Blog 9: Lake Isabella, a Brewpub, a Hike, the Kern River, and a Couple of Hot Springs

My sister Gayle and Stella on Packsaddle Cave Trail overlooking the Kern River.

March 28, 2019

Red Rocks Canyon State Park to Camp 9, 60 miles.

The distance from Red Rocks Canyon to Lake Isabella was the shortest yet between nightly destinations for our Airstream trailer trip with my sister, Gayle and brother, Michael. Already having visited here a couple of times in the past myself and loving this it, I lobbied strongly to visit this lesser visited area in the southern part of the Sequoia National Forest. There are plenty of options for hiking and camping, plus the added bonus of soaking in a couple of very nice hot springs here along the Kern River. The scenery is spectacular and it is surprisingly not crowded, even though it is located about 50 miles away from the Bakersfield metropolitan area with almost one million people. It also has some outdoor activities I’m not interested in, like kayaking and white water rafting on the Kern River and boating on Lake Isabella.

View from our campsite, Lake Isabella

The drive to Lake Isabella, formed by the damming of the Kern River, was a quick, easy, drive, via California Highway 14, north and then California Highway 178, west, that was a very scenic and winding road. We didn’t have a location for the night picked out, but found one rather quickly, that was just a few miles south of Kernville, in a national forest campground called Camp 9. The campground was quite large and along the shore s of Lake Isabella, with mountains in the distance on the opposite side. It had plenty of large primitive campsites, with no electrical or sewer hookups, that easily accommodated my brother’s 26 foot Airstream trailer. The campground was practically empty, with only two other campers that night. There was plenty of space between us, so my brother was able to use his gasoline generator without disturbing anyone.

After leveling the trailer we realized we had the whole afternoon to explore the area. We started by visiting the national forest visitor center in Kernville to see what hiking trails were in the area. Since the lady wearing a ranger uniform behind the counter wasn’t very friendly, we decided to just take some of the free trail information sheets they had available instead of asking her opinion. We stopped at the Kern River Brewing Company and enjoyed some stout while we looked over the trail information sheets. I’d highly recommend the Class V oatmeal, milk stout with an 8.5% ABV. From the suggestions of our waitress we decided to do the Packsaddle Cave trail 16 miles north of Kernville.

View of Kern River canyon from Packsaddle Cave Trail

The scenery along the road following the rapidly moving Kern River was wonderful. A quarter mile two track dirt road, barely wide enough for my brother’s pickup, led up to a small grassy parking area from where we could start the very steep, strenuous hike. One thing that immediately caught our eye besides the 900 foot ascent to the mountain ridge above us was the blooming manzanita trees along the path. The trail leads to the top of the ridge and down crossing a creek three times and then ending at a cave. We only made it about half way up before my sister decided she wasn’t going to continue any farther. She told us we could continue on without her, but we decided we would go back as well. Even if we didn’t make it to the cave, the view from the trail looking down at the river canyon below was worth the sweat and exertion.

Papas con rajas

My crude video demonstrating the recipe when I lived in Guanajato. Mexico

We drove up the road a bit further and then turned around for the trip back to the campground, stopping along the way for a few supplies at a wonderful grocery store with a great selection in Kernville, the Sierra Gateway Market. When we arrived back to the Airstream, I built our first campfire of the trip. Being very windy it was not ideal for a campfire, but I made one anyways, since this was our first opportunity having had no other opportunity until now. I needed a fire to make, papas con rajas, a favorite recipe of mine, that I learned to make from a Mexican friend of mine. It is an easy delicious dish combining boiled potatoes with sautéed onions and poblano peppers that are roasted over a wood fire. Searing the chile allows one to remove the thin, tough outside skin and adds additional smoked flavor. While eating our dinner I convinced my siblings to agree to stopping at Remington Hot Springs the next morning for a soak, since it was already so near our route to our next destination.

First pool, Remington Hot Springs

The next morning we set out for our next destination, Choinumni County Park, located on the banks of the Kings River, east of Fresno. First, as planned on the night before, we headed to the hot springs on the Kern River. The road leading to the hot springs is narrow and the parking area for the trailhead was too small for the travel trailer, so we parked it in a large space along side the main road and drove in my sister’s Subaru the rest of the way. It was a Friday and a beautiful, cold morning, and we were afraid the pools might be full of people. There were only 3 cars in the dirt parking lot when we arrived, so we were hopeful that we might find the pools not so crowded. The hike to springs was a little more than a quarter mile down a winding and fairly inclined path that didn’t present us any problems. We found the first tub, made with smooth rocks, held together with cement, with no one soaking, located on the bottom of a slope. The only problem was the water was not much warmer than body temperature and it was not located on the banks of the river, so we continued on to find the others. Just down a few more yards and slightly upstream we located the main spot with three tubs all connected right on the banks of the river. The tubs were similarly made like the first one, but all three were warmer, unfortunately the smallest and warmest one was already occupied by two women. That tub happened to only accommodate two people comfortably. They were both wearing bathing suits and shirts, so we decided it would be best not to strip naked and we donned our suits and settled into the second warmest tub adjoining theirs, feeling the very cold mid-morning breezy air while we stripped off our clothes. All the tubs were exposed to full sunlight at that time of the day, giving us a bit more warmth on our body parts not submerged. The hottest tub drained into ours and then ours into the other one. The view around us was the steep sloping canyon wall on the other side of the swiftly moving Kern River, dotted with a mixture of tree species, including fir trees and bushes. All the vegetation was green and flowers gave the slopes shades of yellow, golds, whites and blues. It was indeed a paradise like setting and we were very tranquil for our soaking experience. We patiently waited hoping the two ladies would show good hot springs manners and allow us to trade places for a bit. They didn’t and almost an hour had almost passed, so we decided it was time to go.

Miracle Hot Springs

On the way back to the car, after I marked the spring on Google Maps using my smartphone, I noticed a place called Miracle Hot Springs nearby upstream notated on the map. We noticed another road turning into a camping and day use area, marked Hobo Campground, on the narrow road coming in, so we decided we should see what’s there. There were many more cars in the paved parking area here and many more people walking about. When we arrived at the springs, less than a quarter of a mile along the river’s edge on the trail, we found two groups of hot tub soaking areas. There were around 10 people with plenty of space for more. I asked a young naked couple exiting one of the tubs about the water temperature and they both replied that it was hot but not too hot for a long soak. We didn’t stay as we had about four hours ahead of us to our next destination. The drive on California Highway 178 through the Kern River Canyon was magnificent with large fields of wild flowers covering the canyon walls on the way towards Bakersfield. We are looking forward to the towering giant sequoia trees we will be seeing soon.