Kern River Camping - Part One

A couple of weeks ago my brother Rick and I went up to the Kern River and discovered a really nice free campground.  This one is called Keyesville and has campsites on  both the north and south side of the river.  Keyesville is handled by the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) and is one of several free sites on the Kern River.  The south campground has some fire rings and two vault toilets.  The north campground has the fire rings and vault toilets along with picnic tables.  Two really nice things about this campground are that it is only 40 miles from my brother's house and less than a mile from the town of Lake Isabella.  Lake Isabella City has a Von's (Safeway) marked, a McDonalds, a Burger King, gas, propane, a Rite Aid drug store and a number of small town type stores.

I pulled in around 4:00 p.m. on Sunday thinking I would have the whole south campground to myself.  As I drove by on the upper road I saw a trailer parked in the campsite I had picked out the previous week.  No problem!  I camped right on a little side road and had a great view of the river about 50 yards below me.

You can see the river flowing by below Dod.  I wish I could include sound as the music of the rapids is incredibly soothing to me and made falling asleep easy.  The hiking was great at this site.  There are roads that go up into the hills and trails along the river.

There were fishermen and prospectors visiting the river daily.  I never saw anyone catch a fish but there were three vehicles that came by 5 days in a row to pan for gold.  They must have been getting good results or they wouldn't have come back daily.  The government estimates that during the gold rush of 1847-49 only about 15% of the gold was taken.  I may try that next summer when I get back from Mexico.

Dod looks great from up on the hill. Even though he doesn't look quite this good up close I still like him!  Part two tomorrow includes an unexpected visitor and a change of campsites.