The best raft trip in the United States


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North America » United States » California » Groveland
August 27th 2011
Published: June 16th 2012
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Tuolumne CanyonTuolumne CanyonTuolumne Canyon

Overlook of the Tuolumne River canyon that I rafted, from the road to meet the guides.
Asking rafters to name their favorite river is like asking art collectors to name their favorite artist; it just isn’t possible.

Still, certain names (Picasso, Warhol, Monet) get mentioned more often than any other.

For rafters with advanced skills, that name is the Tuolumne River.


Toulumne River




The river starts in the high Sierra Nevada within Yosemite National Park and flows west to the central valley.

It’s infamous as the river dammed in 1914 to create the Hetch Hechy Reservoir (see The Golden State).

The raftable section occurs west of the park.

It exists thanks to a major tributary called Cherry Creek.

This creek replenishes significant water flow after Hetch Hechy basically eliminates it.

Cherry Creek is also dammed, for power.

Ironically, this improved whitewater on the river because it creates a reliable flow that makes the trip more predictable and less dangerous.

On the Tuolumne, this is a very good thing.





The Tuolumne has two main whitewater segments.

The first is often called ‘Cherry Creek’, because this is the gauge people have to check before heading out.

This stretch has an unbelievable average gradient of 110 feet per mile with a scary top gradient of 230, the steepest commercially rafted river in the country.

As the drop alone should imply, it’s also the toughest, with nearly continuous Class V rapids.

Unbelievably, at least one person has floated it in an inner tube!

Rafting this stretch requires passing multiple tests of skill and fitness beforehand.

It’s way too dangerous for this trip.





I’m rafting the other segment, the Main Tuolumne.

The layout consists of a long string of Class IV and III rapids with the occasional class V.

Every rapid has room to recover afterward.

The trip is basically the central section of the Klamath (see What Ancient Words Mean in a Modern Age) expanded to ten times the length.

Like the Klamath, it also flows through a steep canyon of golden hills.

For rafters with experience, this river is as close to perfection as whitewater gets.

After learning I could handle the danger (for how, see Stress, Danger and Discovery) I knew I had to experience it.

Thanks to the power dam that regulates flow, this is the last weekend with reliable water.





The Main Tuolumne is rather long.

Guides can run the trip in a single day, but it pushes the pace so much people don’t have time to enjoy being on the river.

I figured the exhaustion near the end would also create too much risk.

I signed up for the most popular trip, two days in an oar boat.

This will be my first time ever overnight rafting.





After much research, I decided to do the trip with Sierra Mac.

Like Momentum on the Klamath, they are small and specialized.

They are so specialized that they only run trips on the Tuolumne.

In fact, they are one of only two guide services that run Cherry Creek in addition to the Main Tuolumne section.

Their guides have experience.





On my way this morning, I passed one of the forest service signs that are familiar to anyone who drives in the wilderness.

They feature Smoky Bear wearing Levis and a forest hat, holding a shovel.

The sign states the fire danger level and reminds people to be careful.

This sign held something I have never seen before, a rating of ‘Extreme’.

At this level, any spark no matter how tiny can set entire mountains ablaze.

Many backwoods roads close because engine heat is enough to light up the grass!

The Sierra suffers through these conditions every year in the fall due to lack of rain fall.

They have important implications for the raft trip.


Hiking to the River




I met the Sierra Mac guides in a parking lot a ways from Groveland.

Like Momentum, everything is run out of a van.

When I got there and checked in, the head guide handed me a large rubber bag.

This is an overnight dry bag to store my stuff.

I threw in the backpack I put together last night, and a flashlight.

I rented their camping gear to preserve mine for Burning Man.





At this point, I got the big surprise of the day.

The main road to the put in had washed out.

Other roads are available, but they are narrow rutted dirt tracks.

We needed to walk over a mile to the river, carrying our gear.

It became a useful warm up to the rafting proper.

The first stretch went through pine forest with no view whatsoever.

The dirt track reached a small ravine, and followed it.

Abruptly, it reached the rim of a V-shaped canyon, with the river a long ways down.

This is the Tuolumne.

The road then dropped through switchbacks, weaving in and out of side ravines.

Finally, we reached the river bank.

The canyon looked much smaller here, for the same reason as the Klamath: the lower walls hide the view of the canyon further up.





Along the way, the guides made sure to point out something that will be our nemesis for the next two days, a vine-like plant with dark green waxy serrated leaves found in groups of three.

The plant is poison oak, a relative of poison ivy with the same nasty effects.

Poison oak covers the Sierras, growing on every available sunny surface.

Most problematic for us, that includes nearly all rocks along the river banks!





Like most overnight raft trips, this one needed a large amount of gear.

In addition to personal gear, this included food and cooking supplies.

At this time of year the Sierra is very dry, as noted above, so we needed plenty of water and the river isn’t safe to drink.

The guides brought gallons of the stuff.

The forest service, which regulates rafting along the river, also requires trips to pack out all trash.

All of this, plus our dry bags, ended up on a large heavy raft called the gear boat.

Gear boat guides take the boat down the river by themselves using a large pair of oars.

