sheldrickrafting.com

Many people come yearly to this area for boating, fishing, whitewater sports, and more.  However, many people whom I’ve spoken to have little knowledge of the river, lake, and everything else in between.  Thanks to the internet and Wikipedia, I’ve been able to compile some information regarding the area we enjoy every summer.

Kings River

• There are three feeder forks to the main Kings River.  The segment we raft on is called the Banzai Run, a 10-mile section of the main Kings that comprises of 40+ rapids of Class I through IV+ difficulty.  The North Fork joins the main Kings just before Rodgers Crossing, where the flow gauge is located.
• The Kings River was named by Lieutenant Gabriel Moraga on one of the first expeditions by the Spanish to the Central Valley of California in 1806. The Kings River was originally named Rio de los Santos Reyes (River of the Holy Kings).
• Water from the Kings River is diverted for agriculture.
• The river channel feeds into the Tulare Lake basin, which is currently dry.

Pine Flat Dam

• Pine Flat Dam was completed in 1954, a project initiated and currently owned by the Army Corps of Engineers.
• The primary purpose of the dam is flood control.  Secondary goals are irrigation, power generation, and recreation.
• The structure has always been publicly accessible since its completion.  However, due to the heightened security measures taken post-9/11, the dam is now closed to the public, along with access roads and trails in the immediate area.
• There are 3 hydroelectric turbines powered by the dam, and together produce 165 megawatts of power.  The amount of power production is governed by flood control and irrigation needs.

Pine Flat Lake

• Boasting a capacity of 1 million acre-feet, this lake is one of the largest lakes in California.
• Because the project to build the dam was centered on flood control, this lake shares this purpose.

Tulare Lake

• An extinct fresh water lake that existed before the damming of the Kings River.  It was known to be the largest fresh water lake west of the Great Lakes (yes, larger than Lake Tahoe).
• The lake and its surviving wetlands lie in the southern portion of California’s San Joaquin Valley, about forty miles south of Fresno, that existed over one hundred years ago since prehistoric times.
• Yokuts tribesmen built sedge-boats and fished in this lake before the arrival of American settlers. The lake and its large marshes were once an important fishery: in 1888, in one three-month period, 73,500 pounds of fish were shipped through Hanford to San Francisco. It was also the source of a regional favorite, Pacific pond turtles, which were relished as Terrapin Soup in San Francisco and elsewhere. It was also a significant stop for hundreds of thousands of birds migrating along the Pacific Flyway.
• In the wake of the Civil War, the bordering marshes were drained, and in the twentieth century the lake was drained; it is now a shallow basin of fertile earth within the most productive agricultural region of the United States.
• The lake was “reclaimed” (emptied and dried up) over the course of a few decades as the Kaweah, Kern, Kings and Tule rivers were diverted upstream and canals were built to drain the lake. In fact, aggressive groundwater pumping since the draining of the lake has resulted in a significant lowering of the water table, causing subsidence of the land.

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