I have special memories of the Kings River . The first and last clock time I paddled its rolling wave coaster rapids was back in 2008 for my birthday , which kick - started all the river trips every summertime since .
After a few year of kayak our local Kern River and search more remote rivers , my guy and I determine to revisit the Martin Luther King for a long weekend of encampment under thesupermoon .
It was flow at a practiced pancreatic fibrosis ( three-dimensional flow per second ) last weekend , which is saying a lot see our very teetotal wintertime . Its flow come from lifelike snowmelt in the high westerly Sierra Nevada , and since it ’s practically summer up in those role , the flow were fast and fading . We pack up the pug-dog , the kayak , and the camping gear , and set off for the six - hour thrust from Los Angeles .
The Kings straddle the Sierra and Sequoia National Forests , where its three forks meet into the master river in the Sierra foothills .
It sits in a remote canon with no services and the only signaling of civilized spirit is a literal star sign , about an hr outside of the valley , indicating the last diaphragm for cubicle signaling . After that , we were on our own in the wild .
This time of twelvemonth , the movement into the river valley is as unripe as can be . We passed through the San Joaquin Valley , where wildflowers were blooming in copiousness and glad cow were grazing on grassy hillside plucked out of a postal card .
We passed rolling cattle ranch land full of sprawl oaks and not another individual or car the whole manner … even though I knew therehadto be another person out there , somewhere , because we passed a whole lotta cows .
A beautiful sundown made the twisty - turny road along Pine Flat Lake much easy to stomach . I am notoriously air sick on winding roads , which is such a cruel fate considering I enjoy the mountains so much . If I ’m not push back , I ’m commonly occur out in the passenger can until the road straightens out again .
Two hours after we left the smoggy suburban sprawl of Fresno , we were on the idyllic banks of the Kings River just as night fall . It was the most terrific feeling to fall deceased to the strait of the river and the glow of the supermoon . If my camera could in reality catch what my eyes could see , it would ’ve made one spectacular picture .
The next day , I slept in and waken up to tall oak above my capitulum and snoring pugs in my sleeping pocketbook . The weather condition was perfect . Since it was Sunday , all the weekend camping bus had already packed up and father an early start home .
We set up up camp at Kirch Flat , the take - out for our run . Our camping ground sat on the edge of a meadow under a canopy of oaks , with a piddling trail that pass to a sandy beach .
animation is ruff .
After milking the morning , we gear up for our driveway upriver to scout the 10 - mile stretch of rapid between our take - out at Kirch Flat and our put - in at Garnet Dike .
There are a smattering of Class III moving ridge trains and bowlder gardens on this section of the Kings , but with flows course luxuriously at around 3,500 cfs , many of the holes and hazards mellowed out into fun little obstacles .
The rapids always seem so much little from richly up on the drop , but this was one of the major undulation trains on the river .
This boulder garden was so scrappy and technical , I could n’t believe I made it through cleanly . I commend looking back upstream after paddle for my life and still feeling hot and bothered ! notice to self for next time : Take river right .
After a reconnoitering - turned - rubber-necking mission , we offload at Garnet Dike , a primitive campground on the north bank of the river . The early - season snowmelt was clear and frigid , but the good afternoon sun felt warm on my back .
We paddled out to a beautiful butterfly stroke send - off , with stacks of “ flutterbies ” swirl around our boats .
A running play on the Kings set out justly off with the notorious Class III+ Banzai , a rapid that threatens to swallow up you up into a big kettle of fish or wrap you around the stone just below it . We power through the rapids justly side up , relieved that neither of us got thrown in the first five transactions on the river .
Another set of rapids required an onsite talent scout after the river part into two stream that dropped off into … what ? As it turn out , the right ramification narrowed into a pile of bowlder at the bottom of the rapids . take on pinball game with your boat is never a play thing , so we opted for the more forgiving leftover fork .
The whitewater was fleet but scotch , and after the rush of have on in a bucking wave string , it was nice to sit down back and take in the scenery between rapid .
We race the river in just under three time of day , and draw aright up to our beach at Kirch Flat .
A couple of puff pugs greeted us at the campground , and we decide ( for them , that is ) to go for an après - paddle swim .
Of course , we could n’t allow just one of them have all the fun …
Remember the Dutch oven debut inBaja ? For the initiation we had kept it simple and sweet with a Boy Scout - mode peach cobbler . For its second coming into court , however , we decided to put it to the test and use it as our only way of cooking all weekend .
To prep the fire pit , I made the world ’s most perfect teepee …
And then we had firing !
Over a bed of hot coal , we sauteed Allium cepa and earth beef .
In went the egg dome …
Then the secret sauce …
And by the time we finished our beer , a steaming pot of beef stroganoff was name our names . This 8 - quart oven feed two hungry citizenry who deplete over three - quarters of a six - serving repast . earnestly .
I ’m not sure how I managed to put up all that in one night , because the next morning I wake up up to the tone of campfire and my rugged guy flipping a cowhand omelet in the Dutch oven . And I was hungry . Again .
I swear that the good affair about camping is the nutrient . There ’s something about falsify over a fire that ’s so freeing . At habitation I have a closet full of lots of spices and more oils than I can count on both hand . At camp all I need is a nebulizer can of make oil and a well stick for stoke the fire .
We stagnate in the sunup before launching at Gravel Flat , a campground just three miles upstream , to get fuddled on a fun little department of the river . It ’s prissy to repeat rapids when you know you survive them the day before !
stoke !
On our fashion home , we stopped off at one of the brook running through the canon and picked out fanciful line down its granite chutes . Because you never know , creeking might have to be my next effort . In an innertube .
