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matty
Trad climber
under the sea
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Dec 13, 2012 - 09:34pm PT
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Bat-
Let me clarify...I was NOT trying to single you out for starting the thread, or talking about the sespe and I'm not offended. I have seen the many photos you have posted in other threads about the so-cal rivers and know you love the place as much as anyone and would never do anything to harm it. I'm sure anyone who would go kayaking back there would be the same. I was just trying to put in a kind word for the sespe for anyone that read this and decided to go check it out on their own (unlikely as that may be).
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johntp
Trad climber
socal
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Dec 13, 2012 - 09:45pm PT
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Pack rafting is in it's infancy. Roman Dial and Erin McKitrick (sp?) have done a lot with these little boats.
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Dr.Sprock
Boulder climber
I'm James Brown, Bi-atch!
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Dec 13, 2012 - 10:38pm PT
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that creek run is "self protected" by the fact that there are only a handful of kayakers crazy good enuff to run it, and the conditions have to be just right for the 3 day trip, plus the tar thing, plus the kern is just up the street,
i see gary valle at the moke races he is pretty good and a great climber also.
i bet tompkins flew robbins and the french dude over sespe creek in a piper cub or something,
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Anxious Melancholy
Mountain climber
Between the Depths of Despair & Heights of Folly
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Dec 13, 2012 - 11:20pm PT
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Bat rock,
Would love to join you. You mentioned wanting to take more time (3 days on past trip) how much time and when in the spring?
AM
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Batrock
Trad climber
Burbank
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 13, 2012 - 11:31pm PT
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Sprock,
I used to kayak quite a bit with Valle and did a early descent of Brush Creek with his son Brett.
It's funny you mention a flyover of Sespe. Prior to my first run down Sespe I tooka few gallons of Baskin Robbins ice cream over to the air ops unit of the fire dept. I work for and asked one of the pilots who I had camped with a few times to take a training flight up to the Sespe. I brought my video camera and we filmed the creek from top to bottom, crabbing sideways to get a good camera angle. This was in 1991 and an OK boater but not super solid. The other two guys I talked into going were complete novices but I was so intent on making this run that I told them it was a piece of cake and that if anything was too hard they could just walk around. Well, we spent 5 days in the canyon, 3 days boating and 2 days hiking and swimming out to Filmore after ditching our boats. We were down to a few granola bars and no flashlights. We thought we would make it out of the canyon by the evening of the 4th night, we hiked til midnight down canyon, over and under boulders path lit by 2 Bic Lighters that we brought. We ended up hiking out late the next day.
All three boats that were left behind were mine and there was no way I was hiking 15 miles in and carrying them out. I was considering chartering a helicopter but the cost was way too steep and I didnt want to ask my buddy at air ops who flew me in to film it, at least not yet. One day i get a phone call from Ventura County Sherifs Dept. They were doing a routine flight up the creek and spotted the boats and picked them up. My name and number were on the boats. The pilot was said he had the boats at the airport but if I wanted to finish the run he said he would fly them back in and was sorry for assuming I wanted the boats. What an answer to prayer, I brought the requisite ice cream and a few fire dept Tshirts as a thank you and drove out to pick up my boats. It seems all my trips down Sespe have involved helicopters in some form but that was the only time they were used as a form of rescue tool thankfully.
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pyro
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
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Dec 14, 2012 - 11:45am PT
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matty that tar creek aint no secret!
it was featured in some climber video back in the 90's.
i don't have the time to go all the way out there i'd rather go out to sespe black wall instead.
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10b4me
Boulder climber
Somewhere on 395
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Dec 14, 2012 - 12:08pm PT
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Roman Dial and Erin McKitrick
Also Forest McCarthy
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Batrock
Trad climber
Burbank
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 14, 2012 - 12:18pm PT
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Matty, I'm sorry for coming off the ass. I was having a rough day and took it out in the wrong way. Pray for a Pineapple Express winter so we can all go and enjoy what The Sespe has to offer.
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justin01
Trad climber
sacramento
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Dec 14, 2012 - 02:06pm PT
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I kayaked the sespe maybe 5 years ago. I have done a fair number of high sierra multi-day whitewater trips, and I can honestly say, that the sespe was one of the most memorable and adventurous trips of my life. The runable drops were generally IV affairs but with plenty of class V sieves for those sick of shouldering their boats. It took me 3 years of eagerly watching flows to hit it right (with one trip skunked by a closed road). The whitewater is nowhere near as good as many of the sierra classics in terms of difficulty, runability and portage counts, but the scenery and remoteness were unparallel. It is little wonder that so many trips have resulted in helo rides, due to the incredibly rugged canyon, the creeks proclivity for breaking boats, and the dangerously fickle water levels. Being deep in the wilderness has never felt so isolating as there, with the feel of LAX jets whizzing overhead contrasted with the magnitude of the complete inaccessibility of the gorge. There are hot springs and tar seeps everywhere.
