The Adventures of Robin Hood | Big Chico Creek, Upper Bidwell Park — the water under the quarterstaff

Two of the film's best fights happen over moving water. Robin meets Little John on a log spanning a creek and gets knocked off it; later Friar Tuck backs him into the shallows and the two of them hack away soaked to the waist. Both were staged on Big Chico Creek, which runs the whole length of Bidwell Park, out of town and up into the foothills.

Nobody marked the crossings, and eighty-odd winters of flood have rearranged the banks since. What survives is the creek's character, and Upper Park is where you see it undisguised. Above Manzanita Avenue the water leaves the shaded flats and drops into a canyon cut through red volcanic rock — Tuscan Formation, laid down by mudflows off the Cascades — collecting in a chain of pools that Chico people name like street addresses: Bear Hole, Salmon Hole, Brown's Hole.

Bear Hole is roughly five miles up the unpaved park road, with a short scramble down from the parking area. In September the flow drops and the water goes clear and very cold. The rock underfoot is scoured smooth and slick.

Stand on a boulder mid-channel and try to hold your footing. You will see instantly why a fight was worth putting out here rather than on dry ground: nobody can plant their feet, and everybody looks ridiculous going in.

Photo: Big Chico Creek in Upper Bidwell Park, Wikimedia Commons.