Upper Kern River News Today

Get out and explore. Our reports cover the coast to the High Sierra, and Lake Isabella to New Melones.

As record Sierra snowpack melts, an epic whitewater rafting season takes shape in California

Following a declaration completely closing access to the Upper Kern River, Sheriff Mike Boudreaux has modified the order to allow access to experienced and properly equipped people and groups.

As the record Sierra snowpack begins to melt, it's sending immense volumes of water through some of the most storied whitewater rafting rivers in the world.

“Echoes of the Dead,” by Spencer Kope (Minotaur) When four wealthy men, one of them a congressman, disappear on their annual fishing trip to the Upper Kern River near Bakersfield, California, Magnus “Steps” Craig of the F.B.I. Special Tracking Unit senses real trouble. The four know the river too well to have gotten lost. Even […]

Anglers in northern Colorado are hoping some tiny fish will mean the return of a popular catch at State Forest State Park. About 600 golden trout have been stocked into two high-elevation, backcountry lakes, in the park with the hopes that they’ll grow to catchable size in a few years. Golden trout are the state fish of California and native to the Upper Kern River drainage near Mt. Whitney and Sequoia National Park in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Central California. They were believed e...