Upper South Fork Smith River - Kelsey run

On Sunday 7th of November I went kayaking in the Smith drainage. The Smith river drainage is the only free flowing (means un dammed) river system in entire California. And it is for sure one of the most beautiful rivers in northern California.
I meet with a bunch of people at 8am at the parking lot of Wildberries in Arcata. From here we carpooled with three cars up to the take-out. Here we left one car to head up the road to its end. There followed a dirt road until this one ends too. From this point on we had to carry our kayaks for another 2 miles up the river on a small trail to the confluence with a small creek. We put in the small creek and hucked down a waterfall into the Smith river. This section of the Smith river is class 4 (5). We went down  rapid for rapid. In an epic scenery - it's fall; indian summer!

Miguel during the hike in 

the crew at the put-in
(left to right: Brondon, Christian, Dan, Frazer, Miguel, Paul, Wes, myself)

Frazer killing the drop

random rapid on the upper south fork smith

The hardest rapid is called Island Rapid. Here the river splits into two arms. Both are runnable, but the left arm has more water and is the more difficult one. Dan and I decided to give it a go. We both didn't made the lines the way we planned them. After rejoining with the rest of the group we found ourself on top of river wide horizon line. We scouted this one and found several lines to go down.

me dropping down

Just before the easy class 2 paddle out is the longest rapid of this section. It was a series of holes and drops. If you stay on the left side next to the wall it is good to go - if not, ask Brondon. He got beaten up several times. 

me in top of the longest rapid on the upper south fork smith

The trip was awesome. We had perfect indian summer weather with a little bit of rain and a lot of sunshine at a great level for the river.  Thanks to the crew and specially to Dan Menten for the photos.