summer's end

My shoes (right) carried me over bishop pass and down the middle kings as their last service in a glorious career spanning east and west coasts with more than 200 river days. Bo's, to the left, are the same model only two weeks old.

photo by Shanna Powell

Over the summer I became even more worn-out than my shoes regarding a couple of things:
1. summer sausage--a nice fat and protein source for the river as the meat doesn't seem to go bad over multiple days of in-kayak storage. I am over "meat stick" as we called it, especially after eating 2 lbs in 5 days on the middle kings adventure.
2. instant oatmeal packets--strawberries and cream, blueberry, banana, peach, raisin, maple and brown sugar. I wouldn't be disappointed if I never saw let alone ate this breakfast again.
3. tuna--another great source of protein for river trips. I have, however, gone well over my recommended 1 can per week; so my mercury levels need to be allowed to come down by avoiding this fish.
4.cheap bagels--great for making your lunch and breakfast sandwiches. only good in moderation as soon you loathe their characteristic flavorings.

Although I had a lot of exposure to my friends Robin, Amos, and Toby, I am not tired of their company and already miss them. Here's a sentimental tribute:

To Toby, the captain of the "summer of terror with toby":

photo by Mefford Williams

photo by Shanna Powell

To Robin, often the only girl on our missions, never the weakest member:

photo by Mefford Williams

photo by Toby MacDermott

To Amos and his epic struggle, sharing his car with Robin and Toby:

photo by Mefford Williams

To Amos and his majestic, narrow-handed rudder that leads him through all manner of class five burliness:

photo by Shanna Powell

Here's the love to ya'll for a fabulous Sierra season.

middle kings

The Middle Fork of the Kings River adventure is over, and , the morning after the last day of the trip feels like Christmas, as I sit here writing about our experience. Essentially we batted 1.000 as there were no swims, no pins, and as Shuman put it: "no marginal situations."
Shanna has told the story of the epic two-day hike into Kings Canyon, our 9,000 ft. elevation put-in (our take-out, five days later, 2500 ft.), and needless to say after hiking our 45+ lbs kayaks into the river with 40+ lbs of gear, we each put on the river tired and sore.
One piece of gear that I personally left behind while on the river was my camera; I am just not ready in my head to carry it in-between my legs. Fortunately Toby and Bo brought theirs; so we have some shots to share.
The first day was the lowest volume day on the river, of course, but the rapids we encountered were better than expected.

Some be-bopping on the first day:

photo by Bo Wallace

We also passed through some spectacular mountain meadows, weaving our way through the oxbows staring with our dropped jaws up at the granite domes surrounding us.

photo by Bo Wallace

Each river day we stop for a "California lunch". With the dry air and blasting hot sun of the Sierras, one has the opportunity to completely dry out wet paddling gear while enjoying some food and scenery.

photo by Bo Wallace

The highlight of day one was certainly: the devil's punch-bowl, a big rapid we each enjoyed dropping. As we all got out of our boats at the top to scout, Amos announced the name of the rapid by yelling, "Satan has created this rapid."
Here's Ms. Betz lining up at the top for the big last drop of the rapid:

photo by Bo Wallace

Polk, same:

photo by Bo Wallace

Here's Bo about to land the last drop of the punch bowl:

photo by Toby MacDermott

Amos, same:

photo by Bo Wallace

Day two was a day of gorges. The Pacific Crest/John Muir Trail was still following us along the river right; so we scouted and paddled our way down the river. Peering over the edge of the granite walls into the river, we would scout the rapids from bottom to top memorizing the drops. Once you drop into the top of each section, you were 'in it to win it'.

Here's Polk and Riley, the purple boat duo, winning it:

photo by Toby MacDermott

The author finishing of the same gorge with Fuzzy pealing out in the background:

photo by Toby MacDermott

We utilized the trail not only for scouting but for portaging as well, since some of the gorges asked for more than we were ready to give.
Riley Cathcart enjoying some hiking with his kayak.

photo by Bo Wallace

The best part of our second river day lay within a dark, vertical walled basaltic canyon. As we locked ourselves in, the whole team trapped inside rock and falling water, Bo turned to Amos and was heard saying, "Now we're f---ed."
Climbing around, shouting instructions, pointing, waving, signaling, boofing and plugging we found our way to a large enough out-cropping of broken rocks on river right, that we could get out and scout all at once. Happily greeted by Amos's shouts again, "Last drop, last drop, last drop."

Polk, Mefford, and Robin scouting as Amos gets in to drop the last:

photo by Toby MacDermott

Mefford dropping the last:

photo by Bo Wallace

Robin same:

photo by Bo Wallace

Polk same:

photo by Toby MacDermott

Robin's fist found her face on one of the plugging missions of the last gorge, resulting in this nice shiner:

photo by Bo Wallace

Day three can be described easily as the day of the mad bombing mission. In our boats for nearly the entirety of another eight hour day, we didn't stop for many photos as we ran rapid after steep rapid into another steep rapid.

Toby in the meat:

photo by Bo Wallace

Riley showing his day three smile:

photo by Bo Wallace

The night of the third river day we stayed in quite a beautiful camping spot with Tehipte Dome keeping guard just over our shoulders.

photo by Bo Wallace

Fuzzy, our team Kiwi, found a good fishing hole and brought in four nice sized trout with his hand made pole.

