South Yuba River - Purdon Crossing to Edwards Crossing - Part 2

For day two of this year’s California swimming hole marathon, Cade and I took an exploratory hike along the South Yuba River to check out more of the area between Edwards Crossing and Purdon Crossing. This was a continuation of a hike we did in 2019, where we started at Purdon Crossing and hiked upstream to check out two points of interest (POIs) I had marked on Google Earth. We only made it a little over a mile up the river that time, and I had marked a total of nine POIs on the five mile stretch of river between the two crossings. This time, we planned to start at Edwards Crossing and hike downstream as far as POI 5, which was about halfway between the two crossings. POIs 5, 7, and 8 looked the most promising, so I figured we probably wouldn’t bother with POIs 3 and 4, since they didn’t look that interesting and were more than halfway to Purdon Crossing. This was going to be an out-and-back hike, and the area was under an excessive heat warning (over 100 degrees without the heat index), so 2.5 miles one way was already going to be pushing it.

( Click here for the full trip report with pictures and videos )

In summary, the swimming holes at POI 5 were decent, but the surrounding canyon here was not as geologically striking as the area around Lemke’s Lagoon. POI 5 had a lot of nooks and crannies to explore, and there were a few decent spots for some low jumps, but probably nothing that would appeal to thrill seekers looking to “send it” (that’s what the kids say these days right before they do crazy backflips off huge cliffs). POI 9 was nothing remarkable, and we had to blow off POIs 6-8 since they were on private property. The water temperature was moderate and cool enough to keep us from having a heat stroke during this even-hot-by-California-standards heat wave. There was barely any shelter from the sun in this part of the canyon, though, so we definitely added to our sunburns today. The water was clear, but the silt and algae on the bottom made it look dark, and not the striking blue color we saw in 2017 and 2019. Hopefully there will be a big snowmelt next spring that scours the rocks and makes the river look cleaner.
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Update: We returned in 2023 and checked out POIs 3 and 4. Click here for the trip report.