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| Trip Dates: 12th-28th May 2001
Flight: Heathrow to San Francisco Team Members: Dan Peel, Frazer Pearce, Clive Williamson, Adrian Healy, Will Forester, Tamsin Gay, Julie Hutchinson, Andy Laird, Matt Simpson, Jim Wallis, Charlie Mott, Jeremy Masters, John Cartwright and Dan Hughes |
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100 photos - this will take a while to load even with thumbnails !
Trip report from the second Poly trip to California this year
Thumbnailed scans sorted by river or type:
Kern
Chamberlain Falls
Kings
Giant Gap
Toulumme
Stanislaus
Chilli Bar
North Fork Kings
Merced
Cherry Creek
People
Scenary
San Francisco
Well, we got back in one piece, no epics and quite a lot of paddling. Levels in California were low, although we seemed to catch the best two weeks of an otherwise terrible year.
Itinerary:
| Date | Section | Length | Grade | Level (cfs) | Paddlers |
| 13th | South Fork American - Chilli Bar | 5.8 | III | 1350 | 14 |
| 14th | North Fork American - Chamberlain Falls | 4.8 | III+ | 1200 | 13 |
| 15th | North Fork American - Giant Gap
North Fork American - Chamberlain Falls |
14.5
4.8 |
IV+
III+ |
1200
1200 |
12
5 |
| 16th | Lower Stanislaus | 4 | III(V) | 1500 | 14 |
| 17th | Tuolumme | 18 | III+(IV) | 1800 | 14 |
| 18th | Merced - El Portal to Red Bud | 4 | V | 2000 | 10 |
| 19th | Kings - Banzai | 10 | III+ | 5000 | 14 |
| 20th | Dinkey Creek
North Fork Kings - lower |
1.5
3 |
V
V |
800
800 |
6
11 |
| 21st | Forks of the Kern | 17 | V | 2200 | 12 |
| 22nd | Kern - Limestone to Salmon Falls | 8 | IV | 2300 | 14 |
| 23rd | Kern - Salmon Falls to Camp 3 | 9 | IV | 2100 | 14 |
| 24th | Merced - El Portal to Red Bud | 4 | IV+ | 1500 | 8 |
| 25th | Cherry Creek (7 walked up Half Dome) | 6 | V | 900 | 3 |
| 26th | Pescadero beach surfing | 2 foot | 10 |
1363 miles total between us! Some people paddled every day, we got in a hike up to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite and managed to drive 2100 miles. Highest doss was at 9500feet, entering Yosemite via the Tioga road. Highest bridge jump was by Andy and Will, measured at 22m, over 70feet! Our group of 14 used a 7 seater van and two Chevy Blazers which proved excellent for ferry ragging. Photos to follow, here's the trip report from Jim Wallis;
The A-team also met up with poly expats Mark and Hazel, and Mark paddled with us all on the 13th. Unfortunately due to our nomadic approach we didn't meet up with them again, and worse still didn't manage to meet CJ, another Poly ex-pat, at all.
Saturday 12th
I flew to San Francisco from Glasgow with British Airways. They were
excellent, I had no hassles checking in even though my first flight was
domestic and had different baggage limits. My boat arrived at the same
time as me, although Dan Hughes' boat also arrived at the same time as
me and he was on the previous flight. It might be worth asking about "rapid
transfer" in the future - thats the label my boat got on the way out anyway!
The first person I met was Dan Hughes and armed with the information
that his boat had been seen at baggage retrieval he was able arrange to
pick it up fairly quickly. The rest of the guys had been on a Virgin flight
and had already got the vans (2 x Chevvy Blazers) which looked huge at
the airport! In the excitement I temporarily lost my passport and return
tickets by leaving them on a baggage trolley - fortunately the forecourt
Police found them and handed them in to the BA desk where I was able to
retrieve them having delayed our departure by another half an hour or so!
We then had a pleasant 3 hourish drive to the put in for Chili bar (with a stop at Wendy Burger and a very large off-license - supermarket sized!) where we camped rough in the car park because it was already dark. On the way we couldn't help but notice that our huge cars were quite small compared to some of the other SUVs and pickups we passed (or is it were passed by?).
We woke up to discover "no camping" signs in the car park - oops! We packed up our doss kit and went for a huge breakfast (you quickly get sick of these!) before anyone turned up to paddle, so we got away with it. We got our permits from the shop at the put in and ran the shuttle, intending to meet the 3rd van on the way. I had texted Clive our intentions the previous evening, but unbeknown to me the phone or tariff he had didn't have SMS so he never got it! Luckily I tried phoning him on our way to breakfast (no reception at the put in) and got his voicemail message that said they were at a campsite by the takeout, hence the dodgy plan to bump into them! The 3rd van arrived of it's own accord having not spotted our other vans as they were now without boats on the roof!
Chili bar is the play section of the South Fork of the American, although
reputedly the gorge is now better as Chili bar has been changed by floods.
The first playspot is at the put in and is known as first threat. It was
a bit small on river right and not very useful, but the river left side
was quite grippy - grippy enough to cause me to swim on my second run on
that side!.
