The San Gabriel River is best known as one of those sadly neglected huge concrete channels roving through Los Angeles. This one has a sandy bottom instead of concrete a lot of the way, so at least its interesting to look at. But believe it or not, there is actually a river of sorts at its headwaters in the San Gabriel Mountains.
The river emerges from a reservoir, above this its tributaries spread out in many directions, draining the slopes of both Mt. Wilson and Mt. Baldy. Oddly, most of them seem to be named as forks of the river, even insignificant ones. This river has a north fork, a west fork, an east fork, a south fork (which, oddly, is north of the north fork), an 'iron fork' and a 'fish fork'. One of the biggest contributors to this river is known simply as Devils Gorge, as it escaped the curse of the forky-names. A highway was planned to go up Devils Gorge but it was blown out by a big flood and all thats left now is a big bridge. Although this river flows pretty low in the summer and is pretty much 'tamed' now, it must have had some pretty crazy floods back in the day. Perhaps one day it will rip out of its concrete ditch and tear out a chunk of Los Angeles.