Several years ago Hovik introduced a trip to the club that I thought was just great. Its a fee based trip where the fee is applied to your river rafting fees. We leave from Los Angeles area and head up to Mojave Desert where we run through Last chance Canyon or Nightmare gulch (depending on participant vehicles) and then out across the desert and over the mountains into Lake Isabella where we camp along the river and the following day do our river rafting as a group. We stay that night again and head home the next day.

I would love to do this trip again and therefore am proposing it as en event for 2010 calendar to be in late march early April.

I would like to see how many would be interested. In addition to gas, food - normal weekend expenses for off roading, there would be a fee based on river rafting price, I don't remember the exact numbers and we probably get a group discount if enough people attend but safe to say $150-$200 per person. there is also an age requirement for rafting as well.

Any rafting info can be found at www.mtnriver.com/upper_kern_river_rafting.htm or www.kernrivertours.com/ or www.kernrafting.com/

There are plenty of places and I would of course choose one before the trip based on experience, pricing, etc.

Last time we stayed at their camp right there in town but I would propose a more secluded camp up the river somewhere a bit that would all be determined in the trip sheet if there is enough interest.

I'd hate to take credit for it, as this trip was organized many times before I joined the club, I just lead this trip a few years ago and got a lot of pointers from Randy Bannis, including trip planning and the offroad portion of it, and yes it is a great trip, the offroad portion of it, the camping and the white water rafting, the cost of the the rafting portion was between $110 to $135 I'm not quite certain of the exact amount, but if 10 people sign up we get a break on the price. You don't have to camp next to the rafts which is quite noisey and packed with all types of campers roudy and such, there are however campsites right by the Kern River a few miles outside of Lake Issabella with white sand and surrounded by Oak trees, completely secluded and private, you might be able to camp at China Garden which requires offroading, but I'm not sure if the area is open anymore, if not there are a lot of other camp sites right by the river, I think Omid might even have the GPS coordinates of one we discovered by chance I highly recommend this trip.

That trip was a LOT of fun. April might be a bit chilly though. That is fresh snow melt filling the Kern then.

what time of year were past trips done in?

last time I did it, it was the weekend of 4th of july.

I am not opposed to any dates really, just want an idea if anyone is interested in doing this kind of trip again.

its either this, or a fishing trip.

Looks like fun, After doing some quick research it looks like the minimum age is 9 years old. So, we would probably be up for it after Natalie turns nine (March 28). May want to schedule this in the Summer as well as families with kids will find it easier to get the extra time off.

Tim