November 02, 2005

Upper North Fork of the Kaweah

Level: 1.4 ft on the Bailey Creek Bridge gauge (Kaweah at Three River 2,500 cfs)
Paddlers: John Webb, Brian Mills, Adam Griffin, Nick Barron

We left the desert like Kern area in high hopes of finding more reasonable flows. Heading north to catch the seldom ran Upper NF of the Kaweah, we ran into some car troubles and the Benz overheated, blowing a hole the top radiator tank. After a scary drive back to Bakersfield, stopping only twice to refill the water tank, we found a shop that could replace the part on Saturday morning, leaving us to hang around downtown Bakersfield for the evening. We found the area hot, miserable and overall an unpleasent place and sat at the shop all of Saturday morning waiting for our car to be done.

The Benz


Photo by Adam Griffin


We finally got the car back and made our way to the Kaweah, and bombed down the lower section of the NF Kaweah, finding it a fun run with a cool waterfall about 25 ft tall.

Below the falls on the lower NF Kaweah

Photo by Adam Griffin

Camping at the put-in for that run, we planned to do the 5 mile hike to the Upper section that next morning.

The hike wasn't too bad and was relatively flat, but just long. We were happy to find the put-in and some shade to hang out in, drink some agua fria, and then put on.

Hike up the Upper NF Kaweah

Photo by Adam Griffin


The run we found to be an incredible run and simply beautiful. The run itself is the most fun for the least amount of stress that I could ever imagine. Big, fun slides with little or no technicality, just stupid easy fun.

Sorry for the lack of photos, but I did get a lot of video that day, so here is a short clip from the day

1 Comments:

At 11:37 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

i cant load the short clip for some reason...

 

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