Frazer was pleased - "we now know you can last at least 5 backloops
before swimming then?", I was pleased - "I swam at the put in for the warm
up, I don't need another excuse all holiday!"
The river was mellow grade 2 and 3 with several playspots. The best rapid preceeds a long flat paddle to the takeout, and I felt it was worth standing up in my boat for a look at it!. The section is 8 miles long and feels like 12 miles, this is typical for Californian rivers! The flow was 1350 cfs which is short of optimum but well above minumum, and fine for a warm up.
Monday 14th
I was still feeling a bit shitty from the flight, my neck was especially
bad because I wasn't really able to move about enough on the plane. I decided
not to paddle and sunbathed (and stretched) whilst the rest ran Chamberlain
falls on the North Fork of the American.
This section is graded 4, presumably because the actual fall of the
same name is nasty at some levels, but at this level it was actually pretty
easy. It was easy enough for Frazer to swim! He put it down to pure operator
error and said that if he had even attempted to run the obvious side of
the rapid he wouldn't have got pinned upside down in it! Apparantly the
flow was about 1200 cfs this time.
We had a big fire consisting mainly of petrol and a big log which worked better than might be expected, although we later borrowed an axe to chop it up, and make chopper jokes about. A local paddler warned us that the woods were full of Poison Oak - after we had collected the firewood! He also gave us some stuff to rub in if anyone came up with a rash and advised that baking soda would also help because it is the acidity of the sap that causes a burning/itching reaction in most people (and doesn't even affect others!).
Tuesday 15th
Giant Gap on the North Fork of the American involves a 2 mile walk-in
with a huge descent. I was still not feeling like carrying my boat anywhere,
and Julie didn't fancy it either, so we shopped and then relaxed on the
campsite until the guys turned up. We then ran Chamberlain falls with some
of them. I also found out what Poison Oak looks like so I could avoid the
stuff!
The flow was still about 1200 cfs, but a little lower than the day
before. Chamberlain falls was as they described - much easier than the
book suggested, and Matt proved it by borrowing a Nano and Bow stalling
his way down most of it.
At the takeout we met a real character, and Frazer had started a conversation
that he almost regretted! The character turned out to be a prospector who
lived in the woods most of the time, although he had a pickup full of prospecting
gear. Somehow we got onto rattlesnakes, at which point the gnarly dude
asked us if we'd seen one? He then went on to explain that he likes to
have one in his gold pans - because it tends to stop the gold going missing,
and if he can't be bothered to go to the shop he can always eat it!
He then offered to show us the rattler he had caught recently that
was injured and he had wet (this apparantly helps them heal) and was keeping
in his gold pan - this dude was for real, he showed us the rattlesnake!
On the way home we managed to shed all the boats off the roof of the big van going down the steep hill to the campsite. We managed to stop the van and as I jumped out to pick the boats up my feet missed the road and I ended up in a heap beside them much to everyones amusement.
We had looked at the Bear en-route to a campsite, which was totally
dry and had received tips previously that the Yuba was too low to bother
with, so headed back through Sacremento and then South. In Sacremento the
A-team swapped their Van for clean one on the basis of a gash in a tyre
sidewall - hire cars are so cool!
We eventually rolled up at the Stanislaus River near Goodwin Dam, late
in the afternoon. This section was offered by the US army as a replacement
for another decent section which they dammed, and the guidebook mentions
that early paddlers were scathing of it. It really does only have 3 rapids,
and they are big grade 5's.
I portaged "Mr Toads Wild Ride", the first grade 5, along with Julie - some of the others admitted to running it because the portage looked so long and hard.
The second rapid is called either "Off Ramp" or "Matterhorn" depending on where you come from and is a bit level dependant. At this level (1500 cfs) the stopper was terminal and the matterhorn rock made the boof too dangerous so all of us portaged it.
The last rapid is Haunted House and it will haunt some of us for some
time! The rapid consists of a big diagonal drop followed by what is described
as a headwall - a rock wall extending far enough into the river below the
drop to create a huge messy eddy with a huge cushion against the wall at
it's downstream end. The stopper was really bad towards the right of the
drop, meaning the line was hard left, going left towards (and for most
into) the eddy from hell.
Three of us swam, first up Tamsin got recirculated for a while in the
stopper and had to swim across the evil eddy to climb out. I had seen others
fighting in the eddy so when I backlooped on the cushion I bailed, only
to find I had actually done enough to wash round the wall - Doh!. JC was
really unfortunate - his Kendo pulled several cartwheels against the wall
before he got out of it!
The Optimum flow for this section is about 2000 cfs when apparantly the Matterhorn rapid goes Ok. We decided to stop for food and did so within a couple of miles of the takeout when we spotted a roadhouse, which turned out to be very '50s styled, with a menu full of Bonanza characters (or so I'm told). That was a pretty good eat!
Thursday 17th
We rolled into Groveland Ranger station expecting to be told that there were no permits left for the Tuolomne, only to be told that there was no-one on it and we could go! The drive to the put in is excellent if you have 4 wheel drives - I guess if you don't it involves 5 miles of misery!
At 1800 cfs the guidebook says this run is grade 4, which is pretty
close! Fairly continuous but with enough gaps to keep the pressure down,
and of course a big grade 5 - Clavey falls which myself and Julie part
portaged, not wishing to miss out skirting round the big holes in the lower
part of the rapid!