Bo Wallace

The team was also treated to a beautiful rainbow crossing a red, sunset sky between the granite walls.

photo by Toby MacDermott

Day four on the river was a long one, the infamous bottom nine: nine miles of class five + that seems to gone on forever.
Amos wide-eyed in the bottom nine:

photo by Bo Wallace

We were in and out of our boats all day, scouting and bombing:

photo by Bo Wallace

Amos and I in and out again:

photo by Bo Wallace

Polk and Robin portaging:

photo by Toby MacDermott

The coolest portage/sneak of day four, not to say that we didn't run a whole lot of big rapids, was an exit through a sieve at the "cave rapid."

Mefford dropping in to the sieve:

photo by Bo Wallace

Robin same:

photo by Bo Wallace

We camped just below the confluence of the Middle and South Fork on the Kings River proper. Our last day was another bombing mission with double the flow we had on the Middle Kings; so not a lot of pictures for all the rapids we ran on the day.
Here is Toby dropping in to a goodun':

photo by Bo Wallace

All in all the trip was an incredible experience for each of us. Two days of hiking, five river days, and too many rapids to count.

That's the love for now.

middle fork of the kings begins with ground support

The crew (from left to right) Mefford, Riley, Bo, Amos, Fuzzy, Robin, Toby, Polk, and I (photographer) hiked into the John Muir Wilderness area in the Inyo National Forest on Monday after deciding to hike gear the 12 miles or so into the Middle Fork of the Kings river instead of using mules.

photo by Shanna
Whew, it took two grueling days, but it happened and the crew was able to put on the river on Wednesday. This is Amos hiking in the Dusy Basin.

photo by Shanna
We hiked up and over Bishop Pass (12,000ft), down into and past the Dusy Basin to the Middle Fork of the Kings river. Some of the crew hiked all of their gear in one load, and some did two loads. There is no concensus yet on which way is better.
Dusy Basin

photo by Shanna
With three going back for round two, one ahead, and one behind, Mefford, Amos, Polk and I decided to stop just inside Dusy Basin and camp. As you can see from Mefford's bug net, the mosquitos were brutal here. DEET doesn't even work, I broke down and tried.

photo by Shanna
This marmot was very curious of the crew at camp one, I didn't even need the big lens.

photo by Shanna
This photo of me was taken just below where the river crew put in on the Middle Fork of the Kings river.

photo by Mefford
I had the pleasure of hiking to the confluence of the Middle Kings and Palisade Creek. The water in Palisade creek was too high to cross safely so I decided to camp at the confluence for the night. What a great spot. The mosquitos were the least terrible of the whole trip. I had a fire, read a lot of my book, did some yoga (on a rock overlooking a great slide rapid that the team had run earlier) and just relaxed.

I was visited by a doe and two fawns this evening, the animals here are very curious of people, not afraid or a nuissance, but curious. Pretty awesome, gives one the opportunity to co-exist with the animals in their own habitat, I was only a visitor after all.

The trip for me was 5 days of backpacking. I had a great experience, I will never again carry 8 backpack systems for 15 miles in 2 days though, too much weight. I have also never had such bad blisters on my feet. I am glad I could help though.
Blisters (interesting photos to take by yourself)

photo by Shanna
SWWEEETTTT FEET!

photo by Shanna
Me with a backpack full of....backpacks?

photo by Mefford
I was able to slow down and enjoy the moments. I was also completely present in what I was doing and would have rather been no where else.

Wildflowers on the north side of Bishop Pass

photo by Shanna

Now I am slowly making my way to the takeout at Pine Flat Reservoir. I posted some blog stuff in Bishop yesterday, slept in Polks van at the Tenaya Lodge south of Yosemite last night and now I am blogging in Oakhurst north of Fresno. It's hot out there, no reason to hurry.
Blogging

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the yo-yo effect

After deciding to adventure on our own following the West Cherry Creek Expedition, Shanna and I set out towards Ventura, CA to start some preliminary odds and ends work for Naturalist at Large. Although our jobs don't start officially until August 25th, we called in to the office and were granted some work in the warehouse--restacking, packing, and resupplying for the upcoming season.
Ventura is a small town far enough outside of LA that the town hasn't assumed the hectic insanity which cities of LA's size inevitably have. The cool sea breezes move in to drop the day and evening temperatures to very comfortable mid 80's highs and 60's lows.
Our time in Ventura was enjoyable, the work not too mind numbing, but we were on the road again as a late night call from Amos Shuman changed all plans with the words: "Middle Kings is dropping in."
The Middle Fork of the Kings river is an epic trip: a day-long 15 mile hike in to LaConte Canyon over 12,000 ft. high Bishop Pass, followed by five days of continuous whitewater.
Polk Deters has joined the usual crew of Mefford, Robin, Toby, and Amos with Shanna running ground support, and Mr. Deters is more than fired-up as he has been pursuing this particular river unsuccessfully for the past eight California whitewater seasons.
The unpredictability of the river's fluctuating flow that has resulted in Polk's frustrations until this year has the crew chilling and killing time in Bishop waiting for our adventure to drop into the perfect water levels.

Until those levels are reached we will be pursuing all possible mischief in the area.

photo by Robin Betz

south silver

Left off the blog completely we didn't tell our story of the often paddled south silver creek.
The put-in slide, Autobaun. Shanna enjoying her ride down in a borrowed boat.

photo by Mefford Williams

Still sliding.

photo by Mefford Williams

Still Sliding

photo by Mefford Williams

Further down the river we found our way into the tea-cups. Shanna enjoyed the tea-cup section more than Amos, Toby, or myself. (Upside down in the wrong spot is always ; ) fun.)

photo by Mefford Williams

The day before we hiked-in late in the evening to high water levels, which ended in a hike-out immediately following autobaun, the put-in slide. This day the water was still a little high, but we pushed through 'til past the portage after sky scraper rapid(not pictured).

Stay tuned for more adventures. Same blog time. Same blog channel.