The Forks of the Kern-By Jon G.

The Forks of the Kern is a two day raft trip, normally. It can be done in one LONG day, but most people do it in two days. We had decided to do it in the normal two day trip. So we packed up the boats, 3 two-person IK's, and all of our camping gear that would fit in our dry bags and we set out. I knew this would be an adventure, but I really didn't know just how much of an adventure it would turn out to be.

The put-in involves a two mile hike down to the canyon bottom carrying all of our boats and gear. That in itself is what has kept me from doing this trip in the past, but this time we just sucked it up and hiked. We eventually got down to the river and got the boats pumped up and the gear tied on. We hit the water about 1PM.

This run is pretty much all class IV and V stuff with very little calm water between. Some people say that there are 78 rapids, others say it's just one rapid. At high water, I can understand the notion of it being just one really long, gnarly rapid, but at low water it's broken up pretty good and there is some calm between storms. The water on this weekend was flowing about 200-220 cfs. That's really low, way too low for rafts to get through and almost too low for IK's to get through in some places. But it was fine and we only had to portage in a couple of places. The water being so low is a blessing in some ways, and a curse in others. Since the river winds down through some of the most rugged terrain in the state, the rapids are choked with granite boulders everywhere. The route through some of the rapids was very creative as we had to wind our way down through the boulders. Tom said the key is to look for where the majority of the flow goes and follow it, that's the rule in all but a couple of places. Every drop we came to we either had to stand up in our boats and try to look over the horizon line, or stop to scout the route down through the rocks. Since the water was so low, there was no big, smokin' holes, no real pushy water, and the fear factor was minimal. But every rock was showing it seemed, and you have to miss them or they will stop you and you have to get out of the boat and work to get off of it... or, if you hit it sideways, it can flip you.

Monica was my bow paddler, BJ was Tom's bow paddler, and Joe was by himself doing the single blade trick. Joe's boat was loaded down with most of our gear and he was a floating barge almost. We made our way down through a full day of awesome paddling to our campsite at Durrwood Creek. The camp was an assortment of old buildings that had been there for years. Everything there was either harvested in the area or hiked in since there are no roads for miles. That also brings to ones attention that should anyone get hurt, it's a long time before help would arrive should you need it. We camped out overnight and ate and drank like kings. The next day we wake up and again, eat and drink like kings...but this time it's coffee, instead of wine and tequila. After we get fed and packed up for the days adventure, we head on down the river. The story now is that we are just getting started on the gnarly part of the trip, the rapids from here on are gnarlier, steeper, more continuous, and have much larger drops. OH BOY. We've all done fine so far with only a couple of minor swims. Of course, even a minor swim on this river at this level will undoubtedly include a few bumps and bruises. Monica learned that the first day and was already feeling a little bit battered. We get through the first two rapids successfully and get to Vortex and stop to scout. Vortex is a class V rapid with a 5-6 foot pour over into a pool that's blocked by some rocks. As we are scouting that rapid, Joe decides he's going to run it. Joe goes over the pour over and sinks his right tube and swims. Tom decides he's going to go next and heads back to the boats. What he discovers then will change our trip in a most interesting way.

One of the tubes in my boat has burst and renders the boat useless. So, there we are...deep in the Golden Trout Wilderness, with 5 folks, lots of gear, and only two boats to get us home. So, the minds go to work to figure a way to make this work. We ended up loading Monica into Tom and BJ's boat along with the rolled up boat. So that's three people, a dry bag, and a 40lb boat in one boat, and all the rest in the other boat. Joe's boat was already overloaded and was floating like a barge...but we were soon to add another 250lbs with me and the dry bag we had with us. So now Joe's boat has two people in it, four huge dry bags and lots of misc stuff clipped on by carabineers...a pump, a coffee pot, a small dry bag...etc. We looked like total hillbillies floating down the river. When Joe sat back down in his seat, the luggage was piled higher than his head! Now that's top heavy. But we had little choice. So off we went like a couple of barges floating down the gnarliest class V section of the Kern River.

The first drop we come to was the Gauntlet, it's a relatively moderate pour over that has some lateral thing going on that grabs the left tube of Tom's boat and they flip...we are right behind him and we do the same thing...go over the pour over and whoops...we flip too...everyone swims and we all lose our hats and Teva's are gone, sandals are blown out, it was an interesting start to the rest of our journey. Our boat felt like a Greyhound bus floating down the river, big and unmanageable. But we righted it and hopped back in and collected what gear we could and kept going. After a short while Joe and Tom got used to the extra weight and settled into the situation. The river was one gnarly class V after another...and another...and another. Luckily for us, and as we had planned for, the water was really low and so what is normally a gnarly class V rapid was now really only class IV or so. But with all those rocks and boulders around, one never knows what kind of hazards may exist should you dump your boat and have to swim. Tom had been down this part of the river more than any of the rest of us and he knew most of the routes and hazards and that made scouting a lot easier. We had planned to get back to our vehicle by about 3PM and it was looking as if we would be lucky to get there by dark.

One rapid in particular stands out in my mind as being exceptionally gnarly, Westwall or Confusion as some call it. It's right at the base of a sheer granite wall that has been exfoliating huge boulders and slabs of granite for hundreds of thousands of years. Looking at it from the top, that rapid gave me the creeps just thinking about what that must look like at bigger water...completely terrifying. But, at low water there was a route through if you were really careful. We were really careful. Joe is the man for his guiding skills, so is Tom. I was the least experienced of the guides and I was humbled by their ability to not only guide an IK through some of these rapids, but to do so with massively overloaded IK's to boot. We snaked our way down around the boulders and over pour over after pour over and finally, after who knows how long, we finally hit some calm water. One might think that was time to be relieved...but there is no relief yet...there's still a long way to go. Along the way we saw only two people the whole time, both were fishermen who were completely focused on fishing. Both were standing in the water looking downstream and were completely surprised by our presence as we floated up behind them. We scared the crap out of one guy when I said hello, he had no idea anyone was anywhere near him. But when he turned around and saw us he just started to laugh...3 people crammed into one boat and Joe and I with all the luggage in the other boat...we had to have looked a bit funny.

We finally get down to the confluence where Dry Meadow Creek meets the Kern. There, we hit some innocent looking rock right in the way of our boats and both boats hit it and it flips us both. It ends up being a real easy swim and we all laugh at how embarrassing it is to have swam at such an easy place, but as it turns out we are all starving by then anyway so we stopped for some food. The sun was going down about then so we had to be moving along. The next big rapid was Carson Falls, we had planned to portage that but Tom thought it may be runable. So as we get there, we pull up to scout the falls. This is crazy, these falls pour over about 10-12 feet into a boiling caldron of whitewater, then falls another few feet over a couple of rocks and into a pool. It looks WAY ugly. After some debate, we decide to portage. Of course, Tom wants to run it but Joe and I over rule him and force a portage. Maybe we could run it in normal boats, but not in these overloaded boats. So we proceed to haul the boats up out of the river and over the rocks, it's a lot of work but it's starting to get cold anyway and I need the work to help keep me warm. After we get done with Carson Falls it's all downhill from there, just a couple of more small rapids and we finally reach the take out...thank god we finished before dark.

Note: Jon G. is a guide with Eagle Rafting.