Dinkey Creek

This might be taking a break on the hike in. Much of the hike in goes through nasty thick brush. But then it breaks out onto slabs. It is much nicer hiking down the slabs rather than hiking through the brush on on overgrown trail.

This big drop in the middle of the first gorge remains a portage for obvious reasons. The first descent party did a weird seal launch here, but it is way faster to jump.
This beautiful campsite is only about a mile and a half into the run, but it is just past the exit of the first gorge, so reaching this point is a major acheivement.
This just above the last major drop in the first gorge, looking upstream into the middle of the gorge.

This drop is one of the biggest ones in the main gorge and is still portaged. In 1989 there was a big cave underneath a huge boulder. The stream burrowed down behind the boulder, into the cave and then out over the falls visible in the photo. It would have been easy and very cool to launch into the cave then paddle out over the falls, but we were concerned about penciling in and busting an ankle if there was a boulder in the drop. So we did this very awkward pothole launch. It would have been much easier and faster to just toss the boats from above and jump after them. I get the impression that modern parties do toss the boats and jump. It is about a 40 foot jump on the river right, if I recall correctly.

In recent pictures that I have seen, it looks like the giant boulder may have shifted and squashed the cave underneath.

I think the boat is a perception Saber, which was their plastic squirt boat. It also might be a perception Reflex, which was their plastic slalom boat, also very low profile and edgy. Phil could boat just about any kind of boat on any kind of water. With a modern creek boat he might have run everything!

Though not well known these days, Phil was a very strong expedition boater in the 1980's and 1990's and the strongest boater in the Los Angeles area. He did early repeat descents of the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne, the Middle Fork San Joaquin Headwaters, the Headwaters of the Kern, Headwaters of the Amazon, Headwaters of the SF Kern, and the First descent of the Little Kern, among other things.

Lowering boats to Phil near the end of our last big portage.