Across the Curtain: First D: NF San Juaquin

Five days had just been spent on the GC of the T, Poopernaut Canyon and resting and we were starting to get the itch for some more boating - at least i was, since i hadn't been on the water for either of the last 2 missions. Ben, Darin and Chris had been doing more shouldering than paddling and we threw around ideas of what the hell to do next....Upper cherry was still too high, west cherry was going, the Middle Fork Kings and Devils postpile were still at least a week or two off - maybe it was time to look at something new. Ben or Darin tossed in the idea of checking out the NF San Juaquin, there was marginal beta on it, it had been looked at but not run before and we just got word that Evan Garcia had gotten more or less skunked trying to do North Fork Kings so we figured, egh...sure, why not.

Preparing in Groveland

This was going to be the stage of our next little adventure for the following 3 or 4 days. Who needs to bring a map on the river when you can just take a picture and bring the digital version?

The NF SJ flows into the Devils Postpile section of the main fork SJ somewhere just above Class IV canyon. The general plan was hike the hour and a half down into the north fork, spend 2 days on the river and hike out from the main fork at Cassidy Bridge, which just just above the point of no return for Crucible Gorge. Sweet, so off we went.

The 3 hour drive from Groveland sent us past some of the most amazing areas of the High Sierra's and soon enough we were at the trail head. We were the only ones there except for a younger guy sitting in his government national forest rig. We chit-chatted for a bit and before we knew it we had been invited to dinner at base camp just 5 minutes down the road - we spent the night eating tri-tip steak, potatoes, salad, fresh trout roasted over the fire, ice cream, drinking lemonade and listening to stories about busting Mexican pot growers in the surrounding forests. Good times for sure.

We found a nice open slab of granite for the night to get our gear sorted and to keep the mosquitoes at bay. The sky was amazing.

The morning came quick and before we knew it the hike was over and we were standing on a bridge looking downstream towards our fate. A nice mellow boulder garden warm up seemed to await us and we all dressed with excitement of a new unknown piece of whitewater.

Put in Bridge

From the Put in bridge

It picked up pretty quick and soon enough we were dropping through bigger boulder gardens. The run was mostly gorged in, but rather than having bedrock drops enough debris had slipped in from the walls above that most drops we a combination of bedrock, boulders, and sieves.

Lunch time rapid - Chris K fired this up in big fashion, what you cant see if the ugly entry slide/move into a cave. And yes, that is a boulder, not bedrock that chris is scouting from.

Some good fun boulder drops with tight little intricate lines

Me, boofing away.

Ben exiting the room. (Photo by Darinn Mquoid)

Ben with what became known as a poop smear move. Lots of little ones like this on the run just trying to stay high up on the granite and smear your way down.

Downstream progress was slooooooow, we only had 3 or 4 miles if that to the confluence but we made it only half way the first day after hours and hours of boating.

The day was closing down but the whitewater was still coming in full force, we came to a horizon line and the river just seemed to drop away as the granite walls lifted up and went vertical. Some serious forward scouting was in need for this one. The main fork of the san juaquin is known for its character as one of the most gorged in rivers around, and its north forks seemed to uphold the reputation. We hiked more than 500 feet above the river and almost a half mile downstream to get a look at things. some stuff went, some didn't, and there was one corner we had no view of from any angle. The unrunnable stuff was sieved out which surprisingly offered decent portage routes and the rest ended up being decently fun whitewater. We had made it through most everything and then our senses were rudely awakened by the realization that the one corner we couldn't see contained 3 distinct horizon lines with no portage options and out of boat scouting available for only the first, marginal boat scouting for the 2nd and nothing but guessing for the 3rd. This is where i stepped back and let the boys with more expedition hair boating experience step up, and step up they did. We were past the section in less than 30 minutes and as it turned out the bottom 3 drops, although the most difficult to scout and completely mandatory, were also the cleanest of the entire gorge. We quickly found a camp spot above a nasty multi-tiered sieved out drop and spent the night fighting off ants anxious for what lay downstream.

Camp turned out to be a giant pile of sand and dirt that had built up behind a huge debris pile from previous floods. Fire wood was no trouble in finding, in fact we didn't have to leave the warmth of the fire to get more, we just leaned back and picked something out of the debris.

The next day saw less gorges and a more gentle gradient. We had plenty of good boulders gardens still to run though and the river was much less gorged out and more tree lined than before. The confluence with the main fork came just after lunch and to no surprise the river was high, and by high i mean 2 or 3 feet higher than the flow you would run the crucible section at. To our luck we had no serious gorges to run, but that didn't mean that the less serious ones would be simple. Darin was the only one in our group who had seen this section of river before and from his memory they bombed most of the drops and never got out of their boats to scout anything. It was a different story for us, in fact with that much water it was a completely different river for us. We scouted everything, and for good reason, the class IV was 2 or 3 feet under Class V water and boating just changed from lower volume technical creeking to big volume and pushy. The afternoon went well for all of us and my favorite moment came after darin had jumped out of his boat to scout a drop and returned with the beta "Drive left, boof over a 6 foot ledge and then its going to get busy, just deal with it". Boating with a group thats functioning well is always a damn good time and when you're confident enough in each others abilities to not need to give every detail of a drop when scouting it always makes things that much more enjoyable.
We made it to Cassidy Crossing at 4pm with smiles on our face and some curiosity of what lay downstream. Too much water for us to continue though, so we lit a fire cooked up some bratworst and shouldered our boat for the 8 mile 3000 foot climb out of the canyon...I generally like to think of myself as a strong hiker but this day i suffered, i dont know if it was the climb itself or me but i havnt felt that miserable in years and when i did finally make it to the top you coulda stuck a fork in me cause i was D.U.N done

The entrance to the Crucible..apparently this drop is manky at normal flows, to us it looked clean and good to go, infact most of the rocks were underwater.

Take out Bridge

I started to hike feeling good, this is 30 minutes into it with Balloon Dome in the background.

Here i am 2 hours into it with the sunsetting and feeling a bit beaten down but still with some energy.

This is 4 hours into it with the sun gone and starting to get a little dazed. I thought i had 2 miles still to go, as it turned out i was less than 5 minutes from the end.