They need considerable skill doing so, because crashing one in a rapid has serious consequences.


Rafting the Tuolumne




I took the trip in a five person oar boat.

I’m glad I did the Klamath before this trip, because the handling and paddling were identical.

Unlike the Klamath, a mere five minutes after put in, we floated directly into a Class IV rapid, Rock Garden.

As the name implies, the rapid is a garden of big rocks that we got through with some work.

Five minutes of flat water later, we plunged into another, Nemesis, more drops into little holes.

This river combines the perfect pacing of the White Salmon (see One Pretty Raft Trip) with the tough but manageable rapids of the central Klamath.

Welcome to whitewater paradise!


Rams Head Rapid and Clavey Falls




Two hours in, things picked up with Rams Head Rapid.

Depending on the water level, this one is either a Class V or the upper limit of Class IV.

The name comes from a rock at the entrance that looks like a pair of ram’s horns.

The rapid is a longer and nastier version of Hells Corner on the Klamath.

The rocks are bigger, they are closer together, and the river has many more of them.

It required a mile of precise paddling, dropping through narrow slots into huge holes and then immediately lining up for the next slot.

Big intimidating rocks fly by less than a foot away in places.

After the finish, I got to see the gear boat make it through the last stretch, a heavy rolling boat that looked impossible to control.

These guides have skill.





Another hour brought us to the junction with the Clavey River, one of the Tuolumne’s main tributaries.

In addition to increasing the water level, this river created the toughest rapid of the trip.

A huge flood a few decades ago dropped a huge pile of the rocks just below the junction, creating Clavey Falls.

The falls is Class V, the steepest rapid on this part of the river, which looks hugely intimidating from the top.





The rapid is just as tough to run as it looks.

The first part is the actual falls, a four foot drop into a narrow channel.

Hidden under the falls is a large rock, which can catch boats and cause them to flip.

The narrow channel leads into a huge collection of big rocks, although less than Ram’s Head.

Our guide told us to paddle as hard as possible before the entrance, and to keep going even after we were in the drop.

We needed that momentum to slide over the hidden rock.

After that we had to precisely turn the boat immediately after hitting bottom in order to get through the channel.

Once lined up, we then had the rock garden to contend with.

Thanks to the rock garden, falling out here is potentially fatal, one of the reasons it’s a class V.

For what it’s worth, on the Cherry Creek section Clavey Falls would be one of the EASIEST rapids.





I don’t remember much about the run, because Clavey Falls scared me to death.

I focused on what was close at hand: rocks, waves, paddling, and staying in.

I do remember a brief jolt when we hit the hidden rock, followed by a sliding drop that I felt rather than saw.

The rest passed in a blur.

(LATE UPDATE)

Video of this river (WARNING: Has a few bad words)



A bad day at Clavey Falls




River Camping




Late in the day, we reached a broad curve in the river.

Curves like this leave wide sandy beaches on the inside, and this one is no exception.

The beach is called Indian Creek, and our campground for the night.

The forest service forces all trips (commercial and private) to coordinate their stops, so we had it to ourselves.

From the river, the place looks like paradise, the Sierra equivalent of a tropical beach.

Landing was even better, on perfect flat sand.

The guides set up the cooking equipment on the edge of the woods, while we set up on the sand.

The division is important, to reduce the danger from bears.

The guides made sure to point out that everything, absolutely EVERYTHING, behind the first few trees was covered in poison oak.





For the rest of the day, we basically did nothing and enjoyed it, while the guides prepared dinner.

They recommended swimming in the river, and several of us took them up on it.

In this stretch, the river is a dream with few rocks, so people can swim without life jackets.

The water was cold, though, and surprisingly fast moving.

To stay in place, I had to swim upstream.

People ultimately splashed in at the upper limit of the beach and floated down.

Afterwards, a few people built sand castles.

Someone also discovered the perfect cooler for drinks, dropping them in the water!





Dinner, quite simply, was the most perfect outdoor meal imaginable.

These guides can cook as well as they paddle.

It started with a mixture of vegetables and crackers.

The vegetables are for nutrients, while the crackers replace lost salt.

Main course was hearty beef stew, with a vegetarian option available (this IS California).

Desert was a huge variety of cookies and fresh brownies.

We washed it all down with lemonade and cold cocoa.

Rafters have to bring their own adult beverages.

I asked what happens if someone overindulges.

For their own safety, they get strapped to the gear boat the next morning until they are functional enough to paddle again.





During dinner, we watched the sun set.

The surrounding canyon turned golden, then orange, then dark.

The parts closest to the camp (which have the lowest elevation) turned first.

California is officially called the golden state due to the gold rush, but the Sierras may be an equal reason.





After dark, people hung out and socialized.

We could not have a campfire due to the fire hazard mentioned earlier.

I then suggested putting a camp stove on the beach instead 😊.

This also wasn’t allowed, for the same reason.

It didn’t stop someone pulling out a harmonica they had stowed in their dry bag to lead some classic folk songs.

Some of the people on this trip were pretty good singers.

One person tried grand opera!





I forced myself to get to bed pretty early tonight.

Tomorrow starts early and runs long.

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