One Day Middle Kings

The Middle Fork of the Kings is one of the best overnight trips in the world. It is a diverse experience, with a 12 mile hike over a 12,000 foot pass, low volume slides, boulder gardens, and after the confluence, a section that feels close to big water. The portaging is generally easy-- thanks mostly to a very well maintained trail running along the majority of the river. It’s my favorite river trip in the world and a place I make an effort to return to as often as possible. 

The dream to kayak the Middle Fork of the Kings river in a day was both a shared and deeply individual project. Carson and Coleman have been at the cutting edge of California kayaking together for nearly a decade. They had dreamed, talked and planned this mission for the same amount of time. I am several years younger, and was not nearly as strong or skilled until recently. My ambitions for Middle Kings were a largely private endeavor and, for a long time, much more of a dream than a goal. 

I suppose here would be an appropriate place to describe the team that assembled for this adventure. Ben Coleman is the embodiment of an important idea: that kayaking is not a sport, it’s a path. The more you put into this path, the more you get out of it. He is quiet, humble, kind and spent more time than anyone paddling the rivers of the High Sierra for the last several decades. He first ran the Middle Kings in 2001, when I was exactly one year old. 

Carson, while slightly less physically imposing than Coleman, has the telltale signs of a phenomenal athlete. He is relentlessly positive on the river. Many times throughout the season, while Coleman and I were cowering in fear above some large rapid, Carson would assert that “this is going to be so fun.” I eventually came to understand that this was not a facade-- Carson genuinely loves paddling hard rivers.

A couple of days before our one day attempt, Coleman and I did a 3 day trip in order to refresh the lines, inspect wood and other potential hazards, and see what the overall state of the river was. It was an amazing trip, marred only slightly by our constant discourse about the one day-- lines we could take, times we thought we might have to hit to be successful. I tried my best to stay present but it was challenging with this goal looming over us. 

We started hiking at 11pm for our one day descent. This would, we hoped, give  us a generous amount of time to complete the hike over Bishop pass and begin kayaking shortly after sunrise. None of us slept in the hot, mosquito infested trailhead. 

The first hour of the hike I felt like I was levitating. I couldn’t believe we were finally going for it. It was a very dark night; there was no moon and the beam of headlamp that illuminated the several feet of trail in front of me became my entire universe. Every hour we would regroup and eat a snack-- beginning the “vibe checks” that we would do periodically for the next 19 hours. 

We reached the river at 5am. From here, we hiked an additional 3 miles along the river to where Middle Kings confluences with Palisade creek. This avoided laborious wood portages, manky rapids, and was generally a more efficient way to navigate this section of river. We dressed quickly and talked very little. We were all happy to be there, but knew that in many ways, the work was just beginning. 

It was cold and only the tops of the surrounding peaks were lucky enough to be bathing in morning light. I slid in at the top of a slide with a reconnect. As I accelerated down the drop, it came to my attention that there was more water than when Coleman and I were here 5 days before. I thought we might be sitting on the high side of very rowdy, but there was nothing to do other than continue downstream. 

We made quick work of the early gorges. We had scouted, deliberated and discussed every move the lap before, and on this beautiful morning the river felt like a choreographed dance. I almost felt as if I was in a dream. I felt disconnected from the whitewater, exhaustion and excitement entangling as the individual moves were dwarfed by the scale of the undertaking we had begun. I was able to settle in the more rapids we ran, forcing myself to stay present. 

I walked the big slide, mostly out of fear. In the eddy above the drop, I rebranded it as a noble sacrifice to set safety for the nasty pocket at the bottom. My job proved to be obsolete however as both of the boys worked left and skipped out of the bottom. I put back in and we continued routing, making it below the picture-esque final drop of the waterfall gorge by 8:15 in the morning, almost exactly an hour after putting on. 

We hit the trail, choosing to skip several gorges that contain some of the most challenging and concentrated whitewater on the river. At this point I was riding very high. We had settled into a good rhythm and made efficient work of one of the crux sections of the run. I marched down the trail with a pip in my step. This march turned into a slow trudge as the adrenaline wore off and my body was able to indulge in the physical exertion and lack of sleep I was forcing it to undergo. I pulled over and we all had a snack and vibe check. 

We put back in at the top of Sampson meadow and began hitting a lot of rocks. It was a grind, as trees forced us to get out of our kayaks and braided channels rendered wheel chairing as the only viable option. It was immensely beautiful. I looked up at the granite walls and was overwhelmed by the scale of the canyon. We were exiting the high mountains-- Middle Kings is steep-- and behind us sat rugged peaks, some still streaked with small gullies of snow. 

