Santa Paula Creek: main run class: continuous III-IV portages: 1-2 (rapid and a dam) length: ~7 miles gradient: ~100 fpm drainage area: ~35 sq. miles elevation: ~1000 (put-in), ~200 ft (take-out) minimum flow: 200 cfs optimum flow: 600 cfs shuttle: 8 miles To get to the put-in, look on a map at the area north of Los Angeles. Get to Highway 126 and turn north onto highway 150 at Santa Paula (Highway 150 also connects with Ojai). Drive up about 8 miles and find the put-in spot just below Thomas Aquinas College after the confluence with Sisar Creek. The take-out is in the city of Santa Paula. Santa Paula Creek, located between the cities of Ojai and Santa Paula, is the last major creek that feeds into the Santa Clara River just north of Los Angeles. Though it drains a pretty small area, most of it is steep sloping south-facing mountain that rises 5000 ft very close to the ocean. Because of this terrain, the amount of precipitation from each storm is much more than the surrounding valleys and more set-back mountains. The put-in described here is at the upper part where the road reaches. A trail heads up miles above this put-in, and a local (John) says there's many nice big drops on that stretch (which gets up to 300 fpm). Most of the creek on the run described here is set down low in a gorge and the highway that parallels it is not noticeable in most spots. The scenery, water quality, easy shuttle, rapids, and proximity make this one of the best big creek runs in the Southern Califonia area - one to do over and over again. The day following a big storm (Feb 8, 1998), Tom Diegel and I put-in for a probable first descent of Santa Paula Creek (i.e. the Santa Paula RIVER). The water, which was only slightly silty, flowed with about 1000 cfs (Tom thought maybe 2000 cfs). The previous evening at peak flow there must have been 5000+ cfs charging down the gorge. We looked on with amazement at one staircase rapid created by concrete under the highway bridge. Each of the four drops was 5-10 ft, three of them with ugly recirculating river-wide holes below, the last being the worst. After taking a look at the creek below here, we decided to put-in just below this class VI monster. It was late in the day - we had already done San Antonio Creek (out of Ojai) that morning, giving a deputy sheriff our names because he thought it was illegal to be floating on the Ventura River (we were issued a stern warning that if we put back on the Ventura River and ran the entire length as we were intending on doing, that he'd arrest us). We took off on the pushy creek within the narrow gorge, negotiating the continuous class IV rapids (stomping holes, large waves, extremely fast current, few eddies on the sides) down to a right-hand bend only 1/2 mile downstream, where views were obstructed from the road. We scouted from the right, at the close left bend just downstream, but the gorge walls were so steep and high that getting adequate views of the rapid's bottom were difficult. This rapid (class V-) started with a bang at a 4 ft sliding drop with curlers sure to give the best bracer a scare. It moves fast around the left bend and into more holes. We decided it wasn't worth getting spanked at the top due to the unknown nature of the remaining rapid. Though runnable, we portaged (moderate difficulty) on the left, having to ferry across and then get our boats up the steep, slippery slope. Below here the gorge continues for a while (~1 mile) before opening up a little and flowing through Steckel County Park (where there's a bridge across the creek), but still has continuous class II-IV water. On the entire run, there was no brush in the main river channel. Occassionally it was on the sides, but this was not something to worry about. Another 1-2 miles below the park, I was floating in a relatively calm section backwards looking back at Tom, when something faint squirmed out of his mouth. Then I heard a little louder "weir" as he pointed down, and then he finally shouted, "DAMMMM". I quickly turned around to see ~100 yds downstream the mist coming up above the creek just past a flat horizon line. We initially took out on the left just before the drop and examined the 20 ft falls, in some places onto rocks, but other areas clean. Without knowing what's beneath that, it's a definite NO-DO! Extremely impressive with all that water flowing over though. The portage must be done on the right, so we walked our boats upstream to a spot we thought we could make the ferry over (it was close though!), then climbed up the slippery bank to the highway, and back down to the creek below the dam, where I slid and got a little boo-boo. The creek's stomping right below here, and I was punched back for a few seconds, then flipped over in a hole obscured from view, "Hondo Hole", with Tom on my tail. Just as I flipped in that hole, Tom came careening into the same one, thinking one of us would surely get out!! Luckily, my flip pushed me out, and Tom didn't have too much trouble there anyway. Near the dam there's a very muddy tributary that enters on the left. A mile or so below the dam, the creek opens up quite a lot into more of a small valley. I thought we'd have easy class II-III floating from then on, but NO! If anything, it picks up in this stretch. You can see a lot more because it's open, but the narrow streambed still lets the water flow over it faster that the West Walker at 2000 cfs (just who's the "Fastest in the West"?). A bridge is passed, and I initially thought this was the city of Santa Paula, but the main town is another couple miles downstream. On this part, we could get out on the side onto the smooth, flaky, bedrock (type of rock?) that was just above the creek and horizonally extending 100 ft on either side. It would be a fun place for pictures or video. We scouted in this part a couple times, and considered even portaging one sliding falls into a hole (though we ended up sneaking the drop on the left). As the city is approached, the gradient slackens, and the class IIIs are more interspersed among class I-II. A couple bridges cross the creek in the town, then it hits the Santa Clara River. We intended on taking out at the first bridge across the Santa Clara, but a Ventura County Sheriff (same organization we talked with in the morning) vehicle spotted us from one of the bridges in town and we had to end there. I'll fill in the somewhat funny, but also infuriating details on this incident later. Let me just say that floating on Southern California streams should NOT BE ILLEGAL. We were on the verge of getting arrested, but also exuberant at the discovery of this wonderful little run! The search and rescue guys went down to the next bridge and told Preston and Bob (who elected to just do the shuttle) that we were waiting for them in the city. Rocky Contos jcontos@ucsd.edu James "Rocky" Contos **an avid whitewater kayaker** jcontos@ucsd.edu Neuroscience PhD program