some slow motion freestyle stunt work.

Shortly thereafter, the water deepened again, and as my fellow journeymen stepped out for a pee, in a nod to this great river and the formerly glorious carjacking capital of the world, I stole the canoe and escaped down river, defying death and friendship as I navigated alone, free and wild, my name emblazoned, permanently, on the river’s floor with each gnashing oar stroke. “ANDREW!” it said, then, and still screams. “Andrew, King Oarsman!” The oars became my wings, the water weightless, and I took flight, barreling forward and upward. My friends ran after me, up shit’s creek a bit more than I, not too far behind, but shrinking quickly. Unfortunately, as most other storied outlaws end, just a page or two before saddling into the sunset, I was brought down in the climax of the adventure. By a chopper, no less. They made me get out of the canoe, and my friends caught up. We’d hoped it was a news chopper, that we’d become a lesson to disorderly children everywhere. But it was the L.A.P.Downer; they flew in and made us leave the river. They thought we were twelve.