Above Wishon Reservoir

Posted to rec.boats.paddle, 8/23/1998, by Richard Smith: "Alas, another wild plum of the Sierra Nevada mountains has been picked. Tom Hagberg and myself managed to bag the North Fork of the Kings River above Wishon Reservoir. All in all I think we hiked about 6 miles with our boats including one long portage around an unrunnable (boat width) gorge. The paddling was very straight forward and enjoyable. We packed along a video camera and shot just about everything we ran. For future reference however and for those who would like to check out one of the most beautiful places to paddle on earth, I recommend paddling across Wishon Reservoir and then hiking up the North Fork from there. There are several fantastic (all runnable) drops as well a small scale gorge with runnable water falls and ledge drops. Great stuff and considerable easier access for the quality drops than what we did." Gradient, mile-by-mile: 180 (0.6 mi), 220, 300, 260, 160, 200, 140. Wishon reservoir is at 6540 feet elevation. Getting there:  Take highway 168 out of Fresno, towards Shaver Lake.   In the outskirts of Shaver Lake, turn right on Dinkey Creek Road.   Go past Dinkey Creek to Wishon reservoir. Take out: There is a road that goes a ways around the west side of the reservoir.   Drive as far as you can to a locked gate.   google map. Put in options: 1)  Tom and Rick parked at Courtright reservoir ( google map) to start their 6 mile hike around past Post Corral Creek. 2)  Another possible access method is to slide/hike down Helms Creek from Courtwright reservoir then hike up the NF Kings from that confluence. Although peak flows on Helms are later than boatable flows on the NF Kings. 3)  Park at the take out at Wishon.   Paddle across the reservoir, then hike up the river as far as you want.  The hiking is on decent use trails and rock slab for much of the distance, but there are likely to be areas of rugged travel as there is no formal trail.