The trouble for me at Clavey falls was that it started with a waterfall
of I guess about 8 feet, and there was a very small line somewhere in the
middle of a very wide river, with potential pins either side of the line
(which was probably actually 8-10 foot wide but seemed smaller). After
the initial fall are 2 massive holes to skirt round, then a big cross above
a central boulder to run a fair sized drop which had a breaking playwave
at this level (probably the big stopper mentioned in the guide at higher
levels!) - video time!
Steamboat hole further down was another one worth videoing although
there were more vigourous wipeouts than tricks! At 18 miles (US miles are
long) rafts spend 3 days on this trip, fortunately it only took us 5 1/2
hours including lunch!
The guide talks of a log jam in most years in the last mile (which
is on the reservoir), and mentions that in big flood years it can take
1.5 hours to get through - being a 'low snow pack, no flood' year we saw
no logs, never mind a log jam!
In New Zealand last year some of the guys came up with a standard for measuring bridge jumps - Dans 20m throwline! The bridge over the reservoir at the takeout was 2m higher than this and Andy and Will just had to throw themselves off it - for the video camera? Andy was winded on impact and required some assistance from the safety paddler - Matt, who had really stayed on to practice his bow stalls some more!
We drove into Yosemite and did some sight seeing, namely Bridalveil Falls, and El Capitan. The park is pretty big and we barely scratched the surface from the road, so some started considering plans to come back and do some hiking!
We eventually drove back out of the park along the Merced river. This
can be paddled from the Park boundary if you dare, which Charlie did! At
the boundary this is undoubtedly grade 5, and eases to 4+ within about
100m and then after about 3 miles becomes a solid 4.
Because it was getting late in the day, and the flow was a nice 2000
cfsish, only a few got on at the first layby. Charlie went the furthest
upstream, pretty much to the park boundary sign (which is a couple of miles
downstream of the park gate in case of confusion which might lead to a
very gnarly run!), but some of the others joined them after about 1/2 a
mile, including an American who pulled up and asked nicely because he didn't
fancy running it alone!
Some of us took pictures, although just as the first batch put on a storm arrived from Yosemite bringing poor light and heavy rain, which ruined some of my photo's and added interesting effects to others! We also had enough non-paddlers to run the cars to the takeout where tea was brewed to add some stereotypical English hospitality to the proceedings - I couldn't tell if the American was as amused as Frazer, but it was nice to have a cup of tea anyway!
The restaurant at Yosemite Bug Hostel provided our evening meal and
had an internet terminal - I donated $8 to it at a rate of $1 per 10 minutes
and only had time to send one e-mail in between our checking the levels
website, and everyone else sending e-mail!
I guess we all depend on e-mail more than we realise. We also suceeded
in winding up one guy who had waited 45 minutes for us to finish, luckily
he wasn't there when we arrived.
We started the day with a longish drive out of the mountains, then further
South and then finally back into the mountains again for the Banzai run
on the Kings river.
This might have been a pleasant grade 3 section with the 5000 cfs flow,
but I don't think any of us could actually tell. This is because for the
first 9.5 miles of this 10 mile run we had to paddle against a swarm of
flies and hardly noticed the river!
The flies were swarming like midges in Scotland, yet each fly was bluebottle
sized which made this a wholly unpleasant and often painful experience
as the bugs went in our mouthes, ears, eyes and up our noses with quite
a thud.
The flies stopped just in time for us to find a playwave 100yds above
the takeout, which was a bit tricky for me to get on (being a large guy
in a wee boat). The others did much better, Dan and Charlie even had a
flat spin war. Dan claimed victory with 6 in a row, although Charlie tried
to claim a higher number of spins without witnesses - yeah right!
During the after paddling shuttle one of the vans failed to return,
so the Frazer grabbed Charlie (who had hired the vans and used his Visa
for a deposit) and set off back up the 10 mile dirt track to find it.
The vans met on a bend, both at full rag and after full application
of the brakes they stopped with a few inches to spare.
Jezza was stoked, he'd got 2 squirrels and a puncture (er, that means
we have no spare tyres now guys!), Charlie was ghostly white, his credit
cards life had just flashed before his eyes!
Despite the flies we couldn't help but notice a pickup doing a hill
climb near the dirt track that runs all the way up this section, imagine
our joy when we went back up to camp and found ourselves at the same spot!
The rental agreement did mention that the cars are only to be used on paved
roads and not driven recklessly. Dan therefore needs to remember not to
mail a copy of the video of him ragging one of the blazers, with 5 boats
on the roof up the said hill - which was mainly sand!
Of course the video doesn't show that we were out of spare tyres.....
Sunday 20th
The plan was to run the Lower North Fork of the Kings (the confluence is just down from the Banzai run takeout). This is graded 5 and looked a bit like a more full on version of the Scottish river Etive from the road. The put in for this is pretty much the confluence with Dinkey Creek, and eagle eyes soon decided that the latter looked worth tacking on to the trip! The description of Dinkey Creek reads harder than that of the North Fork of the Kings, despite them having the same grade - apparently it was harder!
