Thursday, May 7, 2009

Piru Creek

Piru Creek

Piru Creek

Few of the hundreds of thousands of people that have driven up Interstate 5's Castaic grade, thirty minutes north of downtown Los Angeles, are aware of the stunning gorges that are found along Piru Creek upstream and downstream of Pyramid Reservoir.

Located just south of the intersection of the San Andreas and Garlock fault zones, the creek winds its way through land twisted and torn by the combined effects of these major faults, the related San Gabriel fault, the Pine Mountain fault, and several other smaller faults. The result is a stunning streamscape with towering cliffs, tilted strata, deep gorges, and remarkable views.

Add water and the reach between Pyramid dam and Lake Piru becomes one of the most unique, isolated, and scenic one-day, road accessible, whitewater runs in the Western U.S. It is considered a "must do" classic by many expert whitewater kayakers.

Water is the key. Water years with average,or above average, precipitation will usually produce some boatable days in February and March. But since the dam is just upstream, the release from Pyramid is the primary source of the water at the put-in. Sometimes it is necessary for boaters to make their way downstream on marginally boatable flows until side creeks add sufficient water.

You don't have to be a geologist to appreciate the unique terrain of Piru Creek -- you just need to be able to gawk at the rocks, cliffs and gorges in the 2500 ft. deep canyon and say, "Wow!" Want a "before you paddle" preview? Here's a Google Earth image of Piru Creek and Google Earth KMZ file of Piru Creek that shows much of the creek from Frenchman's Flat (on the left) to Lake Piru. Zooming in, here's a image of the "Falls Gorge" section, pictured on the right. For more info see Google Earth.

read more here
or
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piru_Creek

My buddy Jeff wanted to go fishing, so I packed my camera gear of course and tested out some new techniques my contacts have been asking me about.. stacking filters, testing the full capacity of the lee filter foundation. so I started with the HoyaND400, but I was blowing out my sky, so I tried my 3stop reversed gnd, and it didn't look so natural. The Lee .0.9 (3-stops) GND works wonders and is much stronger than cokin if you're rugged like me, its worth the extra cash.. =)