With a put-in on the Eastern Slope of the Sierras, and a take-out in the Western foothills, a six hour shuttle through Yosemite is necessary for kayaking the Middle Fork San Joaquin. Due to common issues in a shuttle of this magnitude we ended up with a down day in Mammoth and got directions to some great local hot springs.




We woke up early Friday morning and headed straight to the river in full mission mode, intent on making downstream progress. Putting in below Rainbow Falls we found ample flows and quickly made our way down through class three drops and a log portage, eventually arriving at Lower Falls. To quote the Seven Rivers Expedition “They also said that the first rapid should look “not runnable or barely runnable” and that the river should be almost not float able. We were facing ample flow, easy to float on and the first rapid was “Awesome” We found the exact same thing, making us a little nervous about our flows, but optimism prevailed and we pushed downstream where we started the infamous portage on river right.




   We portaged the first several miles on river right, occasionally dropping back down to pick off a rapid or two.





The scout revealed a small mini-gorge containing a rapid with a few boxed in holes that Charlie fired off while the rest of us walked.




   Five hours since putting on, mostly portaging and three or four rapids later, we arrived at a sweet slide and our first gorge.


The mini-gorge was composed of three rapids, one was a long slide that Tommy ran in Seven Rivers and barely managed to escape the backwash of a pothole. We opted to portage the top on the left and seal launch in below the pothole but above the sweet slide. I sent Taylor and Charlie off from the seal launch with a small push, watched them style it and got my boat setup for the seal launch.

I was so excited about running the slide that I didn’t tell Evan to push me off from the seal launch. I dropped over the slab with just enough speed for my tail to catch. I gritted my teeth knowing this wasn’t going to be good as I went over vertical into the fast moving water above the slide. Resurfacing upside down I tried a quick roll and was immediately pushed into the rock dividing the flow at the top of the slide. I tried several more roll attempts while going around the rock and starting down the slide, thankfully getting my boat somewhat upright as I went over the first ledge and then went upside down again as I accelerated down the slide. Gaining speed I quickly rolled up on the shallow slide, right before going into a gigantic pillow, taking a big bounce off the rock behind the pillow and going upside down into the hole at the bottom. Thankfully it wasn’t sticky, and after going through upside down I quickly rolled up, spun around and finished the bottom drop of the slide. Amazingly I didn’t even scrape a knuckle or take a hit in the whole process, although it looks absolutely horrible on video.


The rest of the group ran the slide with no problems, and we worked down through the next few drops to the lip of an innocuous looking rapid where Evan was eddied out making sure everyone went left. This little drop is known as “Clay Wright’s Drop” because on a descent several years ago he pinned in the middle of it. From the top it looks good down the middle, but contains an underwater sieve that Rush briefly pinned in but thankfully came through no worse for the wear. We stopped for lunch after this drop and knew we were making decent time, considering this is where Clay had pinned at the end of their second day.


We enjoyed a nice long lunch and put back on to more sweet slides, one that was about two hundred yards long before ending in a great ten foot boof.




We tried scouting on the left and couldn’t get down far enough to see if it all went, so Charlie and Tyler ferried across and scouted down the right, coming back up with a big thumbs up. Going up a shelf on the right we portaged the entrance of the gorge and dropped into the walled out section knowing there were some big drops downstream.


Downstream the locked into the gorge continues as we run though some incredible rapids including a sweet fifteen footer.

 What followed is a long serious of tough and dangerous boulder gardens deep in a gorge, culminating with one of the best slides anywhere, “boof-o-matic” falls. 



Rapids continued and the gorge opened up on the way down to the confluence with the North Fork San Joaquin, where we pushed on a little bit further until we found a nice campsite. Our map showed a large gorge shortly after the North Fork confluence, and our map ended after this gorge, leaving the rest of the run shrouded in mystery. We assumed the gorge down from our campsite was the infamous Crucible. We drifted off to sleep glad to have safely covered so much ground on day one, but knowing we would have a lot more to deal with in the next two days.