Both rivers were at about 800 cfs (the Upper North Fork fo the Kings was totally dry). Half a dozen of the team hiked down to Dinkey Creek, where there was some delay getting on because Tamsin got lost in the woods. Another 4 got on the Lower North Fork of the Kings, at the confluence with Dinkey Creek. Some of us really didn't fancy either (e.g. Andy didn't want to risk his back, I didn't want to risk everything in my Glide etc.), so the shuttle was no problem as we had plenty of drivers. Andy and I went back up to the playwave, which was higher, faster and I couldn't get on even once!
After paddling we drove West (around Pine Flat Lake which is pretty
big and the road is pretty windy so it seems to take forever) back out
of the mountains, then South and East again to Kernville. Kernville was
always a vague part of the plan, but it also happened to be rated as one
of the top ten paddling towns in a magazine someone had picked up. I was
left in no doubt of this by the time we moved on!
We ate out in Kernville and observed some commotion in the saloon accross
the street, and eventually police assistance to move some drunks on! We
chose a much quieter bar and did a bit of planning for the next days shuttle
- we weren't entirely sure that the roads on the map were the ones described
(it turned out that they were).
Clive had enquired about permits for the Forks of the Kern section a few days earlier by phone, and this was the day he'd applied for so most of the team went for it. Had we got permits for another day I would probably have joined the team on the 3 mile hike in to this 16 mile run, but I had another stomach ache (the food is so rich!) and wasn't up to either the hike or the paddle.
After dropping the others off, Julie and I went for a bit of a drive
to what looked like it might be a viewpoint (black rock station) but it
turned out to be just a ranger station. Luckily there was a view point
about 6 miles before that so it was not a wasted trip! We also drove past
one of the local grade 5 creeks, Brush Creek, and although it was dry we
noted the put in for future use (not hard to find, you hike down from an
obvious helipad!).
Of course we planned to meet the group somewhere on the river, and
had chosen Carson Falls because it was supposed to be near the takeout.
After chatting to a park ranger with a boat in the back of his pickup,
we hiked 3 miles up from the takeout to meet the group at Carson Falls
(which is actually 0.5 miles from the takeout like the guidebook says...)
stopping briefly at around the 2 mile point to look at Dry Meadow Creek
which confluences on the opposite side of the Kern.
The Carson Falls thing was a disaster!
We walked for about an hour on a rough trail (i.e. 3 miles per hour
ground) and started looking for the fall. We selected the hardest rapid
at near that distance, but it didn't look like either the Rangers description
(10 foot fall, obviously grade 5), or the guidebooks (5 foot drop with
a maelstrom below in which boaters disappear and then surface 20 feet downstream).
I admitted that it looked harder than the other rapids, was at the Rangers
distance from the takeout, and probably dropped 10 feet in total over the
length of the rapid, so we waited for the others.
They looked at it and commented that it was no harder than anything
they had boat scouted up to then. Fortunately the team stopped to clamber
up Dry Meadow Creek allowing us to get a bit of a start back towards the
takeout (pausing to take a few pics of Dry Meadow Creek of course).
About 0.5 miles from the takeout I spotted a drop, and so did the guys on the river. The trail was quite a way from the river at this point and trees had hidden our view of the river and drop on the way up. On leaving the trail to investigate, we found Carson falls, right where the guidebook said and looking similar to both descriptions (between 5 and 10 foot drop that was obviously class 5 and had a maelstrom below!).
Andy and Clive ran it on the left where the Ranger had told us to tell
them not to (we were on the opposite bank now so no communication!) because
the chute is deceptive and the eddy can feed into a nasty hole, in which
people have drowned.
They were fine, as were all the others who ran it right of centreish,
going fairly deep but probably not getting 20 feet worth of downtime!
The run is very continuous and mainly grade 4, with a couple of 5's thrown in. Everyone (including the locals) rates this as one of the best runs anywhere, and the Ranger was appalled at the teams one day descent, insisting that it is worth taking 2 days over for the scenic value!
The other grade 5 is further up, and known as the Vortex. The guidebook
says "don't go in the hole" and means it. Jezza made a complete mess of
the run in (we looked at the video just to be sure of this) and then dropped
into the hole, at which point Charlie put the camera down and got his line
ready - naughty Charlie!
This sounds like the best beating and swim of the trip, and Charlie
failed to get it onto tape, although the comedy of errors leading to it
is right there!
Sierra South (the paddling shop in Kernville) posts flows daily - 2200 cfs this time! This section has it's own permit and is limited to 15 people per day. The permits are more for gathering user data than anything else, but limiting the numbers clearly helps protect this brilliant environment!
The other memorable thing about this day was a snake! Julie spotted
it first as we crossed the bridge to start hiking up to Carson Falls and
was quite startled! The Snake was red with white and black rings - quite
striking and one I could almost recognise! I had some recollection from
looking through wildlife books at school that there were a couple of snakes
with this sort of colouring, and had a feeling the names were the "Scarlet
Kingsnake" and the "Coral Snake". I was also pretty sure one was highly
venomous, and the other mimics its colouring but is totally harmless but
this was no time to find out!
