West Side of Kern River Lower

This spot requires quite the adventurous hike to get to. You literally go over a river and through the woods! But on the other end isn't grandma's house. It's just a spot where you can chill all day in the winter with good lighting.

**IMPORTANT** I highly recommend downloading offline maps for this hike. It is not always clear where the trail is and offline maps can help orient you if you feel lost. I use maps.me.

Hiking poles may also be useful during portions of this hike.

Where is this spot?

Getting out to this spot requires quite the trek. It's a 3 mile hike at the shortest and a 4 mile hike at the longest. That being said, the hike is mostly flat so it's not too bad. There are some places with steep up and down, but they are not sustained.

To start off, park at the lot pinned on the right on a computer and below on mobile. From here, follow the rough path below to cross the Kern River.

After crossing the bridge, make a left and follow the trail. There should be a fence to your right and the Kern river to your left. The trail should lead you to a beach. As you hike past the beaches, stay close to the fence. Eventually you’ll hit a fork to go down to a beach or up a hill. Hang right to go up the hill.

After a fairly steep climb, you’ll come to this sign. Take the lower trail to the left. Note there is a trail to the left that goes up and another trail that goes to the right. Do not take either of those trails. Take the trail that is flat and does not continue climbing.

You should get here ~10-20 min into the hike

The trail will follow the bend in the river around Fairview Ridge. The trail will then descend and then hit a T intersection. At this intersection, make a left and follow the trail down the hill. At the bottom of the hill, you should pass a section of a fence to your right.

You should get here ~10-15 min from the previous intersection

After passing by the fence, you will come to Tobias Creek. There is a log bridge here and a string tied to trees on opposite sides of the creek to assist. The string is difficult to see in the picture to the left, but a part of it is circled. I'm not sure the string can hold all your weight if you fall off the log. It's more to help stabilize you as you walk across. You can also rock hop across the creek too.

Note that this is the best place to cross this creek without losing too much time. I have hiked a bit further west up the hill and a bit further east down the hill, but haven't found another good place to cross.

You should get here ~5 min from the T intersection

After crossing the creek, you’ll climb up a bit to a flat. Here it may not be super obvious where the trail is. If you are unsure if you’re headed in the right direction, you can always check offline maps or find the path with the most bootprints. There is one place I did not document where it's not obvious if you go left or right. Go right and you should see a cairn off to the right.

Eventually you will get to a wash to cross (~20-30 min from the creek). Find a way to descend safely in the wash. Once you are in the wash, head right as that is where the trail exits. Again, it is perfectly fine to follow bootprints.

A few minutes later, you will come to another place where it isn't obvious to go. There should be a large branch in the middle of the path (not pictured here). Go left at this fork.

About 10 minutes later you'll arrive at the section of thick brush. At first, you’ll hike through a tunnel made of trees. You’ll then come to a section of very thick brush (seen below). The trail goes through the thick brush. Whack your way through and the trail continues on the other end (all this assumes someone hasn't taken a machete to it).

After hiking through the brush, you will cross many more washes. Usually it is pretty clear where the trail goes, but again you can always consult offline maps or follow bootprints.

Around 10-15 min after exiting the thick brush, you’ll get to a wash that looks like the picture to the left. If isn’t super clear where to go, but veer left and hike up the hill. Not pictured below is the area to the right, which looks like it could be the right way to go.

From here, you can branch off to gain elevation or keep going another mile down the trail.

At the pin to the right on a computer and below on mobile, you can turn right and hike off trail up the hill. It is another third of a mile to get to the pile of rocks. This is roughly enough elevation gain to be eye level with jets or at least land lock lower passes. Note that the elevation gain is quite gradual at first and then gets much steeper as you go. The dirt here is also quite loose so hiking poles may be useful. The mountains in the background are quite tall here so that also helps land lock jets. From now on, this will be referred to as the northern spot.

It should take just under an hour to get to this spot from the trailhead for a strong hiker and up to an hour and a half for those who are not in as good shape.

From the pin on the trail above, you can hike another 1 - 1.5 miles to get to a spot on the trail with elevation on the low passes. At 1 mile, you are on the trail and along the hillside. From here, you are at roughly the same elevation as the northern spot.

