The main river, locally known as the North Fork, is in a bowl-shaped watershed, fed by several creeks and surrounded by Launtz Ridge and Pico Blanco () to the west, Devil's Peak () to the north, Uncle Sam Mountain () to the east, and Ventana Double Cone () to the southeast. The North Fork flows mostly over granite bedrock. Upstream tributaries include Skinners Creek, Ventana Creek, Comings Creek, and Puerto Suelo Creek. A one-armed man named Vogler built a cabin east of Devil's Peak in the 1880s, later purchased by the Comings family, for whom the location and creek are named today. (They continued to use the cabin until the early 1950s.)