This Weekend, Consider Hanging Out On The LA River

Probably one of the biggest issues facing the Los Angeles River is a PR problem.

“Folks don’t know that it exists and folks don’t know why it’s important,” says Dennis Mabasa, COO of the nonprofit Friends of the LA River.

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Whitewater kayaking might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you picture the L.A. River. Too much concrete, right? Not enough water? Well, think again.

Navigating the LA River – And Its Activist History – In a Kayak

Whitewater kayaking might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you picture the L.A. River. Too much concrete, right? Not enough water? Well, think again.

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For a recent episode of our podcast How to LA, host Brian De Los Santos and producer Evan Jacoby went to find out more by kayaking the river through the Sepulveda Basin with L.A. River Expeditions guide Gary Golding. Along the way they discovered the beauty of the waterway and learned a whole lot about L.A. history and ecology.

How to LA's Brian De Los Santos and Producer Evan Jacoby kayak the LA River

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Courtesy Brian De Los Santos / Gary Golding

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LAist

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We have three takeaways from their journey:

On the river, it doesn’t feel, or look, like LA

Brian said he felt like he was traveling down the Amazon in the movie “Anaconda.” Evan said it was more like Oregon. But both agree it didn’t feel like being in the city. This is actually what L.A. used to look like before the Spanish colonized L.A. and when the Tongva people — and many other indigenous groups — depended on the river for their food, medicine and shelter.

Growing along the banks of the river you can find stinging nettles, sunflowers, walnuts, figs, wild mustard, castor beans, and a lot more.

“Most people don't have any idea in L.A. that they're surrounded by all of this food and medicine,” Golding says. “The Tongva people didn't even have to water their crops because the water table was so high, it was a Garden of Eden. Food was growing everywhere, it would rain and regenerate the top soil and regenerate the aquifers.”

Concrete saved lives and property but harmed the ecosystem

Mabasa points out that L.A. used to be one of the most biodiverse regions in the world.

“Indigenous folks also knew that this was an ephemeral river, so it was a seasonal river,” Mabasa says. “So during parts of the year, the river would actually be an underground river. That's sort of known as our groundwater. They also recognized when the river did flood, it brought really valuable nutrients to the soil.”

The river and its soil attracted the Spanish colonizers — and then everyone else — to the region. But the new arrivals did not realize the area was built on a flood plain.

There were a series of floods over the decades that followed. But after one particularly devastating one in 1938 in which thousands of lives and properties were lost, city officials decided to pave it in.

“They put in the concrete to save property and lives, but what they lost was the whole function of the ecosystem, the regeneration of the top soil, the regeneration of the aquifers,” Golding says.

Activism — and a loophole — made it possible to kayak the LA River 

Kayaking through the L.A. River was illegal until about 12 years ago. The Army Corp of Engineers said it wasn’t safe as it wasn’t considered a natural river. But in 2008 a satirist named George Wolfe, who since founded L.A. River Expeditions, set out to prove them wrong and kayaked the entire length of the river in three days with his wife documenting it. Two years later, the Environmental Protection Agency declared the L.A. River “traditional, navigable waters” and it was open for kayaking in 2011.

Listen to the rest of this adventure through the L.A. River on the How to LA podcast.