Men’s Journal – June 2008

Articles

  Print This Page Print


mensjournal6.08

FIVE WILD RUNS

By CHUCK THOMPSON

Thanks to spring runoff, June is the perfect time to get several rivers for the price of one outfitted trip.

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

Trip: California Dreaming

Duration: Three rivers, seven days

So the trip’s name is as trite as such a winter’s day, but there’s nothing else stale about a week navigating some of North America’s premier rapids while plunging through remote canyons and boulder gardens of the Sierra foothills. Highlights on any other river, nasty sections like Satan’s cesspool and Chipped Tooth here serve as mere practice runs before the world-infamous Clavey Falls on the Tuolumne River, a Class V series of stair steps that begins with the inevitable You mean we’re not gonna portage here? protests from rookies who howl through more whitewater than a Clinton investigation.

Almost as impressive as the rivers are the surrounding they wind through. Starting on the South Fork of the American River, the trip hairpins through Cali’s ‘49er gold country, with water-level-dependent swings through the Middle Fork’s Tunnel Chute, a steep rapid that drops into a 90-foot-long hole blasted in the rock by miners. From there the Merced provides consistent Class III-IV rapids amid pine forests. The curtain closer is two days on the Tuolumne, arguably the finest rafting river in the country, which has flows into September. The pull-out near Sacramento leaves you in perfect position to add another week (or six) of vacation in nearby Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, Napa Valley, or San Francisco.


Sign up for ENews

Get news, special offers and fascinating articles with the Watermark enewsletter

First Name


Last Name


E-mail Address


Note: All fields are required

Destinations

Adventures

Shop


Gift Cards


OARStore

Sister Sites

Join us


Company Info

The world's best whitewater rafting & adventure travel - defining adventure since 1969
Questions about trips or making reservations? Contact info@oars.com or call 800-346-6277 in the USA or Canada or 1-209-736-4677 if outside the USA or Canada.
©2013 O.A.R.S. Companies Inc.