You can also continue another half a mile to a saddle point. From the saddle point, take a left off trail and hike a few hundred feet up the hill. Hiking another half a mile gets you a bit more warning for passes. The hill here obstructs the view from the spot mentioned in the paragraph above. That being said, there is another ridge just south of this saddle point so it's not that much more warning.

I will refer to this as the southern spot.

Spotting Logistics from here

So what's the difference between the northern and southern spot? Well it has to do with the fact that you don't have much elevation on the jets. You're only a couple hundred feet off the valley floor as opposed to Fairview/Packsaddle where you're close to or above 1000 ft off the valley floor. This means that many passes that are sky high here are landlocked from Fairview/Packsaddle. Some of the passes that are sky high, however, start lower and then climb as they approach you. The big upside to being at the southern spot is that ridge skimmers can still be photographed landlocked from there where as they would just be sky high from the northern spot.

That is the big advantage of the southern spot over the northern spot. The two big downsides to the southern spot is that jets are banking towards you for the majority of the time (kind of like Fairview so you're photographing topside for most passes) and the last mile of the 4 mile hike to the southern spot has the most elevation gain.

Another delta between the northern spot and southern spot is how much warning you get for passes. At the northern spot you don't get much warning from passes. Since you're so low in the valley, the scanner won't pick much up. If you do happen to pick up a jet on scanner, you have ~3-5 minutes between the jet calling Alpha and the jet passing you. You also don't have much visual warning as there are ridges and hills in the way. That being said, you do get a decent amount of warning by hearing the jet coming. Due to where these spots are situated, the jets will sound like they are coming from the west (either behind you or to the right of you depending how you're positioned). Don't be fooled! They always are coming from the south.

The southern spot has plenty of warning for passes. Since you're up on a hill, scanners pick up almost all radio calls. You also have plenty of visual warning as you can see miles down the valley. Also since you're up on a hill, you can get very weak data here. Verizon gets just enough data to check flight trackers, but not enough to do much else.

Okay, with the differences between the two spots out of the way, there are a few things that are common between the two spots. Both spots have plenty of rocks to sit on if you don't bring a chair. Both spots are fairly exposed to the sun, but the southern spot has a few trees here and there that provide shade.

As with all spots in Kern River Valley, jets will always approach from the south and fly north up the valley. In terms of what jets do, the low ones will bank towards you, then roll wings level, and then roll away from you as they pass. Generally speaking, jets will roll wings level once they are past the southern spot and approaching the northern spot.

Lighting

Lighting is the big advantage of this spot in the winter. This is an all day spot as lighting is good from sunrise to sunset. At sunrise, the sun is shining almost directly from the tail, but since the jets start by banking towards you, they will get direct sun. Another big upside to this is that in the early morning, much of the background will be shaded and the jet will be in full sun. This can make for some very dramatic shots.

In early fall or late spring, jets will be backlit until around 10:30AM. From here, lighting will get progressively better. If you're picky about lighting and are spotting Sidewinder from Kern Valley in early fall or late spring, I recommend Packsaddle.

Pros and Cons

Pros of spotting here:

Lighting is excellent here in the winter and this spot can be used all day. Both the northern and southern spot also offer multiple chances to get a picture with the plane in full sun and the background in full shade.
For the northern spot, there are a variety of angles you can get from here. Jets start by banking towards you and then roll wings level as they pass. For special liveries, you'll be able to photograph the entire livery.
For the southern spot you have plenty of warning for passes. Scanners pick up almost all radio calls and you can see miles down the valley.
You can get very weak data from the southern spot. This is just enough to check flight trackers or send a message/text.
As jets are screaming down a long and straight valley approaching Fairview, they can be going quite fast. They may also be punching it into afterburner here.

Cons of spotting here:

It's a long hike to get here and there are parts of the hike like getting over the creek and going through the thick brush that may be unsettling to some people. On top of this, it is very easy to get lost on this hike.
At the northern spot you don't have much warning for passes. Being down low in the valley prevents scanners from picking up too much and you don't have as much visual warning compared to other spots. The noise of the jet also doesn't help too much as the sound bounces around the valley making it confusing which direction the jet is coming from.
At the southern spot, jets spend most of their time banking towards you so most of your shots are of the topside of the aircraft.