Kings

April, Amanda, Ed and I wanted to see how the Kings was at 650 cfs. We put in about half way up, but below Mill Flat Creek. Places where the river spread out were certainly shallow and we joked about getting the lowest hit counts, but most rapids were super fun. At normal flows the Kings is a wide, unobstructed river with nice waves, but few eddies. At low flows there are rocks and eddy lines galore. It was a perfect flow for a beginner wanting to learn eddy turns, peel outs, and surfing on tiny waves. It was great to see Amanda getting more and more confident as the day went on.

There was plenty of fun for out of practice advanced boaters as well. We were catching eddies left and right, attaining back up and working little slalom courses. We ran tight technical lines down the rocky edges of the rapids, getting in lots of boofing practice.

The most interesting rapids of the day were near the end. Sidewinder was so much fun that we carried up and ran it again. There is an easy sandy path slightly back from the water that I discovered after we had already bushwacked near the water. Roostertail hole is dangerous at low water, as the current slams into a wide block then bounces straight up. Fortunately there was room to avoid the hole on either side with a wider path on the right. River Rat was a good finale with the biggest waves of the section.