Yuba Gooding Jr.
LANGSTYN IS THE MOST RANDOM friend you’ll ever have. He’ll text you around 2pm on a random Tuesday to ask if you want to join his group at the Yuba River on Thursday—and be deadass serious. You’ll reply “sure, as long as I can come up on Friday and there is wifi” because you support your friend’s random side quests but you’re still a responsible adult who has to work. Langstyn, of course, is going to say “that’s perfect!” and then you’ll find yourself last-minute scrambling for outdoor essentials because, though you be outside à la Jadakiss, you are not an outdoorsy type. But you’ll get everything together and come Friday, you’ll hop in the car with some strangers and head up to Yuba County.
And that’s how I ended up in Smartsville, CA over the weekend.
Shortly after I confirmed, I was added to a group chat called "Blessed by the Yuba 5.0." Eleven other people, all of whom had been before except me and two others, all of whom knew each other in some capacity while I kinda only knew Langstyn. I'm never afraid to go places alone, so I read the chat like a syllabus and showed up anyway.
The 5.0 is because Langstyn does this every year. He leads Negus in Nature (NIN), a nonprofit that gets Black folks and their communities back outside — and eventually, into leading the environmental work that happens out there. And the work isn’t just confined to the Bay Area or California. I’ve had personal friends fly out across states to take part in NIN activities in Colorado, Utah, and even internationally on the continent of Africa.
This wasn't exactly my first NIN event. A few months ago they co-hosted Black Bathers' Day with Stay Good Good at Good Hot in Richmond, and I've been to a few of their more social gatherings around Oakland. But trips like this past weekend in Yuba is what NIN is known for, and I was finally getting the full experience.
Our AirBnB was in Smartsville, a Gold Rush town that's part of California's Gold Country. The entire town is a historic landmark — mostly quaint-from-afar homes on vast land, ringed by forest, where you can't always tell if a dwelling is occupied or abandoned. It's a town you'd drive through, or spend a night in, and completely forget about after you left. Next door is Marysville, home to the oldest Bok Kai festival in the nation, running since 1880. Also next door is Timbuctoo, reportedly named by a Black miner from Mali. The area is predominantly white and Latinx now, but Yuba County is native land. Yubu, as indigenous peoples call it, is home to the Maidu, Nisenan, and Konkow tribes.
This past weekend, however, Yubu was full of Black people from the Bay.
I don't mean just us. This is apparently the weekend everyone goes, and it felt like all of Oakland was at the river.
“I’m at where you at.”
The day after I arrived, we headed to South Yuba River State Park. We were supposed to be checking out the old Bridgeport Covered Bridge, longest single-span covered wooden bridge in the world. So I guess it's important. I didn't care. I was there for the river.
Which I intended to get into, despite not knowing how to swim. I needed to be blessed by the Yuba, as the group chat promised. I also needed relief, because the hike down was in 95° of direct sun — perfect for laying out on the riverbed, terrible for walking. Especially in Teva sandals, carrying 32oz of water in an insulated freeze bag with two ice packs, plus snacks, sunscreen, bug spray, towels, a power bank, a tripod, and other water essentials. (I said I wasn't outdoorsy.)
If you're getting the sense I was woefully unprepared, you'd be correct. It’s safe to say that everyone on the trip was better prepared than I was. And what I appreciated most was that anything I didn’t have was graciously provided. Because that’s what this group does. Still, it’s probably better to be prepared yourself. I put together a list of outdoors essentials for future me (and you) which you can find here.
That first step into the water was worth everything I carried with me, and the things I didn’t.
Day one on the river was chill and exhilarating at once. Six hours of floating, diving, and — in my case — taking photos. I was surprised how shallow it was. Deep spots here and there, but mostly easy to navigate as a non-swimmer, which is to say I could stand up whenever I needed to remember I was fine.
The sun came down on the water like a laser. Apt, given the reflections I was having on my own. Closing Glowdega and immediately starting a new job had left me no real time to sit with myself, and here was six hours of nothing else to do. How am I doing? Am I liking where I ended up? I can’t say I came away with any answers but it was the first time in a while I'd asked. Maybe that’s the blessing the group chat referred to: the time to acknowledge your existence and evaluate your experience(s) as a human. The opportunity to show yourself some grace.
After 5 or so hours floating aimlessly, we decided to check out another part of the river. This required a hike back up and a short drive where we manifested a reasonably distanced parking spot the entire time. We ended up in the area near Hoyt Crossing. After hiking in and out of the Bridgeport area, I was spent. I found a shady area to rest while the others hiked down yet again. About 10 minutes later, two others joined me, having given up on hiking for the day just like me. The definition of too much sun.
The next day was a real adventure. We found a tucked-away spot on the outskirts of the Tahoe National Forest, the Oregon Creek swimming hole. It wasn't even on the itinerary — we heard about it the day before and decided to check it out.
The sign before entering said “nudity recommended” and I took that as a sign from the universe. You see, not even 12 days earlier, I replied to someone’s post on Threads admitting that I really wanted to have a clothing optional experience but only if everyone was Black. This was my opportunity. Another blessing from the Yuba.
The water here was shallower than the South Yuba stretch we'd been in the day before, and somehow more dangerous for it. The rocks were slick — the dry ones lining the creek and the ones under the water too. Most of it was shallow enough to sit in comfortably, but random deep pockets turned diving into a daredevil activity.
So we sat. And then, one by one, we started taking things off.
Not everyone got fully naked. Most of us were topless at best. But that wasn't really the point — the point was that nobody was performing for anybody, and almost everybody in that creek was Black. I'd asked the universe for exactly that ten days earlier and I hadn't expected an answer, let alone this fast.
There's a version of being outside that gets sold to us as gear and summits and everything you have to become first. What Yuba offered instead was permission to show up unqualified — to not know how to swim, to bring the wrong shoes, to sit in shallow water and not have any answers about your life yet. Nature doesn't require you to arrive already competent. It just requires you to arrive. And it helps to have people who will hand you a floatie while you figure the rest out.
I’m sure Langstyn will text again on a random Tuesday about something equally unhinged. I already know I'm saying yes.