Los Angeles River — Local services in Los Angeles

The LOS ANGELES RIVER is a ballet in progress.

Pizzicato strings play the curtain open, revealing the corps de ballet gathering droplets of melting white snow. As droplets combine, the stream's intensity grows. The orchestra's tempo drives the adagio choreography. The Prima Ballerina joins the corps de ballet and together they emulate the San Gabriel Mountains' rushing water. Then presto, she cuts through the arid San Fernando Valley into Los Angeles' city center, resting (croisé) in San Pedro Bay, before exiting into the Pacific Ocean at Long Beach, California. As the curtain falls, her waters intermingle with the briny deep.

During and after a storm, the Los Angeles River swells, its current becomes violent and dangerous, many times faster then the Mississippi River at flood stage. However, most of the year she is but a gentle creak, a ballerina, performing fouetté turns, through an engineered channel.

To eliminate flooding by the fickle lady, the Army Corps of Engineers, for fifty-one miles, straightened and deepened her winding path. Her bed and walls girdled with steel and concrete. Been that way since the massive floods of 1938 when well over 100 died. But, things are changing.

The Army Corps of Engineers is now breaking up eleven miles of the concrete channel and planting the banks. Little by little, it's beginning to look like a river again. Wetlands are growing.

A 50 foot water wheel, in downtown LA, reminiscent of William G. Dryden's (1858) 40 foot water wheel is under development. The change may bring a bit of calmness to our congested city.

Walking along the banks, on the paved sidewalks, can be both pleasant and invigorating. An area called "Glendale Narrows" offers seven miles of the natural river. Here you can hike, bike or ride a rented horse. The wetlands and sand covered areas, along the river, are the home of easily viewed wildlife.

Access is available at many intersections. There is no charge. Many of the "river walks" are wheelchair accessible and are so marked. A few sections are lit at night. There are no bathrooms.

Kayak tours are offered on small sections of the river.

Depending on your location, parking can be easy and free, or if downtown, difficult...

The Los Angeles River (LA River) is no longer a natural river. There is no natural anything there only vegetation that have been deposited there from all the runoffs from rainfall that was washed into it by the connecting city's and towns that the River runs through. To my own view it reminds me more of a wash like I have seen and experienced back when I lived near one in Temple City. The natural river that once existed hasn't been ever since the country decided to structure the river to their wants. So all the native wildlife has to find other means to survive. But only due to the decades of runoff materials has the LA River become an artificial river. All the vegetation down in the river has been deposited there from rainfall years past along with sand, soil, rocks, and wildlife. The mighty trees that have washed into the river has been surviving only by their own needs to survive but have no deep roots to plant themselves so they try to stay alive they way they lay on their sides after the fast moving water falls when the rain stops. But the once massive oak trees that grew somewhere upstream that had lost it's grip from too much rainfall that saturated their ground soil and has eventually brought them where they lay now have only been there only because we haven't had much of any rain to have the water runoffs push all of it out into the ocean. But be glad that there has not been that many and long rainfall here otherwise the river would not have much of anything to look at or have any real type of ecosystem other rivers around the world have. The LA River would need to have it's name changed to the Los Angeles Wash or Los Angeles...

This is a big no-no... I did not enjoy cycling to work as my preferred mode of transportation! There is littering everywhere. Sutter Middle School and Stanley Mosk Elementary students litter their government-funded food in plastic bags all over the city, and Winnetka's streets and sidewalks are not maintained. Staff at both schools need to realize they need to take action to reduce their trash habits, such as a weekly Winnetka clean-up program in schools to earn donations of educational materials. It is my hope that the mayor of Winnetka will read my suggestion to improve littering...