Middle Kings expedition 2010:day 5 bottom 9

The bottom 9 has been called the hardest day of kayaking in the high sierra,and it is like the middle 4,but bigger drops,bigger holes,and bigger sieves.Some of the drops that still look runnable are just to crazy to fire up.The portages are not very long,but there are quite a few of them,and they require going over,around and sometimes under huge rattlesnake infested boulder piles.There are to many drops to try to remember them all,and the intensity of this section is undescribable.I reached my limit and went so far past it on this day that it changed my life forever.You really find out what you are made of,or what your team is made of, on this day.You work as a unit,yet sometimes are still so alone.After the scout of a particularly large rapid,Matt and Mason fired through the left ,avoiding a man-eating sieve mid stream,and made it look easy.As I seal launched in,I deflected off an unseen rock and was headed straight for the sieve.My only chance at survival was a pourover which I locked myself into a side surf in.My stern was in the sieve and my bow was in the pourover hole as I screamed for help.I soon realized that they could not hear me and I knew was on my own.I would like to thank Werner Paddles for making the strongest paddles out there because it saved me.I wedged my paddle into a crack in a boulder praying it wouldn't break,popped my skirt and stood up in my boat while still surfing the pourover,and pulled myself to freedom using the wedged paddle blade.I pulled my boat out of the sieve and proceeded to carry on downstream not mentioning my harrowing experience to the boys for fear that it would compromise group morale.These are the kind of things that happen in the bottom 9,and I knew talking about would only make it worse,So on we pushed.Camping soon had begun to come up in portage conversations,and if we were going to do the 9 in a day,I didn't know how.Soon,a distant view of what had to be the south fork confluence came into our view,and Wallace took over.Matthew Wallace carried the team through this section,boat scouting and blindly running class 5+ for miles knowing that if he went,we would follow.Without his determination and skill,I am sure we would have been in there another day,but his faith and sheer will carried us through to the confluence.

Anyone who has ever completed this run now has my respect,whether I like them or not.The middle Kings was the hardest 5 days of my life,yet also the greatest.No training can prepare you for the constant onslaught of stressful situations,and no one who hasn't been there can ever know what it is really about.It is a place to find out what you are really made of,not a place to go hucking and try to look cool.So if you are thinking about doing it,make sure it is for the right reasons,and be ready to be humbled,because at some point it will call your bluff.

Her are a few shitty photos from our trip,the good ones were taken by Matt,and the bad ones are mine,enjoy. CM

Middle Kings expedition 2010:day 4 the middle 4

After finishing our morning routines,we put back on to a different river.The river had dropped elevation so much that it had completely changed characteristics.It went from bedrock to continuous boulder gardens,and would remain so till the takeout.This is the middle 4 section,it's like the bottom 9,but smaller except the big bad beaver.Just above the beaver,Stookesbury and Korbulic passed us on their 1 day mission.I can't even imagine how this is possible.

Some of the rapids were huge and we were thinkin that we were in trouble if the bottom 9 is bigger than this.One person would lead until they were maxed out from running stuff blind,then the next person would see that look in their eyes and just pass by and take the lead.We were counting on each other and everyone stepped up to the plate.Tons of sick boofs and multi-move rapids just kept coming at us until we reached tehipite valley.

Tehipite is a yosemite-like dome that is absolutely amazing.It rises straight up out of the valley in dramatic fashion,and offers the last chance to hike out before the bottom 9.We pushed on as far as we could to the first drops of the bottom 9 before setting up camp.The views from camp of Tehipite were awe inspiring amongst the jungle-like terrain of the bottom 9.We ate 2 mountain houses each for dinner,and slept side by side on the only flat ground we could find.I couldn't imagine how the bottom 9 was going to be harder than what I had already been through,but I was about to find out.

Middle Kings expedition 2010:day 3 the gorge section

I woke up before daylight shivering for the 2nd consecutive night.I rebuilt the fire from the night before and curled up around it,knowing it would be a while before the sun would reach this deep canyon.The boys soon joined me beside the fire and we all agreed to wait for the sun to go kayaking.The day before had us much more mentally prepared for the biggest shit of our lives that was about to come,and when the sun finally hit the river,we put on and were right back in it again. Right out of camp we entered into the sickest boulder garden sequence we had ever seen.10-12 drops with only one good pool and a few small eddies.Big holes and and sloping ledges led us around the corner only to find that the river was about to get steeper!

A short slide led pretty much straight into one of the largest runnable slides any of us had ever seen.I portaged,Mason swam after getting an aerial stern squirt into the right wall/pocket,and Wallace greased it like it was baby falls.

A few smaller drops led us to the top of the waterfall gorge.Wallace wanted it bad,so we set safety for him and watched as he crushed it.Hole by hole he worked his way to the exit 25'er and plugged her in nicely.

After waterfall gorge is a short portage with the option of putting back in for the raw dawg gorge or stayin on the trail till you are past raw dawg.We chose the latter and had lunch at the end of our portage.After some really good salami and rice tacos,we put back on and the river began to mellow out greatly as we entered Simpson meadows.The team was maxed out after all the HARD whitewater that morning,and we were happy to be covering ground quickly.After a few hours of the best flatwater I have ever paddled,we started to see rapids again and made the choice to camp at the next big scout due to exhaustion.A stout class 4 led us into a walled in pool and we could see the river beginning to pick up the pace downstream.We found a really nice camp spot on the river right cliff and did a little rope work to get all of our stuff up there.Teamwork is always in play on this trip,and setting up camp was no different.