After an hour or two, the river began to steepen again. This section is colloquially referred to as the Middle 4, and if often considered an introduction to the infamous Bottom 9 that is the crux of the run. We pulled over at the top of the Middle 4. We were tired. Coleman had a thousand yard stare as he shoveled meat into his mouth from a Ziploc bag. Carson ate some trail mix. I had candy. Properly fueled, we put it back on. The rapids were a blur-- the dance continued, the tempo increasing. At one point we passed another crew scouting on the shore. Carson, easily the friendliest of our trio, waved at them as we dropped into the rapid. We made it to the Big Bad beaver, a massive slide that marks the end of the concentrated whitewater in the Middle 4. I eddied out to start the portage and looked at Coleman, a manic grin on my face. “Yo, we just laid waste to the Middle four.” 

Tehipite Valley is one of the most inspiring places I have ever had the privilege of visiting. Vertical granite walls surround the river, climaxing in the signature Tehipite Dome, a 3000 foot vertical wall that rises straight out of the river canyon. We floated by the dome, saying very little. We took another break right above the bottom 9. All three of us were moving slowly, battling our own demons of doubt, fear. I was proud of what we had accomplished, but our fatigue was steadily compounding. I felt that we were balancing precariously on the edge of disaster. Coleman summed it up well as we sat on a rocky beach below the dome. “I think a swim would end my day”. 

We ate as much food as we could stomach, getting ready for the final push. Coleman turned and looked at me. “I know we were just here, but I’m going to need beta.” I stared at him, confused. “Wait, you want me to lead?”. He nodded. It was my turn for the thousand yard stare. I had been preparing to sit back and follow Coleman to the confluence. His trust in my ability and knowledge of the river was humbling. I had spent so much of the last several years following him as he confidently routed down the rivers of California. I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. I saw the river laid out in my mind like a bizarre video game. I saw the sequences of rapids, the portages. We put back on. 

The opening section of the bottom 9 flew by. We would occasionally stop and I would give beta. Much of it, I’m sure, was incoherent. We were exhausted and discussing the line above a rapid was more of a way to reassure myself that I knew where I was going rather than a method of conveying key information. We arrived at the halfway point. We had made exceptionally good time, it had been just over an hour since we had stopped in Tehipite Valley. I was elated. Leading my two friends down this complex section of whitewater was likely the highlight of my paddling career-- it felt like the culmination of years of learning and progressing on the rivers of the High Sierra. 

Coleman caught a second wind. Leading with a grace and poise that Carson and I were all too familiar with, we were happy to get on the train. We ran what felt like one million boofs, give or take. In a shockingly short amount of time, we were routing through the final rapids before “the gates”-- a large rapid that signifies the end of the most stacked and challenging section in the bottom 9. I was screaming my head off as I skipped through one of the final holes, fist raised in the air. For the first time in nearly 16 hours, I was able to disconnect from the task immediately in front of us. The gravity and weight of the experience began to fall on top of me. 

We made quick work of the rest of the bottom 9. As we rounded the corner towards the confluence, the water shimmered in the late afternoon light. As I paddled towards the end of the Middle Kings, I was surprised to find tears running down my cheeks. I turned around to look at Carson. He was also crying. I remember just repeating over and over, holy shit, we actually did it. 

In some ways, this was a bizarre reaction. At no point throughout the day did I ever doubt that we would make it. I felt energized and strong in the whitewater, and had complete faith in my two partners to move down the river in a smart and efficient manner. I had, to my surprise, mostly had fun as we routed rapid after rapid. Our emotions were not due to relief, but rather the closing of an important chapter. 

Doing the Kings in a day had consumed my adult life. I thought about it as I slogged through every ski tour, trail run, rehab of my shoulder. It motivated me to do one more lap, to push a little harder, for years. I held it as the ultimate day of kayaking in California; it includes every style of whitewater and travels through every landscape and elevation of this mountain range I have spent my life exploring. 

We pulled over after the confluence. Coleman, ever succinct and wise, remarked “that was sick. It was also harder than any of us were expecting I think”. 

We finished out the day with the Garlic Falls section, an outstanding piece of whitewater that I hated with every fiber of my being. I was exhausted and not at all interested in roosting over the large holes that litter the riverbed of Garlic Falls. 

Some time later, we arrived at the takeout. As I pulled into the beach, I couldn’t stop smiling. It had been an amazing day of paddling with two of my favorite humans in the universe. I was proud of the way we relied on and supported one another. 

I felt overwhelmed by the quality of the experience. It was, in every way, a worthy goal to dedicate years of my life to. I almost didn’t want it to end.