page_title: Kaweah River
section_title: Recreation
hierarchical_section_title: Kaweah River / Recreation
caption_attribution_description: English: Kaweah bowl, with waterfall, looking up from High Sierra Trail between Hamilton Lake and Kaweah Gap. Sequoia National Park, California.
context_page_description: The Kaweah River is a river draining the southern Sierra Nevada in Tulare County, California in the United States. Fed primarily by high elevation snowmelt along the Great Western Divide, the Kaweah begins as four forks in Sequoia National Park, where the watershed is noted for its alpine scenery and its dense concentrations of giant sequoias, the largest trees on Earth. It then flows in a southwest direction to Lake Kaweah – the only major reservoir on the river – and into the San Joaquin Valley, where it diverges into multiple channels across an alluvial plain around Visalia. With its Middle Fork headwaters starting at almost 13,000 feet above sea level, the river has a vertical drop of nearly two and a half miles on its short run to the San Joaquin Valley, making it one of the steepest river drainages in the United States. Although the main stem of the Kaweah is only 33.6 miles long, its total length including headwaters and lower branches is nearly 100 miles.
  The lower course of the river and its many distributaries – including the St. John's River and Mill Creek – form the Kaweah Delta, a productive agricultural region spanning more than 300,000 acres.
context_section_description: All the forks of the Kaweah River are located in Sequoia National Park, which receives more than 1.2 million recreational visitors each year. The river is a major park attraction for boating and fishing, but can be "extremely hazardous" during high water in the spring and summer. Several commercial outfitters serve the traditional Class IV section of the Kaweah River between the Pumpkin Hollow bridge (near the park entrance) and Lake Kaweah. Advanced kayakers frequent the Class V Middle Fork at Hospital Rock, further upstream in Sequoia National Park; the North Fork is a wilderness run, requiring boaters to carry all their equipment to the put-in. The river is free-flowing above Lake Kaweah so the rafting season depends entirely on the natural snowmelt, typically between April and July.
  Access to the Kaweah River for fishing, swimming and water play can be difficult in the Three Rivers area, because most of the river banks are on private property. In Sequoia National Park the river flows at the bottom of a deep canyon and can also be difficult to reach. The river just above Lake Kaweah is publicly accessible at the Slick Rock Recreation Area; however, this location is inundated most summers when the level of Lake Kaweah is high. Slick Rock, known to locals as "Boulder Beach", has rock climbing areas and historic Native American bedrock mortars. Lake Kaweah itself offers shoreline fishing and flatwater boating. The upper South Fork in Sequoia National Park has good fishing for wild rainbow trout, although a long hike is required to reach it. A California fishing license is required for visitors older than age 16 in the park.
  The upper Kaweah is also home to many hiking trails. Day hikes include the walk along Marble Fork to 1,200-foot (370 m) Tokopah Falls, and the Mineral King area along the East Fork also has a number of short trails. Backpacking is popular on the High Sierra Trail, which runs from Giant Forest through the Middle Fork canyon, and summits the Great Western Divide via Kaweah Gap en route toward the John Muir Trail to Mount Whitney. The Bearpaw Meadow High Sierra Camp is located along the High Sierra Trail near the headwaters of the Middle Fork.
caption: View of the Kaweah headwaters from the High Sierra Trail, a popular backpacking route
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