The All-Outdoors Whitewater Rafting California River Blog

This is it for the Tuolumne and Cherry Creek rafting in 2009–Labor Day weekend is your last chance to see these rivers until next spring!  The Tuolumne River watershed is dam controlled and the authorities at Hetch Hetchy will be shutting off “raftable flows” after the holiday weekend–this is your last shot!  We have some spaces still available on both Cherry Creek and the Tuolumne this weekend so give us a ring if you’re interested.  There might even be a web special or two worth checking out if you want to save some dough….

(Left: Plenty o’ time to relax on a 2-day Tuolumne rafting trip……)

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It’s been a fantastic season on Cherry Creek this year but as they say, all good things, they come to an end.  After Labor Day the water level in the Tuolumne River–including its upper section, or Cherry Creek–will drop considerably. 

There will be plenty water for fish, deer, and the hordes of meat bees we all know and love on the T, but there will not be enough water for rafting, extreme or otherwise.  Unless, I guess, your idea of extreme is carrying a heavy inflatable raft over very large rocks and sweating more water than you are actually standing in.  Point being, if you want to raft Cherry Creek this year, you gotta make your plans before the season is over.

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With a few weeks to go of the “high season” for California rafting, the news is all good.  Flows have been lovely all across the board–from the gentle riffles of our class II Tom Sawyer Float Trips on the South Fork of the American River, to the boat-eating gigantor hydraulics of Cherry Creek, which is as tough as California Rafting gets.

At this point in the season, we are only rafting dam-controlled rivers: the South and Middle Forks of the American River, the Tuolumne River, and Cherry Creek.  All of these runs have tightly controlled water levels because of their upstream dams and reservoirs.  For us–and you!– this means continuing raftable flows all summer long, and lots of different rafting itineraries.

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This could possibly be the ultimate whitewater trip for experienced river rafters in California: a combo trip on the Tuolumne River and Cherry Creek.  Ok ok I admit the Kern River has a pretty awesome range of sections and there are certainly other canyons with incredible beauty like the North Stan…..but just because you want the extreme challenge of Class V rapids doesn’t mean you want the class V put-in experience of hiking in gear or following a mule train down into the canyon.   And just because you want beauty doesn’t mean you want to raft at a moment’s notice in the spring. 

 With our Tuolumne River combination trip you get, well, the combo of extreme whitewater on Cherry Creek and the beauty of the upper and lower Tuolumne River Canyon.  Plus you get our awesome guides with their years of experience and winning personalities.  Hello, what’s not to love?

On these trips you also get away and really take a break–camping overnight in a river canyon puts a lot in perspective.  Like how many stars there are when you escape city lights, and how loud an ocean of crickets is….

(Top: Cherry Creek! Middle: Cooling off on the Tuolumne River,  Bottom: Guide Boat on Cherry Creek)

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Here we are in the height of the summer California River rafting season and you have lots o’ options choose from–great news, but also part of the mixed feelings we in the industry have about dams.  On the one hand we tend to be conservation minded and are well aware of dams’ many drawbacks ecologically.   On the other hand, dams dramatically extend our rafting season and make water flows much more reliable.  We’re able to organize trips and logisitics around scheduled flows and can give guests a pretty accurate idea of what to expect because we are so familiar with rafting the same flows summer after summer.

The mixed bag of dams aside, the end result is that we have three rivers that flow consistantly all summer–the South and Middle Forks of the American Rivers, and the Tuolumne River.  The Tuolumne is really a two-for-one deal because not only do we get the class IV section of the main T, but we also get the class V section of the Upper Tuolumne, or Cherry Creek, as it’s more commonly known.  We will offer consistant trips on all these rivers for the rest of summer!

(Above:  Summer is the perfect time to explore California Rivers with side-hikes and overnight trips!)

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After a couple “higher water” and certifiably high adventure Cherry Creek rafting  trips, we are now officially in the standard ol’ class V action.  And by “standard” of course I mean the most challenging and extreme commercial whitewater trip in the United States.  I mean Class V rapids that swallow 14 foot long boats and 10 foot oars.  I mean a gradiant of over 100 vertical feet per mile–in layman’s terms that means STEEP!  And I mean the “Miracle Mile” with its six back-to-back Class V rapids…….

So yeah, in this case I guess “standard” might not be the best word…..

(Above:  A fun boat of AO  rafting guides on Cherry Creek.  That Matt N in the driver’s seat there….)

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It was an early day, but a great day.  I don’t know if this is a tall tale or what, but rumors are guides were up waaaaaaay before sunrise; all I know is for me, that is just one more great reason to continue not ever rafting Cherry Creek.  Why the insanely early start?  To make sure that the water levels would be appropriate–1800 CFS at put-in.  Don’t worry–flows will be standardized soon enough, so we won’t need to be adjusting the regular meet time.  This was an unusual case.  We had two commercial boats with guests (with guides the Walker Bros) and one guide boat  (with guide Matt N) out in front.  Special guest appearances by AO owner Scott Armstrong and Randy C, who was last seen giving the AO shirt a tour of Shanghai!

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It’s not 100% yet, because we haven’t gotten an iron-clad guarantee from the guy with his hand on the dam controls, but we think we’ll be able to start rafting Cherry Creek this coming weekend.  We’re hoping to get out there as soon as possible but we have a limit on how high the CFS can be for commercial trips.   We’ve been told by the water powers-that-be that Cherry Creek will be in the loop starting Sat June 27. We’ll keep you posted if that changes but for now, we’re ready to go!

(Above: Class V swim practice on Cherry Creek)

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Well, if there’s one thing we rely on here in the rafting business it’s that stuff changes all the time.  The government and nature are more powerful than our powers to predict river conditions.

Case in point:  Yesterday I happily announced that our Cherry Creek season would open with a series of trips beginning June 19th.  We based this decision off information from the water guys at Hetch Hetchy reservoir.  Today we found out that in order to keep Hetch Hetchy from “spilling,” the dam authorities have decided to unexpectedly increase flows into the Tuolumne River.

Result?  Flows on the Main Tuolumne are gonna be great this weekend!  But Cherry Creek is just a little too high to run commercially so we’ve had to cancel those trips.  Hetch Hetchy tells us the spill risk should lessen soon (this hot spell is going to put a final fork in the remaining snowpack and then we’ll be entirely reliant on scheduled releases from reservoirs) so I expect to be telling you next week that Cherry Creek will be open for business.

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According the guys at the dams and our sources on the riverbank, Cherry Creek Rafting  is officially open for business–flows are perfect, ranging from 1500 to 2000 CFS.  This is down from yesterday’s “sporty” 2400 CFS.  Our guides are literally out there as I type on a fun trip, and they’ll be ready for action this Friday, when we have our first commercial trip of 2009.  We’ll also be on the Creek this Saturday and Monday. 

(Above:  Mushroom rapid on Cherry Creek–extreme whitewater rafting  at its finest. Yowza!)

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