Bike Ride on the San Luis Rey River
July 20, 2011 § 2 Comments
Rex on the San Luis Rey River bike path in Oceanside
Last week, my friend Rex and I bicycled from San Clemente to Oceanside… where we stumbled onto the San Luis Rey River and biked up its 7.2 mile San Luis Rey Trail bike path. I confess that I don’t know a lot about the San Luis Rey River, and most of the San Luis Rey’s flow wasn’t all that visible in the thick riparian foliage… willows, sycamores, and more… but there’s plenty of good information online regarding its watershed.
One of the cool things I’ve read about these northern San Diego county river watersheds (San Luis Rey River, and also, moving northward, Santa Margarita River and San Mateo Creek and San Onofre Creek) are that until recently, they still have some surviving runs of steelhead trout - especially San Mateo Creek, apparently. Steelhead trout used to be common in the L.A. River and other local streams… but they’re just not into tons and tons of featureless concrete.
We didn’t notice any steelhead on our bike ride… but hopefully the endangered southern steelhead can persist in these streams that we crossed and rode along. Hopefully we L.A. Creek Freaks can make our local stream habitats healthier… and maybe some of the surviving San Diego steelhead can someday be part of the steelhead stock that can be re-introduced into healthy L.A. creeks and rivers.
The San Luis Rey River, below the 5 Freeway
[...] stop sign lead to the observation that hardly anyone does. Joe Linton rides the bike path along San Diego County’s San Luis Rey River. A Redding writer says he doesn’t see how a 3-foor passing law could make a lick of difference. [...]
My brother does a lot of environmental work in San Diego county streams/rivers…
http://www.travbuddy.com/travel-blogs/69193/Deathmarch-16