The rain finally broke yesterday and I was able to go on a FoLAR (Friends of the Los Angeles River) sponsored Los Angeles River tour that covered the south half of river from downtown out to the harbor in Long Beach. This is a section of the river that I didn’t know as well, since it is farther away from where I live. It was a gorgeous day and you could see the snow capped mountains in the distance at many of our stops along the river.
We stopped first in downtown Los Angeles at a section of the river that is frequently used in filming movies and TV shows. I believe the car chase in Grease was filmed in this section of the river. Then we headed to Maywood where we visited a new neighborhood park that is right up against the river. After that we had a quick stop at Compton Creek but the gates were locked due to the recent flooding. Compton Creek a soft bottom tributary of the LA River. After that we tacos and then stopped at at the constructed wetland next to the LA River in North Long Beach. This was my favorite stop. The river is wider here and they have build great bike paths and bridal trails along the river. Parallel to the river, and right next to it, is a lnear constructed wetland. There were a bunch of people on horse back riding along the river. I’ll write more about this part of the river in a later blog post. And finally we stopped an the constructed wetland at the harbor near the Queen Mary. I expected to see a lot of trash at the last stop but it has all been washed out to sea by the storms.
Here are a few of the images of the trip. Click on any of the photos below to see the whole set on Flickr.