I had long dreamed of getting my face wet on some classic Californian granite gems. May 2013 was going to be the chance to fulfil some of those fantasies.
Arriving in Portland on April 30th, I quickly went about collecting my Large Burn and other necessary pieces of paddling paraphernalia.
The plan was simple:
Get up early on the 1st, go for a lap on the Ldub with long time Kiwi buddy Michael and old Canadian slalom pal Chris.
Part ways with Michael, load Chris’s truck and drive our arses South into Cali.
Run the shit!
Throw Kyle Hull into the mix and suddenly the single cab Mazda B2300 isn’t so roomy, but the buzz is escalating exponentially.
Enjoying the drive a little more after Kyle has made his way into the tray behind.
CALI!
20 hours later we arrived in Three Rivers where we based ourselves for the following 4 days.
The Middle and East Fork’s of the Kaweah River were exactly what I was hoping to find to start my first Cali experience. We rolled a 9 pack into the East fork and proceeded to bomb out a sweet run without portages, and generally ,mint lines.
Dropping into a crack on the East Fork.
Chris, after taking a face shot on “Toxaway”. East Kaweah.
Firing off the entry drop of “Triple Drop”.
The “Hospital Rock” section of the Middle fork is an absolute stunner of a run. It’s not hard, but it sure packs in a lot of epic drops and rapids in a stretch of river that you can mob through in less than an hour.
Enjoying the Hospital Rock section of the Middle Fork of the Kaweah River.
A perfect lip to lay a crossbow on.
We got some beta that told us we needed to check out “Chuck’s Slide” on the section of river above “Hospital Rock”. With a name that stems from a whitewater legend such as Chuck Kern, this was a slide that was bound to be awesome. And it was.
Rolling into “Chuck’s”. Roll in, hold on, get spat out the bottom.
With the Kaweah’s starting to drop out, we headed North to run Upper Cherry Creek.
I knew nothing of Upper Cherry other than it was epic. The plan was to have an early start, charge the walk, put on and bomb out in a day. This all sounded pretty rad to me. Maybe that was because I had no idea that we were not only trying to sneak in on a cold snap in the hope for lower water, but also, that the run normally took 2-3 days.. So, we didn’t get our early start, but started up the path nevertheless. After a couple of miles, our team of 6 was down to just myself and Jake Greenbaum. It was at this point I realised just what we were getting ourselves into. It also dawned on me that we weren’t going to sneak in on a cold snap as the day was rapidly heating up. Minor details. We made the decision to hike into the base of Cherry Bomb Gorge and rally out from there instead of going the full length with no overnighting kit.
The look on Jake’s face when we got to river level said it all. He looked nervous. “Dude, the river’s huge. Water shouldn’t be flowing over those ledges.”
Upper Cherry at Flinstone
Putting on in the pool at Flinstone, I still didn’t quite understand the effects of the highwater, but I was super amped to go kayaking. I’d just had the last 2 days off the water and there was no way I wasn’t going boating today. Burly ledge holes, and powerful hydraulics soon slapped the focus back into me as we battled our way downstream through some of the sickest whitewater I’d ever run.
Supposedly this usually gets run down the groove on the left. We barely scraped granite straight down the guts.
An early swim out of “Double pot hole” re-affirmed the power of the uniform ledges and holes this run was going to offer at high flow!
Upper Cherry Swim 1
Arriving at the lake and eventually the car, Jake and I were absolutely ruined. Stoked, but ruined. Shortly after departing the drainage, we discovered that the flow was 1160CFS as opposed to the recommended 600CFS.
Debriefing after a super rowdy day in Upper Cherry. Photo Jared Seiler
Keeping the buzz on, we promptly headed to “Silver Fork” where we were lucky enough to catch a primo flow to enjoy the many slides and more technical rapids that the run had to offer.
“Fantasy Falls” was the run we had been waiting for, and was our next objective. Since arriving in Cali, I had been hanging out to scare myself. Rumour had it that “Fantasy Falls” was going to be the run where that would happen.
Our team consisted of myself, Chris McTaggart, Kyle Hull, Jared Seiler, Nick Murphy and Jake Greenbaum. Nick and Jake had been down the run a couple of weeks earlier, and Jake had claimed the 4th descent of “The Untouchables”.
The stoke was high as we bombed our way through an amazing day one and set camp at “Front Porch”. Something was lingering in the air at camp that night. Playing on everybody’s mind was day two and more specifically “The Untouchables”.
“Front Porch Camp” Photo: Jared Seiler
Day 2 of Fantasy Falls is an unbelievably good day kayaking. After a couple hours on the water, it dawned on me that the chatter had slowed down completely from the only guys that knew the run. Could it be that Untouchables was nearing? I was on Jake’s tail when he turned to me and said “This is what you’ve been waiting for dude. We’re here.”
It looked good, and I was quick to jump on the opportunity to be the first in our group to drop in.
“The Untouchables”. Immediately after punching the entry buffer, it’s time to hold on, stay straight and wait to tranny out into the gorge.
Pretty quickly, I was followed by Jake, Kyle and Jared. Every line was slightly different, but all were successful!
Laying tandem treats with Demshitz Jared Seiler. Photo Michael Peacher
From here out, more epic kayaking continued until we made it down to the reservoir and cold beer.
Fantasy Falls Swim 2
We took a couple rest days and got a leisurely lap on South Silver before we headed right back in for round 2 on “Fantasy Falls”.
Taking some time out on South Silver.
Levels were lower on the Mokelumne, but stoke was equally as high. We were joined this time by Evan Garcia and Louis Geltman who had just driven the mammoth distance from Hood River to get amongst.
Round 2 saw 7 descents on “Jedi Mind Meld”, 7 descents on “Untouchables” (including 1 accidental switch run by myself and a hike up second lap), 7 descents on “Island”, and 8 descents on “Show me Your Tits” (4 swims out of the “Thing”)
“The Untouchables” – Round 2. First switch descent.. Photo Michael Peacher
“The Untouchables” – round 3. Making amens for my previous run. Photo Jake Greenbaum
Unfortunately, by the time we arrived at the take out, the level at the reservoir had come up so much that our beers were never to be seen.
The conclusion of our second lap on Fantasy Falls meant our time in Cali was over. Part two of the trip was about to start, as we prepared ourselves to head back North to Washington..
Part Two. Washington and beyond coming soon.
