Better Places to Be: San Gabriel River Trail

This river is normally dry and unattractive. People may travel along it to reach the mountains or the sea, but an attraction in its own right? There is not much reason. No one is going to travel long distances to see its cracked, sun-bleached bed, its banks lined with rock and concrete. Power lines strung between massive steel towers spit and crackle in dry air. No one passing over its many bridges bothers to look down; mostly it is bland, monotone, monotonous. A desert holds far more interest. Sometimes a committee of vultures will gather around some dead thing in its dead bottom; meeting adjourned they don't linger - "I hate to eat and run you know, but... I've got better places to be."

But then. One of those rare winters streams through bringing rain and snow to the mountains. The reservoirs fill and the river is allowed to flow. Clouds float across the surface and are mirrored in the sky. Ducks bob bottoms up grazing the shallows. Geese glide in cutting sharp 'v's in their wake. Egrets stand on stilts, patient waders waiting. Now people travel along with heads turned to the show, drinking color, cascade splashing percussion and a chorus of birdsong accompaniment.