I've done a little research and it seems that the Scarlet Kingsnake
is the non-venomous one and that it's habitat is the East coast of the
US. The Coral Snake is venomous (twice as poisonous as a rattlesnake) and
it seems that there are several species and it lives in the West - particularly
Arizona and Northern Mexico, both reasonably close.....
However the Coral snake is quite small (our snake wasn't), quite shy,
often nocturnal, and it's colours are much less bright than it's mimics.
There are apparantly loads of mimics, mostly kingsnakes and milk snakes,
and it seems quite likely that our snake was a harmless California
Mountain Kingsnake - these beasts like to bath in the sun the way this
one was, and ours was much more brightly coloured than Corals
seem to be. I still wouldn't want to get close enough to check the patterns
though!
Tuesday 22nd
The Upper Kern from the takeout for the forks (Johnsondale bridge) to
Kernville, and the Lower Kern below lake Isabella is covered by an annual
permit, and you have to fill in a manifest whenever you paddle which you
post in a box at the put in.
The manifest breaks this part of the Kern into about 7 sections, we
ran it as 2 sections! On this occasion we covered Limestone to Salmon Falls,
portaging Fairview Dam as "advised" in the guidebook (this is presumably
a joke, to run it would be suicide!).
The guidebook says Grade 4 for most of this at the level - 2300 cfs ( there is a grade 5 after the portage and another where we got off), but it was very pool drop and perhaps mainly grade 3 with several nice 4's. The pools were short enough to prevent any trace of boredom!
The first grade 5 is "Bombs Away Falls", and I couldn't see a line that
didn't involve paddling through 2 very large stoppers (they did have weak
spots but I was too busy not liking the general look of it to concentrate
on them), not dissimilar to the final rapid on the Tees Greta - but at
a different scale!
There was also a big group of rafters getting ready in a layby above
the fall to get on below it (the fall is also on a bend so they got a really
good view), and I don't like to trashed in front of strangers, so I found
a way around!
Salmon falls, where we took out (we actually only stopped for lunch
but no one wanted to continue - I had stomach ache again and others were
worn out!) is graded nicely by different sources. Our guide, the one written
by kayakers, gives it "grade 5 (many will portage on the highway)", the
other guide, written by rafters gives it grade 6, and the leaflet from
the ranger station gives it grade 6 - mandatory portage. The trouble in
California, perhaps all over the USA, is that there are a lot of rafts,
and rapids that are easy in a raft can be harder in a kayak, and vice versa
- which makes some of the grading a bit screwy, even when you get used
to it!
A few of the guys had a look at Salmon falls after lunch and ran them
while we were shuttling, proving that they are only grade 5 to a kayak.
"Only grade 5" is a strange thing to write, rest assured I do not belittle
the grade, I am simply trying to explain that the falls were not outrageously
stupid, just very hard!
We finished the day at Miracle hot springs, which were actually a little too hot for me! The big advantage here is that they are next to hobo campground and the put-in for the section we planned to paddle the following day. Unfortunately the campground has quite a lot of ants, which isn't ideal if you are sleeping out under the stars!
Wednesday 23rd
Despite Sierra South's flow board telling us there was 800 cfs in the Lower Kern (release from Lake Isabella) we decided that both the "Miracle to Democrat" and "Kern Cataracts" sections were too empty for us and went back to the Upper Kern.
We put in just below Salmon Falls at a spot called Ant Hill! The river had about 2100 cfs, and we ran down to Camp 3 (about halfway down the actual Camp 3 section). This was quite similar to the stuff we ran the previous day, with a couple of really big 4's, one of which we even inspected!
I was amusing on the very last rapid - a big steep grade 4. We were
a little unsure of the takeout and whilst a few of the group carried on
down the next rapid, Andy jumped out to have a look and see if we were
near the van, whilst myself and JC broke out to wait for him.
Andy got back on and passed us, then as we worked towards the corner
from eddy to eddy the downstream view became interesting. I could see Julie
sitting in an eddy in the distance - I can't judge distances very well,
but I would say that the horizon was about a third of the way between us
and she appeared to be at least a sixth of that distance lower than me.
Basically there was a lot of drop in a relatively short distance!
I couldn't see any of the others but there was no commotion to suggest the rapid was anything other than runnable, and I fell prey to the - "if they all got down OK, so can I" syndrome, possibly a mistake given that the 2 most experienced paddlers were in the group ahead!
There were big rocks either side of the horizon, and I had absolutely no view of the rapid from my eddy - the last one I could see that was worth catching! Andy was almost at the rocks and sprinting rightwards - I guessed he had been able to see a line. I waited a little bit and then set off. When I got to where I thought Andy had been I started paddling hard and looking for the line, but all I could see was rocks in front. Then out of the corner of my eye I spotted Andy in the huge eddy behind the right hand boulder that I had just gone far enough past to not have any hope of making - Doh!
At this point I spotted a line at the horizon and made it - Andy reckons I hit it perfectly - unfortunately I hadn't had a chance to see what lay below so didn't know where the next eddy was (big ones either side all the way down apparantly) and having just punched a large stopper my view was full of another drop just the same!
It will come as no surprise then, that I didn't have a good line this time, and first backlooped, then power-flipped, then backlooped, then power-flipped, then found balance in a tail squirt and managed to drag myself out of the hole.
