A near 1p departure from Redlands put us into Kernville pretty late in the day, and even later at the Johnsondale Bridge after stopping in to see some of Keith's friends. The idea was to hike up a couple miles along the upper Kern wilderness (the bottom of the Forks of the Kern kayak run), canyon through the Seven Teacups of Dry Meadow Creek, then packraft the two miles back to the bridge. It was a good plan but would have been better if it was not initiated at 5:30p. We packed as efficiently as we could and followed the true left of the river. The flow on the Kern was a pretty solid 1300 cfs, which had me wondering about what raging torrent we would see on reaching Dry Meadow Creek.
The hike was pretty smooth on the good trail, if a little breezy and cool from the afternoon winds blowing off snow at higher elevations. We passed less people than I thought, but at least a few hikers and fisherman. The first view of the bottom of Dry Meadow Creek certainly looked high, but reasonable. We decided to give it a try. We strolled upstream to the crossing place and geared up. The Kern was freezing and took us both by surprise. We made quick work of the climb to the saddle into Dry Meadow, enjoying the view along the way (above).
The top of the teacups looked a little frothier, swirlier, and forceful than the bottom and the water polish on the rocks were super slippery. Thankfully the water was considerably warmer than the Kern, but still enough to give Keith a hard time in his 2/3mm wetsuit. We proceeded carefully, while also considering time was of the essence. I lead the charge approaching rigging cautiously to minimize our commitment until I could confirm the hydraulics were not too much for us. The features and movement was a little intimidating- I had been in much higher flow canyons, but not in a while.
In teacup three we finally committed to pulling the rope. The teacup four rappel looked rather intimidating but I was able to carefully sneak around the flow and then get under the falls. The mist room behind the falls was a great spot. The force of the falls was enough to produce waves in the teacup below so I proceeded cautiously avoiding the pouroff zone. From below I could see the flow was equivalent or higher than what had been labeled "extreme" on Ropewiki. Keith had a little rougher time on this rappel but made it down alright. After several tries with the slippery rock a boost from Keith was able to get me up onto the granite slab and I could pull him out.
At the big rappel below teacup seven I had a look over the edge at the impressive view (above) of the thundering falls slamming into a funky corner behind a rock. After some pause and careful reading I decided it would be fine but at this point Keith was shivering dramatically from the cold and confirmed that bailing was the right option. So we clambered out the slab on canyon left, which at least gave us an opportunity to see the rest of the canyon. Some more challenges but we would have been fine at this flow. Keith was still cold by the time we reached the river and swimming back across the Kern certainly didn't help things. We the last light we quickly inflated packrafts and paddled down. Other than a portage of Carson Falls, the river was fun but without incident. A late night scavenger hunt, a meal at the last place open in Kernville, and crashing at a friend of Keith's rounded out the trip. I wish we had more time but I am excited to see that ideal flows to do both the full forks kayak and canyon the teacups is possible. I can't wait to try out that combo.
No comments:
Post a Comment