Merced river trip options

• 2-day overnight trips: These trips cover about 26 miles, with 2 full days of rafting, 4 meals starting with lunch on day 1, and ending with lunch on day 2, and camping right along the river. We are able to truck in all overnight gear and food (including your personal overnight gear) to our camp, so we do not need to carry gear on the rafts during the day. This allows us to run all paddle rafts, and no one has to ride in a gear raft. During high water, we run what we call our "double-upper", and repeat part of the first day trip again. We do this because at higher water flows, the lower section of the river, including a waterfall (which we portage at lower flows), is too dangerous to run.
  
  However, on day 2 of our double upper, we normally put in about 2 miles upriver at Redbud, giving you on the second day a new, exciting Class 4 section of whitewater that you did not see on day 1. We then continue downstream and overlap part of the best whitewater of day one, and end the trip at Briceburg around 4:00 p.m. During lower flows (mid to late June on) we run our 2-day trips through Quarter mile rapid and down to Lake McClure, with a power boat meeting the trip and pulling us the last one mile of flat water to our take out.
• 1-day trips: Our most popular trip, our 1-day trip covers 16 river miles and includes a great deli lunch. During normal water levels, we raft from Indian Flat to Railroad Flat, stopping for lunch along the way. And when the river drops to 1500 cfs,  we launch our 1-day trips at Briceburg and continue through Quarter mile rapid to Bagby, using a power boat to tow us the last 1 mile across Lake McClure to our take-out point.
• 1/2-day trips during normal water levels:  We offer both morning and afternoon 1/2 day trips.  Our morning trips meet at 8:30 an end about 1:00, and our afternoon trips meet at 2:00 and end around 6:30.  This trip covers 11 miles and does not include lunch. We raft from Indian Flat to Briceburg. 1/2 day trips are nice, but miss the last very scenic and exciting 5 miles of river between Briceburg and Railroad Flat, including Split Rock, Corner Pocket, and the wave trains above these 2 rapids. So if you are debating between the 1/2 or full day trip, definitely choose the full day.
• 1/2 day trips during low water: the best summer family rafting trip near Yosemite (45 minutes from Yosemite Valley). When all other sections of the Merced river are too low to run, this 5.5 mile narrow and scenic section of the Merced river (from Briceburg to Railroad Flat) is a lot of fun, and allows us to squeeze out about 14 more days of rafting.  The water is warmer, the air temperature is hot, and the lower water rapids are fun, technical, and the canyon narrow, intimate. We stop for snacks (which we provide) at a great beach/diving rock area for some great water play, swimming, jumping off the jumping rocks,etc. During calm sections, you can float downriver (with your lifejacket on of course). Because of the slower pace (although still providing for very fun, technical rapids...you still wear your helmut!) and fun water play activities associated with this trip, we have had clients say that this trip was more fun in a lot of ways than our higher water trips. Minimum age is 6.

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