Once again my view was full of another similar sized drop, but with a slightly longer run up I punched it OK, to find my view full of a very slightly smaller drop, where I could see a line but not where I was heading!
This final drop sucked me back in, I don't recall getting any ends or anything this time but once again it took me a little while to find my out and into the eddy behind Frazer and Adrian.
"Whoops" I said!
Given that if you break out this rapid was OK, and possible if you didn't (I proved that), Frazer and Adrian took delight in signalling to the others (there had been some more behind us somewhere too) which side to approach the rapid. They were sitting pretty much one behind the other and signalling to opposite sides!
There followed a hell of a drive, round Lake Isabella to the East and then Northwards through a desert on the East side of the Sierra Nevada, passing through Lone Pine which is apparantly near Mt Whitney (looking at a snowcapped mountain whilst driving through the desert is an interesting experience!) eventually camping on Tioga pass near the Eastern end of Yosemite at around 9500ft!
It's a long way by road from the Tioga gate to Yosemite Village, especially
with more photo stops!
We split up to do the tourist bit after considerable debate of all
the options. In the end one van went to Glacier point for the view and
the rest of us hired bikes to cruise around the valley floor. The rental
bikes have one gear and backpedal brakes so aren't allowed on any hills,
they also skid really well if you go from hard forward pedalling to hard
backpedalling/braking! Eventually the cycling posse made their way back
to the Merced which was lower than the previous week (1500 cfs), and was
about 4+ at the put-in this time.
I had chilled out and opted to meet the group at the bridge where it eases to grade 4 - after a long wait! The best quote of the holiday came from a lone American who took out where I was waiting. I asked him if he'd had a good run, he replied "It's not a run for Vegetarians, it's a bit meaty!".
Soon after that the group appeared chasing Tamsins kit (She wasn't the
only one to have had an epic in the particular spot, but was the only one
to bail!). Only a few of us carried on down to Red Bud after that.
I was glad I'd got on despite the faff, because the river delivered
grade 4 pretty much continuously to within 100 yds of where we got out.
At this point it dropped to grade 3 for a while, but seems to get intermittantly
harder for several more miles!
Of course it was nearly dark when I got on, but as the river eased
in the last 100 yards or so I started looking for wavewheel spots - I had
relaxed enough to play at last!
We split up again, half the team took the big bus and hiked up half dome. The rest took the 2 smaller buses and tried to do the Cherry Creek section of the Tuolumne.
What a nightmare!
First our park permits had expired so we had to fork out again to get
through Yosemite and then we ran out of gas 4 miles short of the only gas
station in Yosemite park (pretty close in real terms!). We sent the other
van for petrol (without the can - the big bus took that 'cos they were
also short of gas and had left at 6:30 to start their hike before the sun
got up!) and whilst they were gone, a Ranger pickup pulled up.
One of the rangers recognised the van straight away and knew there
were 2 of us - we had passed him earlier and being a paddler he had noted
the 2 identical vehicles loaded with strange boats (not many Eskimos out
there!). The ranger told us that it was still quiet, but they were expecting
heavy traffic because it was a holiday weekend and he was going to put
a flare out to make other traffic slow down.
Assuming he meant some kind of flashing light we were amazed when they
drove to the next bend in either direction and started orange pyrotechnic
flares at the side of the road! The second van returned full of fuel but
with none for us because there were no cans at the gas station, and it's
illegal to pump gas into a water container!
We decided to tow the dead van to the garage and set about constructing
a tow with spare canoe straps, much to the rangers' amazement. The important
factor in towing these ultra modern trucks is that without the engine to
drive the power steering and power brakes you need 2 people to steer and
only get 3 shots at braking before you are on your own!
We set off very slowly, and caused a queue. Just as we were looking
for a turnout to let the queue past the rangers sirened us and asked us
to pull over - which we did as soon as possible. The young ranger came
up and asked Dan P: "you not getting enough power out of that blazer?"
which highly amused Dan who then tried to explain that although the 4 litre
engine in his van would tow the other one effortlessly, the other Dan and
Clive were going to struggle to control theirs at a much faster speed than
we had been doing.
We did go faster, and Dan H looked a bit white when we finally pulled
into the gas station!
Finally we had breakfast (the worst of the trip) and got river permits. We then drove to the put in, it now being afternoon. To not cut a long and funny story short:
The Tuolomne looked like a ditch (900cfs ish), and Cherry Creek at the
put in looked like a ditch (about 95 cfs I think). The first half mile
is on Cherry Creek, the rest on the Tuolumne, and given that it is graded
5 I suspected right away that it wasn't for me and the Glide - I admit
to a yearning for my spud at that moment!
Tamsin, Dan and Dan also wanted to look at the takeout (The guidebook
mentions that the hardest rapids are towards the end) so we went for the
shuttle, also taking Matt to navigate.
The guidebook describes the shuttle in the opposite direction, and
is short on road numbers for both the USFS paved and dirt roads. It does
mention that 8 miles of the shuttle is be on OK dirt!
After 2 hours we had taken several promising dirt tracks, and a logging track where we exploited the 4x4 low gearbox for a while. To add to the confusion I still wasn't convinced that the paved road we were starting from was right! One group of campers didn't know where they were, another did but didn't know where our road was!
