Dinky Creek: The Waterfalls

All photos by Lane Jacobs

A 14 hour drive back to California on another mission to run the shit, Ian and I found ourselves a few hours east of Fresno in the mountains ready to get it. The Dinky creek waterfalls section is one of the most classic pieces of whitewater I have ever paddled. It is an amazing pool drop run that is a tributary of the North fork of the Kings. The run starts off with a huge down hill climb through the infamous California Manzanita. Our crew started off huge: Pat keller, Lane, Ian, Billy Murphy, Billy Jones, Jed Selbey, Andre S.S., Dave Fusilly, and your truley. Lane , Ian , and I took off on the hike earlyer and ended up waiting over an hour at the creek for the others to catch up. By the time they arrived at the put in the 3 of us were amped and started our way down stream. Almost every horizon line we came up to was a big drop so remembering each one is imposible, but there were a few that stood out as bigger or better drops in my mind. Me firin' up Willie's drop which consisted of a 12 foot boof on to a slide right in to a 35 foot cascade "EPIC"Ian jumping off one of the 2 manditory portages. This is right down stream of 2 great drops: a slide into a 20, and a clean curtin 20 footer.Ian on the triple drop that lands in a pot hole, it's BIG but it's GOOD



The big slide lane fired up just down from the normal camp for day 1. In the group behind us Jed Selbey dislocated and seperated his shoulder on the big clean slide above this drop, he spent the night and had to get hellivact out of the canyon the next day. The infamous "Billy Murphy" was also ripped out of his kayak on this same rapid sometime later that day as they passed through.The boys (Lane and Ian) were more than ready for our camp cliff jump after gettin' a little Beam in their system. A little midnight tandem jump.This is another curtin call 25 footer right below a perfect 20 boof.

Dinky creek had so many big clean drops that it would have taken days to get pictures of every one. So these were only a few out of 2 days of good whitewater. This run is at the top of my list for sure I have never been to a place with so many class V drops like this. The weater was hot. Maybe close to 100 and the sun was beating down on us all day. Another reason why Cali happens to be my favorite place to kayak in the world. Lane and I were at the take out for ever waiting for the other group to get down and for the long shuttle. When Ian got back we loaded up and started our drive to West Cherry. Later E.G.