KERN, Summer 2011

Photo Credit: Dom Bonaduce :)

With the completion of the 2011 KERN (reasonably termed Kill Eat Run Naked), I am pleased to announce that everyone has returned home alive and happy despite being beaten to a pulp.  Why we continue this tradition that almost invariably results in injury and an unexpected safe return home, I do not know.

The Bonaduce clan and affiliates have taken this journey 40+ times and yet we manage to find new ways to get ourselves into trouble each year.  This year: geocaching.  Dom, my brother, has taken an interest in this pheromone that resulted in the hike of a lifetime.  In order to find the geocache we used a hiking GPS unit to mark its coordinate location.  The GPS unit would tell us how far we were from our target and in which direction to travel.  Now, when I say GPS unit, I do not mean those beautiful little contraptions in our cars that provide fool-proof directions presented by a very understanding British immigrant who happily "recalculates" every time we take a wrong turn.  I mean this:

I am not going to say that the little bugger wasn't helpful, because it was.  However, this device does NOT account for several things: snakes, rivers, cliffs, wild bulls, poison oak, stinging nettle, rolling hills, or 100 degree weather.
We (the boys, the family and a ten-year-old) started out strong and determined.  We packed our water bottles and prepared for an easy 1.5 mile hike to the geocache.  What we did not prepare for was losing the trail.  Half-way through the adventure we realized bringing a ten-year-old along for this hike was a pretty terrible idea.  To her credit, the kid was a total champion and did not want to turn back.  To her dismay/luck, Bill, Ceda and Dad executive decisioned that they would all go back and the boys (Dom, Luke, Dyl, Duran) and I would go on to find the treasure alone.

The Boys: Dyl, Duran, Luke and Dom (from left to right)

The Start of our hike

At this point in the hike we were several miles away from our camp and about 0.5 miles away from any known trail.  Dom used the navigation unit to point us in the right direction, if only we could fly as the crow flies...unfortunately we could not and our only option was to trek through the mountains on foot.  I never understood why my parents, while on family hikes, were so adamant about staying on the trail (the trail is SO boring...all I've ever wanted to do was hop off those oppressive trails and forge my own way through the woods).  After this experience, I now fully understand the importance of STAYING ON THE TRAIL.  The boys and I were not lost per se, but we certainly did not know where we were.  We spent hours climbing up cliffs only to find our path forward blocked resulting in us jumping/sliding/falling right back down to the bottom of the ravine.  For a while we tried making headway by walking/swimming through the kern river (allowing us to avoid tricky footwork and uneven terrain).  This plan was proven faulty when Dom had a minor encounter with a water snake, an experience that made the rocky terrain seem much more manageable!


We came SO close to finding the geocache.  We were 0.25 miles away when we finally decided to call it quits and attempt to head back to our camp.  The GPS unit will track your movements, from point A to point B, so that you have a record of the path that you took. The catch? Well, our path to point B was freaking dangerous!!  Now our only option to get home is to do it all over again?  At this point in our journey we had been stung by stinging nettles several times resulting in painful, itchy scrapes that were slightly swollen, our muscles were totally dead, we were under a blazing sun, had seen several snakes (both in the water and out) and were completely out of water.  None of us were too excited about repeating the journey.

One of the snakes we encountered (look carefully, you'll see it!)

Accidentally invaded bull territory, luckily they 

were not provoked by our appearance

We came upon a natural spring on our hike and very gratefully filled up our canteens.  I never thought I would drink, let alone savor, water from a dirty little stream but that day, I did (don't worry, spring water is theoretically safe). 

Towards the end of the hike we were all in poor state, starving, dehydrated and weary of what could potentially lie before us, we kept on walking and walking and walking.  Finally we stumbled upon a road...wait..not a road, THE road, OUR road!!  We knew we couldn't be much more than a mile from our campsite.  

The best part of the hike was on that winding fireroad when we ran into none other than Bill Staley bearing water, juice boxes and applesauce. We all broke out in laughter, SO happy to have fresh water, sugary juice and mushed up apples.  The crazy hike was finally at an end and we lived to tell the tale. 

That night we had an amazing feast, cooked in the dutch oven, and watched a gorgeous sunset.  

View from our campsite 

Me, Dyl, Duran and Dom 

Elephant Rock

The hike was incredible.  We went deeper into the woods than we have ever gone before.  Abandoning all that we know (trails included), and experienced an insanely wild part of the kern.  Dom and Luke (the two oldest) made sure we made it back in one piece, more importantly that made sure that we made it back at all.  We used a combination of the GPS unit and large landmarks (like elephant rock) to guide us back to the more, though still un-, civilized part of the kern.    

All in all a very successful camping trip and a great way to end the summer!