Kings, N. Fork,

Above Wishon Reservoir

Usual Difficulty	IV-V (may vary with level)
Length	6 Miles
Avg. Gradient	221 fpm
Max Gradient	300 fpm

Gauge Information

Name	Range	Difficulty	Updated	Level

River Description

Posted to rec.boats.paddle, 8/23/1998, by Richard Smith:

"Alas, another wild plum of the Sierra Nevada mountains has been
picked. Tom Hagberg and myself managed to bag the North Fork of the Kings
River above Wishon Reservoir. All in all I think we hiked about 6 miles with
our boats including one long portage around an unrunnable (boat width)
gorge. The paddling was very straight forward and enjoyable. We packed along
a video camera and shot just about everything we ran. For future reference
however and for those who would like to check out one of the most beautiful
places to paddle on earth, I recommend paddling across Wishon Reservoir and
then hiking up the North Fork from there. There are several fantastic (all
runnable) drops as well a small scale gorge with runnable water falls and
ledge drops. Great stuff and considerable easier access for the quality
drops than what we did."

Gradient, mile-by-mile: 180 (0.6 mi), 220, 300, 260, 160, 200, 140.
Wishon reservoir is at 6540 feet elevation.

Getting there: Take highway 168 out of Fresno, towards Shaver Lake. In the outskirts of Shaver Lake, turn right on Dinkey Creek Road. Go past Dinkey Creek to Wishon reservoir.

Take out: There is a road that goes a ways around the west side of the reservoir. Drive as far as you can to a locked gate. Topozone map, google map.

Put in options:
1) Tom and Rick parked at Courtright reservoir (Topozone map, google map) to start their 6 mile hike around past Post Corral Creek Topozone map .
2) Another possible access method is to slide/hike down Helms Creek from Courtwright reservoir then hike up the NF Kings from that confluence. Although peak flows on Helms are later than boatable flows on the NF Kings.
3) Park at the take out at Wishon. Paddle across the reservoir, then hike up the river as far as you want. The hiking is on decent use trails and rock slab for much of the distance, but there are likely to be areas of rugged travel as there is no formal trail.