Kaweah River -- Hospital Rock Run

By the beginning of our next day, Rick and I were in the heart of our Spring Break groove, and decided to continue down the California Classics road by hitting the Hospital Rock section of the Kaweah just inside Sequoia National Park. Unlike other write-ups of this run that call the stretch less-than classic, my opinion of the run is that is was a highlight of our trip: a nice, manageable Class V run in a beautiful, granite-walled gorge. We put in inside the park without any hassle from official personnel, despite rumors that the park run is illegal.

At one of the first good rapids on the run, called Twin Falls, the river squeezes through a beautiful, Land-of-the-Lost style gorge before plummeting over double ledges, split by a huge boulder in the middle. Rick had an eventful line going off the right-side waterfall, and I used this beta to make my own decision to walk the rapid. We had about 600 cfs in the run, which seemed a little low. Regretfully, we couldn't run the legendary Zero-to-Sixty drop for lack of water, but we did run many memorable, clean, smooth granite drops. In my book, this is one of the more "classic" stretches of river that I've run in California, right up there with Cherry Creek and Upper Middle Consumnes. After taking out at Potwisha, we worked the cell phone circuit to find where the water would take us next. As luck would have it -- and there's plenty of good fortune, usually, when traveling in California -- we heard that the South Merced had come up to better levels since we ran it at the beginning of the week. We decided the perfect end of our trip would be a return to South Merced, and met our friend Rod Matthews there for a much more enjoyable, two-day run of the stretch at about 1100 CFS. What a difference a few-hundred CFS make on that run!

"California has too many high-quality, Class V runs to describe adequately here...Half the fun is finding them for yourself."

After our second run of the South Merced in less than a week, it was back to school for me, with the satisfying knowledge that I'd spent a week running rivers in my own back yard that people come from around the world to jump on when they can. This wasn't the gnar boating experience, just a casual, enjoyable Class V trip around the California heartland, and a route that's well worn by the annual migration of California paddlers.

Epilogue.

No Classic California report would be complete without a recounting of Upper Cherry Creek. This run, which flows into Cherry Lake high above the traditional lower Cherry Creek run of the Tuolumne, is an ultra-classic wilderness journey into the smooth granite backcountry of the High Sierra. At the beginning of June, I set out with a party of nine to make the run, after months of trying to determine when the optimum window for Upper Cherry would be. As it turns out, we hit the flows a bit early, and so the run was a bit too high to run classic drops such as the Tea Cups, Water Fall Alley and Double Drop.

Nonetheless, we captured the essence of this unforgettable three-day run, which is becoming so popular with V+ boaters that Forestry officials have started voicing concern about the kayaking traffic going up Kibby Ridge. This run is not for the faint of heart, with an 11-mile boat hike being the price of admission. It says something about the cutting edge nature of our sport that despite this grueling requirement, there are a multitude of competent kayakers who are willing to make the run. For those who want to keep this run open for everyone, though, use good judgment and minimum impact wilderness practices when attempting this stretch.

Finally, this is only one snapshot of a Classic California trip, with just a few suggestions from my spring for others who might want to come and enjoy the world-class whitewater in our state. California has too many high-quality, Class V runs to describe adequately here, and I wouldn't want to anyway. Half the fun is finding them for yourself.

Be sure, though, that when the higher elevation runs of the Sierra have been explored, and the water drains to a trickle, having quenched the thirst of Class V creekers in the state, the migratory path of this aquatic beast eventually ends up in one place during the California summer. I'm speaking, of course, of the Cherry Creek run of the Tuolumne, the quintessential dam-release run of the summer months out here. Once you've traveled into the mountains to run the gnar, come down the hill a few thousand feet to a spot just outside of Groveland on Rt. 120, stake a claim on the closed service road at Casa Loma and join the Cherry Creek crew for a few days or weeks. It is here that you'll find the epicenter summertime California kayaking, the place we all return to once the run off has come and gone, and we've completed our annual migration up and down the state. See you there.