On our third day, the few low clouds I had seen roll in late the previous evening had multiplied and we had overcast skies. Not an entirely bad thing I thought as I knew we had yet to come to the massive portage of the run and figured we would appreciate the shade as we hauled around our 60-80 pound loaded kayaks.
Somewhere early on in the third day I lost the drain plug to my kayak on an abusive portage. I cut some foam out of the pillar thats part of my kayak and used it to close the hole as best I could, I had an idea for how I could improve it, that would come later. The boulders began to grow in size and were now a purplish sandstone, scouting started to get more difficult. The solitude of the run was obliterated when we came to a part of the gorge where another trail comes down and crosses the creek. Here there was a large group of hikers trying to figure out the best way to cross the unseasonably high water. While they stripped down and stumbled accross a large pool, we spoke to another group camping on the left bank who had hiked in here every May for the past 8 years, they described the water as being 4 feet higher than normal in this pool. Around the corner Tar Creek enters on the left. Along with a moderate trickle of water, a small stream of liquid tar oozes out of the rocks and has formed its own natural channel - building up walls like candle wax. Where large patches of this tar had dried on the rocks, it looked like someone had been there and paved over the place with asphalt. I had to look around, but I soon found a nice gooey blob of tar that was perfect for completing the seal on my broken drain plug - what a perfect natural material for the job.
Not much farther down we encountered the famous portage of the Sespe. Huge boulders 20-30 ft accross fill the creek bed from wall to wall and the river disappears into this jumble. Charles Foster described these boulders well as the "Sequoias of the boulder world". Working together we began the process of heaving our kayaks over one and then another of these large boulders. At one point we sat in a line using our backs and legs to stem over a 20 foot deep 3 foot wide crevice between boulders and slid the boats between us over our laps to avoid going down and then up once again. Prepared for a 3 hour ordeal, it took us not much more than an hour before we ferried accross to the right, and began cautiously running some of the drops. We continued to portage a bit more on river right, and elected to portage a few drops that might be considered runnable in less remote situations.
On one of the last portages of this section, we suffered our only casualty. Rocky's video camera slipped from his hand, fell 10 feet before bouncing loudly off a rock and ploped into the river. With Tom and I shouting directions from above Rocky was able to recover the camera - the tape, which should contain some great footage of our run, will hopefully be playable despite its submersion.
From here we enjoyed some superb class IV boating as the canyon very gradually started to open up a little. However one of the largest rapids was still to come just before the mouth of the gorge termed "Devil's Gate". This was a steep rapid that we portaged most of before floating through the calmer water at Devil's Gate. Devil's Gate is a formation where the gorge constricts down to a narrow chasm of maybe 20-30 feet wide, the walls solid and nearly smooth bedrock, vertical on either side free of boulders. Past the gate the canyon opens up considerably, but numerous fun rapids remain for a couple more miles, including a pair of steep congested drops that are well worth scouting.
Telephone wires, orchards, and grafiti remind you that you are back in Southern California. We floated down the class II-III gravel channels (be sure to take the left channel when the river splits). If one was to look at this section of the creek, there would be no way to conceive of the steep and impressive sections above. The run finally ended at the first bridge in Fillmore, hiking up to the road next to a park filled with Memorial day BBQers gawking at these kayakers clad in bright wet clothing.
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