We had reached the unknown,all the rapids we had seen in photos and video except the Beaver slide and a few bottom 9 drops were behind us,but we knew the river did not let up.We poured over the map trying to figure out where we were at,but were left with only a vague idea.This day had pushed us to the limit but we knew we had to keep our heads to the grindstone for what lay in store.

Middle Kings expedition 2010:day 2 the mank section

After a brutal 12 hours of hiking,I expected to wake up feeling wrecked,but my legs weren't really that sore.My back was sore from the backpack,and my toes were severely bruised from the pounding of going down the switchbacks,but I felt relatively good otherwise.I walked down the trail a little way and I could see the river and I started getting real fired up.We had a slow breakfast in an attempt to recover a little more from the hike,then we packed our boats and got ready to put on.Suzanne the Ranger came down the trail about this time to chat with us about permits,bear cans and what-not,and she ended up hiking a good way to watch us run some of the first rapids as well.One by one we slid into the river and started heading down through the first low/mank section.

Pretty soon we came up on our first piece of bedrock and the first real rapid.It was a manky 10'er onto a long slide,never even seen a photo of it before,but it was a cool rapid.We all had good lines and smiles to a small crowd of hikers and Suzy Ranger,unfortunately that was the end of the granite for the moment,and we started banging through the mank again.This section was like low-water Alum Cave into the upper West Prong.We portaged a big,chunky stairstep slide thing due to wood,and continued on with another portage around a slide to vert falls with a questionable landing zone.Wood was abundant,probably due to record high flows earlier in the season,but we were able to get around most of it.A long,beautiful meadow paddle brought us to some more mank and our first lunch stop of the trip.We had a good lunch,checked the topo,and chilled out for a bit above a nice slide.The slide turned out not to be so nice as we all took a pretty good hit on a shelf 1/3 of the way down.After a little more mank we started getting into the classic bedrock drops of the Middle Kings.Every rapid was starting to get pretty big,with a few portages in there as well.

Big slides and a few big holes led us to the Money Drop.This was one of the best rapids of the trip for sure,and the highlight of day 1 of kayaking.The feeling at the bottom is an undescribable eye-opener to what the Middle Kings is all about for me; unbelievable pain and unbelievable rewards.

After money drop,the river started becoming a blur.One man scouts were the norm,and we ran some stuff blind that probably should have been scouted.We were amazed at how stacked up the rapids were,we knew it was steep,but never knew it was so relentless.It was clear now more than ever that this was going to be the hardest river of our lives up to that point.After a big slide with a burly hole and a cliff on the left,the rapids eased off a bit and cruised some low angle slides to our next big scout.As I climbed up and around huge boulders to get a look downstream,I realized that I was exhausted and didn't have much left to give.The next rapid was just to big for me to run that evening in my state of mental and physical exhaustion.Thankfully after hiking and climbing back up to report the news,Mason and Matt were feeling it too.There was a decent camping spot where we had taken out,so we posted up for the evening.We got out the map and tried to figure out how much ground we had covered.We knew we were close to devil's washbowl,but we didn't know how close.We ate,drank and enjoyed the upstream view of some mellow slides we had run earlier.From the scout we knew that the first morning rapid was going to be huge,so we all went to bed feeling a little nervous about what was to come.Day 1 on the river had been the sickest day of kayaking thus far in my life,and I knew it was probably going to be the easiest day of this trip.

Middle Kings 2010:setting the record straight

Bishop pass from south lake trailhead Well,after almost a year of planning,we made it.Hundreds of phone calls,thousands of text and e-mail,Countless hours researching levels,snowpack and weather.I trained harder than ever before and the Middle Kings has consumed my every thought for months.
After a night in a Bishop hotel,we headed up to South Lake to pack and camp before we hiked in.The hike was brutal.No mules,no girlfriends,just 90 pounds of gear and 2 legs.There is no way it is only 12 miles,it has got to be in the teens somewhere.
It starts out uphill pretty much right away,but gets easier for a couple of miles before the pass.The pass is basically a 500-1000 foot cliff with a trail on the side of it,and is very difficult with a fully loaded boat. Although I was in great shape,the elevation kicked my ass anyway,and
just having that much weight on my back and shoulders for so long was harder than I ever thought.Lunch at the pass was a much needed break,but the lack of oxygen in the air made chewing and breathing at the same time pretty uncomfortable.

After topping out at the pass,we started heading into the long,mellow,mosquito-infested,never-ending push through Dusy Basin to the brink of LeConte Canyon.My goal of doing the hike in 8 hours or less was quickly becoming a fairy tale,and group morale had gotten pretty low.The Middle kings had already taken control.The stunning beauty of LeConte canyon is the only thing that keeps you from throwing your boat into the abyss,but we pushed on.

At the brink you feel like you are at the edge of the earth,and the sheer magnitude of the place is overwhelming.Looking down into the canyon,we could see the tree line long before we got to it, and we almost decided to camp and finish hiking the next morning,but the thought of waking up to more hiking first thing drove us on.Finally,after what seemed like miles of switchbacks,I could hear the river.I could smell a campfire burning,I knew a had finally made it to the Middle Kings.

Matt Wallace and Mason Robinson were not far behind me.We were all pretty beat down from the hike both physically and mentally,but it felt so good to be there!That night it got pretty cold,but my bivy-sac/45 degree sleeping bag combo did alright for the most part.With the hike behind us,it was time to rest up for next huge day,so we all passed out with anticipation levels at an all time high.