Just as we were on the verge of quitting we took the right track (the
correct one that is, it was on the left!), and were almost put off by no
tresspassing signs (I think these referred to the turns off the track).
After a couple of miles Jawbone creek wasn't hubcap deep because a
small concrete bridge had been built - it was new enough to identify that
we were in the right place though! Then around the next corner we saw the
USFS camp to the left of the road (which loops round it) and turned left
when we got level with it. At this point there was even a sign to Lumsden
bridge, 7 miles and we had come 3 already! Finally 10 miles of bad dirt
track after we left the paved road we crossed the Tuolomne near the given
takeout (it is probably another mile to Lumsden campsite from the bridge).
It was now 3 hours after we had started the shuttle, and we had a puncture on the lead Van!
The 4 unsures had become "NO"s by this point - not only was the river
hard and rocky, but it was getting later in the day and our estimate for
the 5 miles of grade 5 was about 4 hours!
Matt was up for it and we knew the 2 at the put in would be, so Matt
and Dan H headed back to the put-in whilst Tamsin changed the tyre under
the other Dan P's tuition and with a little help from me to unscrew the
red hot wheelnuts by hand (whos the stupid one?) and moving the rather
large tyres around. Tamsin is another non-driver, and Dan thought it would
be good for her to learn to change a tyre on a smoking 4x4 with large wheels
on a dirt track in the blazing sun - she did well!
We sat by the bridge and waited for the others, suspecting they wouldn't
be too fussed about the last mile (there were 15 grade 5 drops in the 5
they were doing), and knowing that Dan was planning to go the long way
round bringing the other van back. This route uses more tarmac and the
other end of the dirt road that we had driven on before and which we knew
was shorter and much better.
I had a chat with some Americans who were just going back up for their
cars - they reckoned 4 hours was average for the run, but that it had been
run in 2 by people that know it really well! When the guys arrived after
3.5 hours we were impressed at how good our estimating was (don't forget
we were a little above the usual takeout).
Dan videoed some of the run down to the bridge - which is apparantly
very typical of the rest of the run.
Paddling as a three the group would find there was always one person
on the opposite side of the river at any time. One of them would generally
jump out for a look at the next drop and point the others in the right
direction. Then if they were in a suitable spot get back in and run it
themselves, if not they would just seal launch on the downstream side of
the boulder and carry on. The character of the river was that it had lots
of small drops amongst boulder fields with many route options, but often
only one option was actually any good!).
This seems to be a section worth coming back for, and is probably their favourite of the whole trip (or perhaps that is the Forks of the Kern?) although all three said it was so intense that they didn't manage to remember any of it!
The shuttle route we used (the guidebook route in reverse) included 10 miles of tortuous dirt track, once we found it! The takeout is the put in for the Tuolumne section mentioned above - those 5 miles of dirt are much easier, and the long way round using that part of the road is recommended by us!
We drove back to the Bay Area and on the way stopped at REI to buy some
kit (a GPS in my case - maybe Roo can tell me how to use it sometime?)
- stuff is so much cheaper in the US, and REI is cheap even by their standards!
One van went shopping for Jeans, the rest went to take the phone that Clive
had borrowed back to it's owner and then went surfing. At some point we
worked out that we didn't have Frazer, and were fairly sure he had been
against shopping for Jeans so we decided to go back to look for him!
It turned out that he had gone in the shopping car, and by the time
we had wasted more time buying food for lunch (a little late in the day
again), the other van got to the beach first!
The surf was quite good - it looked a little small but there were some
decent sets and the waves were quite well shaped. On one of my first runs
I spun out and started sidesurfing on the green face (not entirely on purpose).
I wasn't quite balanced and in trying to settle I managed to do an ollie
while surfing sideways - the boat completely left the face - cool!
Our Campsite was out near a football stadium, and apparantly reasonably
handy for the airport. We pulled in and Andy tried to check in. The security
guy wasn't helpful and refused to beleive that 3 large vans brimming with
kit were going to use 2 tents. Many campsites limit you to 6 people per
site so we had gone with the booking for 12 people option rather than the
full 14, but he just wanted to know about tents and couldn't handle the
fact that most of us were dossing under the stars (some had bivvis but
we didn't always use them!). In the end Clive went in and told the guy
we had 3 tents (which technically we did, it's just that one never went
up the whole trip!) and that seemed to settle it!
We managed to drive the 3 vans in convoy through San Francisco at about
8:30 in the evening to find food (every other place is a restaurant but
we had decided on Chinatown), and I don't think we ever had another vehicle
between us!
The meal was good (I've no idea where we actually ate), we asked if
they could do something like one of the set menus for 6, but for 14 instead.
No problem! and what a selection of dishes! We left the restaurant just
before 11, and continued to drive in convoy around San Francisco taking
in various sights in the dark.
We finally reached the Golden gate bridge, which was eery because the wires just went up into the mist and vanished! That was at about midnight, and we had still let very little of the traffic get between us although there were some possible traffic offences regarding trolleybuses and trams. I don't think we even know if we cut any up, but there were several "did I have to let him out there?" type questions!
