MAKING SPLASH

On a two-day expedition down one of California's most spectacular—and thrilling—waterways, David Amsden tries river rafting with a luxurious, gourmet twist

- David Amsden

A guest tent at the new Momentum River Expeditions base camp.

OUR COLLECTIVE NERVES spiked the instant we arrived at the Kern River. A steely quiet came over Erin, my partner, as she eyed its waters, which flow with visible fury through the southern foothills of California’s Sierra Nevada. Her daughter, Etta, who was a day shy of turning 13, had a similar reaction. I knew this to be their shared method of armoring up for the unknown—and a wholly appropriate response to the occasion. Bobbing at the river’s edge was a blue rubber raft in which we were to spend the next two days navigating 20 miles of turbulent whitewater.

Playing in the Kern at the end of a day's rafting

Still, their silence amplified my own jitters. We were on a new trip from Momentum River Expeditions, an Oregon-based outfitter specializing in luxury-tinged rafting adventures throughout the American West. It was also something I’d been itching to do for the better part of my life. When I was growing up my father ran rivers often, relating his exploits in a highly infectious, off-color poetry and always assuring me that I would join him once I was old enough. But when I turned 13—generally the age when you can trust a kid to handle a paddle in serious rapids—my dad moved away and started a new family. Our relationship descended into estrangement and our would-be rafting trips, like so much else, failed to become a reality.

The lobby of Cuyama Buckhorn, a converted motel on the author's route from L.A. to Kernville.