I haven't seen this discussed here, and am not sure if there is interest at all, so maybe this will fall on deaf ears.
I have a group of friends who go whitewater rafting every year. It's mostly a group of us from college, with some significant others thrown in. So far, we've basically only done california rivers (plus the lower klamath in southern oregon).
We just got back from a trip with Mountain and River Adventures in Kernville, CA (
website ) We took a 2 day trip on the lower kern river. There were only 5 in our party this year (sometimes we have as many as 20), but there were also two other people we hadn't previously met doing the two day trip.
In short, it was an awesome trip. I would highly recommend this company if anybody is interested in doing a trip on the Kern river (this includes the "Forks of the Kern" run, which is on National Geographics "10 things to do before you die" list), upper Kern, Lower Kern, and Thunder run. The food was great, the leadership was great...the accomodations were complete.
Other trips I've done have been the Tuolome River near Yosemite, Lower Klamath, Forks of the Kern, Middle fork of the American River. Next year we are toying with the idea of doing Cherry Creek up near Yosemite (a class V river, that recently was a class VI (impossible to raft) until rafting technology improved).
Does anybody else have stories they'd like to share? Companies they'd reccommend (or reccommend to avoid)? Rivers that they particularly loved or were disappointed in?
For me, the Tuolome has uncomparable beauty, Forks is the most intense/difficult, Klamath was the coldest!
Thanks,
Josh