We got up and decided that the first task was to empty the vans. Finally
everyone had their own kit packed in their own bags and/or boats and we
went to the airport.
BA were fine with myself and Dan and we checked our boats in without
hassle once again. The group of 12 that went to the Virgin check in had
hassle though, and ended up paying extra to get their boats home (some
payed on the way out too), despite what they were told when they bought
their tickets.
It seems that even the argument that they only had 15 items of baggage
between 12, all of which were within the limits for individual items didn't
work.
Clives laptop tackled the trip expenses over Lunch (some feat!) and
then we parted, well myself and Dan went our separate ways, the others
were all on the same flight. I failed to sleep on the plane, so I was feeling
pretty shitty when I arrived in Glasgow to find out that my boat had been
delayed.
No problem though, BA couriered it to my flat (although a little late
in the evening) which solved a lift arranging nightmare and allowed me
to use public transport to get home!.
The second team got 2 bright red chevy blazers. These are fairly serious (if compact by American standards) 4x4 Sports Utility Vehicles with about 4 litres of engine, a hi speed 2x4 gearbox and both hi and lo speed 4x4 gearboxes with push button selection (and some auto 4x4 option that I don't think we used). Chevy is part of GM so the outfitting was similar to the Safari (i.e. the rack was a bit crap) which made swapping between the vans reasonably easy, although the Safari had air-con blowers in the back as well which made it more comfortable!
The cars weren't actually supposed to be used off road, and for that reason we hosed them down in the campsite before returning them! The biggest problem returning the cars was explaining why they had an unrepairable tyre (Jezza wrote a tyre off and had to get it replaced) that they were claiming for, and how come both vans were wearing their spares? - 3 punctures between two vans didn't seem to compute!
Most of the team used Eskimo boats, Kendo's and Quadro's mostly with Clive and Charlie experimenting with Nano's (they both liked them and will continue to use them). Julie and I hadn't taken up this sponsorship deal so were paddling the only non-eskimo boats, a Glide and a Blade. Some of the others didn't take the sponsorship but happened to have Eskimo boats anyway, such is their popularity within the club!
I think at one time everyone but JC was using Lendal paddles (through
their sponsorship). Unfortunately Matt didn't get the shaft for his in
time and bought one the wrong size in a hurry. He had packed it out with
toilet paper and the glue wasn't fully set when he boarded the plane, so
he had trouble with the blades getting loose quite quickly and bought some
new blades over there. Tamsin got the blade with, presumably, a manufacturing
defect which broke in the surf on her first day (her old lendals came out
with the second group though!).
The rest of us had a mixture of Manias and Kinetics with full carbon
or High performance shafts, some fixed, some splits. Most of us had no
problems at all - in fact I am really happy with my 4-way paddlock split
kinetics on an HPS shaft. However, Will managed to break a couple of sets.
At this point I will mention that both were broken on grade 5, and that
Will isn't known for being a softy!
The first breakage was at random in the shaft - nowhere near the connector
(4-way paddlocks) so nothing to do with that! The second I think, was at
the base of a blade - I think he might have wedged it somewhere - either
way Frazer is writing the feedback for Lendal, which is generally pretty
good. 10 out of 12 paddlers had no problems with their Lendal kit, and
all of us ran some pretty big stuff!.
Other kit was supplied by Bomber Gear and Playboater, as far as I know it all performed well (I took my existing playboater deck which I've used pretty rigourously for the last year).
Camping is fairly easy in California. All the National Parks and National Forests (you are rarely out of one of these!) have a range of campsites:
Food - avoid it if you have a weak stomach!
A small breakfast is a stack of pancakes with syrup and a normal breakfast
is a large fryup with at least 2 eggs somewhere in it. I started eating
oatmeal (porridge) because the portions were smaller and it seemed healthier
than everything else! The Omlettes have at least 3 eggs and are way too
big for breakfast. Some of the team found breakfast burritos good, but
again too much for me!
Having dinner out is nice, but once again huge! I couldn't finish an
omlette and the steaks go from large to larger and beyond. The biggest
we saw was 24oz but I've heard tales of bigger! Even a burger meal (in
a proper place, rather than Ron's) is pretty big, and I struggled with
a small Pizza one night! We also found an ace barbeque joint somewhere
in the desert, which had an all you can eat ribs offer - each rib was like
8" long and 2" in diameter (I had a burger!).
As for cooking for yourself, it doesn't seem to be too easy to get
things like mince, but you can get chicken or a range of cooked meats (Frazer
kept buying donkey dick for every meal until we started to send out shopping
parties without him!). We could have had a much cheaper holiday if we'd
stuck to cooking for ourselves more often!
Finally, the expenses worked out at $715 each (just over £500) so not much more than a fortnight in the Alps, although that doesn't include flights, which vary depending on where you fly from and whether you get stung for excess baggage for your boats! I guess I spent about $300 on myself, but about $200 of that was on a GPS system which is a totally extraneous toy and nothing to do with the trip (although it would have helped for the Cherry Creek shuttle if we'd had a proper map!).
As a final note California is a really friendly place, apart from the Poison Oak, Rattlesnakes, Cougars and Bears! You do have to be careful when you camp!
Jim Wallis
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