Dinkey Creek- My Favorite Six Miles of Kayaking

Last week I was stoked to get on two of my favorite California rivers. First up was a trip to the East Fork of the Kaweah with rockstars Gareth Tate, Joe Ravenna and Nick Uruquart. We were worried about the water level being too high, as it was obviously higher than any of us had done it. After hours of debating-looking at the takeout, looking at rapids from the road, looking at the bridge- we finally decided to put on and it proved to be the right call. The water was high, but manageable, and we had a great day working our way downstream. The next morning Gareth and Nick had to head south to start some work, and Joe and I cruised north to Dinkey Creek.

Gareth Tate drops into Double Drop on the East Fork of the Kaweah

Joe running the hourglass drop

In my opinion, Dinkey Creek encompasses some of the best six miles of kayaking you can find anywhere in the world. Yea, so maybe the hike in isn't super fun, but hey at least its downhill. Once you actually get to the river though, Dinkey is a playground for creek boaters, with more waterfalls, big drops and slides then you know what to do with. I have been fortunate enough to have been able to get on Dinkey every year since I first started coming to California four years ago. This was my fifth trip down the creek and it just keeps getting better.

We had a bit of a late start- partially because most of the crew drove in from Sacramento that morning, but mostly because of a directional mistake on my part. Whoops... thankfully our team was very cool and didn't give me too hard of a time. We started the hike a little after 3pm and didn't put on the river until a couple hours later. Good thing our group of mostly Dinkey newbies weren't too concerned with running some big rapids off of beta alone. We finally made it to camp right around 8pm.

Joe's first glimpse of Dinkey

Stephen Wright emerging from the manzanita

Joe coming through the sieve rapid

Joe firing off the biggest rapid of day one- Spike

The next day was much more chill, and allowed for more time for scouting and taking pictures. Everyone in our group did well and it was a beautiful day full of tons of great rapids.