Tar creek is cool, I have hiked down it on one occasion, but the real grandeur of the canyon is further downstream toward devil’s gate where the river turns south. Only swimming betweens sides of the river will provide passage on foot. Backpacking into sespe hotsprings, I met a guy who had hiked up from Fillmore and reported great steelhead fishing, though I do not know if I believe him. Steel head running up the santa ana sounds quite improbable indeed.
That canyon has, as one person put it, the sequoias of the boulder kingdom. They are massive and everywhere, the wall of the canyon are littered with giant purple boulders perched ready to be dropped at any moment. The tar is bizarre, and real (bring paint thinner for the take-out). The portages are as arduous as the bottom 9 of the middle kings (upriver from yucca point). The rock is like shark skin grabbing your slippery plastic boat like hitting a wall, and nearly every decent drop has a F-U rock in it to make it less palatable. The water is murky with sediment, so judging depths of drops is also dubious if you appreciate your ankles.
So with all that said, if no trails are put into the canyon or through it, there is little reason to fear for it spoiling. There is another canyon in that area, the upper piru, that has a similar feel, yet is much more tame in terms of scenery, logistics, flow, and difficulty.
Here is a write-up from someone else’s trip we used as a guide.
http://www.ptone.com/Kayak/Sespe2/
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Batrock
Trad climber
Burbank
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 14, 2012 - 03:11pm PT
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Justin01,
Thanks for sharing. On the last kayak trip I did I had a vertical entrapment on the first day and nearly drowned. Shook me up quite a bit but was able to pull it together for a very successful descent. Talking with Rocky Contos a few years later I learned he pinned in the same spot on a previous trip. It's a serious place to have a accident, one would be royaly screwed.
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justin01
Trad climber
sacramento
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Dec 14, 2012 - 03:30pm PT
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I remember feeling very exposed there. We definitely ratcheted back our enthusiasm for class V and walked more than a couple drops which we wouldn't have worried about under road side accessibility.
The remoteness there is astounding.
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Dr.Sprock
Boulder climber
I'm James Brown, Bi-atch!
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Dec 14, 2012 - 04:00pm PT
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Rocky is pretty hardcore, ask him about the cataracts of the kern,
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Batrock
Trad climber
Burbank
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 14, 2012 - 04:43pm PT
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Sprock, I somehow got mentioned in this early write up out of the Sierra South website. I did some very early descents of the Cataracts but as the write up says communication was sparse back then and it's unknown just how many and who was running what back then.
Kern Below Democrat (Cataracts of the Kern)
Please Note!
Cadillacs - Richbar - Cataracts - KR1
"The Forest Service "discouraged" boating on the Kern Below Democrat Dam until 1995. Even so, the run now known as the Richbar Run was done from time to time by local boaters and visiting dignitaries such as Lars Holbeck.
Keith Beck, with boating partners Phil Martin and Glen Troness, began probing the Kern below Democrat in the early eighties, and around 1984 had done most of the Kern below Democrat, including the stretch below the KR1 powerhouse. Keith reports,
"None of us ran Quadruple Whatever. I used a Sabre (!!!!) for some of it, and a Rotobat (Pyranha) for some parts, and a glass CKS Needle for some."
Keith also noted that communication was poor among boaters (no Internet!) and that others, including Mark Richey and Kevin Mokracek, were running some sections of the Kern below Democrat at about the same time."
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Batrock
Trad climber
Burbank
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 14, 2012 - 05:04pm PT
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While we are talking creeks I'll show some of my old creeking pics from back in the day.
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Fossil climber
Trad climber
Atlin, B. C.
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Dec 14, 2012 - 10:00pm PT
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John M - Hiked in to the hot springs one time. You're right - really pleasant. Except for the guy in camo who was cutting down trees with an assault rifle. And I never saw so many rattlesnakes on one hike in my life.
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Brandon-
climber
The Granite State.
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Dec 14, 2012 - 10:43pm PT
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Big T narrows looks full value.
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Batrock
Trad climber
Burbank
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 14, 2012 - 11:00pm PT
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Big T is a lot of fun, word of warning, if it looks even a little on the high side do NOT get on it.
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John M
climber
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Dec 14, 2012 - 11:28pm PT
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And I never saw so many rattlesnakes on one hike in my life.
LOL, yep.. lots of them back there. That can be hard country to get into. I had more ticks on that trail then any other place I have been to. Between the crotchety old guy, the long hikes, the hot weather, the rattle snakes and the ticks, that place is pretty well protected from being overrun.
Anyone seen the waterfall coming off of bear haven, the plateau to the west of the sespe ? That plateau is mostly rock and very little soil coverage and when it rains it all funnels off of it in mostly one place. The falls gets pretty big. I have done a little bit of traipsing around that plateau, but only a few days worth.
Nice pics Batrock. Thanks for sharing them.
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Dr.Sprock
Boulder climber
I'm James Brown, Bi-atch!
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Dec 14, 2012 - 11:57pm PT
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Keith Beck was the other guy i picked up with charlie and the other keith.
those guys have toned it down but the middle feather story in AWA is pretty good,
those guys have done deer creek also, charlie got an elbow job on that one,
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matty
Trad climber
under the sea
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Dec 15, 2012 - 01:00am PT
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