{"id":1292,"date":"2008-05-26T23:05:08","date_gmt":"2008-05-27T06:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=1292"},"modified":"2020-07-20T09:35:47","modified_gmt":"2020-07-20T16:35:47","slug":"rafting-the-kern-river-memorial-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=1292","title":{"rendered":"Rafting The Kern River – Memorial Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

I met John and three other rafters at 6:30 AM in Torrance for the three-hour ride up to the Kern.<\/p>\n

We noticed the Kern River death count is now at 242 – two more added in the last two weeks.<\/p>\n

John had talked to some Rangers who said that a very small percentage of those who died on the river were rafters who wore life jackets.<\/p>\n

Something that I did not know… the Rangers only have jurisdiction over boaters and kayakers, not over people on inner tubes or swimmers.<\/p>\n

\"Another<\/p>\n

The Kern was sort of cold, overcast and sprinkling in the morning in some places; the river was reported to be running at (I think) 1400 gallons per minute – or is it a second?<\/p>\n

The water was chilly, at about 52 degrees Fahrenheit, so we all wore wetsuits.<\/p>\n

John, Me, John’s son Ryan, Jeff W, Darnell and two rafting first timers – Rico and daughter – were today’s rafters.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

After inflating the raft and John’s safety speech, we loaded the raft up on the van and went up river for the first run.<\/p>\n

One would rotate out and drive the van back down river.<\/p>\n

\"Final<\/p>\n

After final inflation, we set off.<\/p>\n

\"John<\/p>\n

John with his helmet cam and Jeff W.<\/p>\n

\"Darnell<\/p>\n

Darnell and macho man me.<\/p>\n

From what I was told, last week the water was twice as high and a few rafts got flipped and wrecked… I wish that the water was that high today.<\/p>\n

No problems going through the first few sets of rapids; as we were leaving a rapid about half way through the first run, we looked over on the riverbank and saw two young Mexican guys kissing and dry humping each other while a third looked on rubbing his crotch.<\/p>\n

Jeez!<\/p>\n

Yuk!<\/p>\n

John yelled, “Hey guys, get a room!”<\/p>\n

They looked over and, seemingly embarrassed, got up and ran into some bushes.<\/p>\n

I couldn’t get my camera out in time to capture the bizarre spectacle and just as I tied down and secured the camera for the next rapid, we turned a bend and — right there, 15 yards from the beginning of some white water — was a young girl, laying on a rock, sunbathing topless.<\/p>\n

Oh, man!<\/p>\n

I really missed out on capturing the show today!<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

However, we did meet someone who’s kayak partner is a dog.<\/p>\n

The kayaker said, “This is my best friend and the best dog in the world; she loves this water.”<\/p>\n

On the second run, we hit a shallow rock, the boat started to capsize – “High side! High side!” John yelled.<\/p>\n

We all leaped to the high side of the boat – and got stuck on the rock.<\/p>\n

We rocked it, moved from side to side, tried to push off on the rock, but we were stuck.”<\/p>\n

I was leaning all the way forward when John yelled, “Brace yourselves!”<\/p>\n

The boat violently was thrown forward, some chicks screamed, I almost fell out, but we were moving.<\/p>\n

I looked back; a commercial raft had hit us and knocked us free.<\/p>\n

We are still debating whether it was done intentionally or not – hitting another raft like that could have had dire consequences for both boats.<\/p>\n

\"Jeff<\/p>\n

Jeff W. guided the third run.<\/p>\n

We made a total of four runs with a break for lunch after the second – each run, barring any problems, took 45 minutes.<\/p>\n

Amazingly enough, I think for the first time this season, nobody fell out on this trip!<\/p>\n

As for the new rafters?<\/p>\n

The young girl called it quits after the second run, but seemed to like the runs she was on.<\/p>\n

Rico volunteered to drive shuttle on the fourth, but last, run.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

It was cold, and some people were freezing, so sometimes it’s hard to tell if a newbie actually likes rafting or just quits because of the cold.<\/p>\n

\"Packing<\/p>\n

While we packed up, I slammed as many beers as I possibly could in the allotted time; we had to stop in Bakersfield an hour later.<\/p>\n

Seven people rafted – no deaths and no injuries today!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I met John and three other rafters at 6:30 AM in Torrance for the three-hour ride up to the Kern. We noticed the Kern River death count is now at 242 – two more added in the last two weeks. John had talked to some Rangers who said that a very small percentage of those […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,9,63],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1292"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5330,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292\/revisions\/5330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}