Forks of the Kern!

The beautiful hike in clouded by smoke,The Crew
Spencer, me, Evan

After the South fork of the Kaweah we had made plans to go to Dinky creek but most the crew had dropped out and we decided not to go. Only austin decided to go.. Check his website out http://www.whitewaterassault.com/ for other rivers and reviews. So deciding to stay in the valley we went up to do an over nighter on the forks of the kern. After scavenging over night gear together and stashed it in the back of my jefe we went up into the high country and made the short easy 2 mile hike in.. With high water on the kern 4000cfs and a 17 mile wilderness class 4-5 run, we were just super excited! when we made it to the put in we jumped right in our boats and just got on the ever right away.. it was nice to have some volume under you.. After 2 or 3 miles we made it to the first class 5 called lower freeman! a junky tongue into the rapid into a sharp left hand turn with a ledge eddy hole hugging the right wall. we blue angled.. after this its a long ways down tell you reach the next class 5.. but when you do its one of my favorites.. Its called big bean. a long entrance with lots of stout holes and big waves.. end of the rapid ='s a pyramid rock in the center with a huge hole on the left. witch is to be boofed! pure goodness.. the next major rapids you come across are vortex and the gauntlet. vortex is a big stout with a slideing entrance down into a hole. right into a second hole.. i went last when i hit the second hole my stern dropped and my bow came up.. i went completely vertical.. i stomped my nose back down before the ledge hole at the bottom boofed it and paddled through. the next rapid is called the gauntlet.. a series of ledge drops into bigg holes.. after this rapid we set camp!

The next day we awoke and hung around camp for a while.. after a nice relaxing morning we set back out on the river.. the first major rapid we came to is a mile long class 5 called west wall. I decided it was best to scout the biggest part witch was about half way through the rapid.. while we were standing on the rock spencer noticed a boat floating down the rapid. when we relized it was my boat we ran down to the bottom of the rapid and swam acoss luckly catching my boat.. with full intent of loosing my paddle i sat on the shore and looked back across for where i jumped in at and evan leaned down to grab something when he put it his arm in the air i saw my paddle! after these events we got ourselves collected and got back to the run. we found ourselves at carson falls before we knew it.. after a short scout we decided to run the sneek that kept us away form running the 5 foot drop that led into a nasty body surf hole called the "thing" carson was the last big rapid on the run when we made it to the bridge that maked the take out we were all smiles and laughs about the amazing place we had just passed through. the forks is one of the most amzing places i have ever been!!