Lake Isabella Travel Guide

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I guess most people would never guess that Lake Isabella holds some very precious artifacts that were part of a event that changed our course in history during WWII. Located in at Lake Isabella Park.

The memorail includes a beautiful granite engraved the inscprition below, two sections of the tripod mast legs, section of drive shaft for the training gear of the main B&A cranes and a "Duck" Tank, Walker "Bulldog" Tank.

The inscriptions reads on the main stone: She was one of the mightest battleships of her times she measured 608 feet in length and 97 feet at the widest point in her beam. She carried twelve 14 inch guns in four turrents and 22.5 inch .51 caliber guns. Her displacement was 31, 400 tons with a mean draft of 29 feet.

Arinzona served the Alantic Fleet during WWI and joined the Pacific fleet in 1921. She was the flagship of divisions one, participating in many maneuvers, and fleet problems designed to be used in the event of a war against Japan in the South Pacific.

On the morning of December 7, 1941 , about 1,447 full complement of Navy and Marine officers and men were aboard, about 50 had been unable to return to the ship from shore liberty. When she sank, more than half of her crew had been killed, around 800 of them going down with the ship, 1,117 died on the ship.

ARTIFACTS OF THE USS ARIZONA BB-39

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The marker reads: Located to the northwest of here, Isabella, a ranching and mining town was named by Steven Barton in 1893 after Queen Isabella of Spain, patron of Christopher Columbu. A postoffice was established here in 1896. In 1953 the community was moved to a short distance south to its present location. Dedicated in 1980 Kern County Museum, Kern River Valley Historical Society, E Clampus Vitus Peter Lebeck Chapter 1866.

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NO. 742 CAMPSITE OF EDWARD M. KERN – The plaque reads: Near this spot at the confluence of the north and south forks of the Kern River, the Theodore Talbot party of Captain John C. Frémont's third expedition to the West camped for several weeks during December 1845 and January 1846. Frémont named the river in honor of Edward M. Kern, topographer for the expedition - Kern County was established in 1866.

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In 1953, the U. S. Corps of Engineers built earthen dams across two forks of the Kern River to create the Isabella reservoir, Kern County's largest body of water year round with a surface area of 11,200 acres. The communities of Wofford Heights, Lake Isabella and Kernville now bustle with outdoor enthusiasts: fishermen, boatmen, hikers and campers. Kernville, just to the north on Highway 178 beside the north fork of the Kern River, boasts a historic past as an 1850's gold rush camp. The town pays tribute to its Whiskey Flats Days and the exhibits in the Kern Valley Museum.

Fees and Permit Information:
For permit information, call (760) 379-2806
Boat Permits (Lake Isabella only) $45/year
Sailboard permits: $30/year
Permits are available at any marina and at several convenience stores in the Lake Isabella area including the mini mart located at Lake Isabella Boulevard and Highway 155 and at James Store in Kernville.

Land Sports:
Camping - 30 campgrounds within the nearby Sequoia National Forest
Information available from Lake Visitor Center on southwest corner of the lake - (760) 379-5646
Fishing - trout, bass, bluegill, crappie, catfish
Golf - at a public golf course near the north end of the reservoir near Kernville
Hiking - 1,000 miles of hiking trails in surrounding mountains of Sequoia National Forest
Motocross Driving - on track at Cyrus Canyon
Photography - of wildflowers and wildlife (particularly at the South Fork Wildlife Area)
Snow Skiing - at nearby Shirley Meadows and Sugar Loaf Peak

Water Sports:
On Lake Isabella: boating, sailing, water skiing, jet-skiing, windsurfing, and fishing
On the Kern River (preserved by Congress as Wild and Scenic): whitewater rafting, kayaking, and fishing

Warnings, Regulations and Restrictions:
A large Kern County Parks Department Patrol Boat with a red stripe traverses the lake from sunrise to sunset to preserve safety and issue citations, if necessary.

Emergency Numbers: To report accidents - 911
Citizens Band Channel 9
Kern Valley Hospital (760) 379-2681
Warnings
Speed on the water should always be appropriate to weather conditions, the presence of water hazards and the presence of other users of the area. Speeding around trees is hazardous; buzzing people at 40 mph and wetting them down is cause for citation.
Unmarked underwater hazards, such as submerged fencing (particularly near the South Fork area), tree snags, rock outcroppings, sand spits and islands appear and disappear with Lake Isabella's ever-changing water level.
The Borel Canal, an eight foot deep concrete channel supplying water to the power plant downstream from the Auxiliary Dam, cuts right through the western part of Lake Isabella where the water may be deceptively shallow.
Lake Isabella has sudden gusts of 60 mph winds that often make crossing open water unsafe.
Jet-skiers should AVOID the Kern River channel and not endanger themselves and others.
The law limits boating to the daytime - one hour before sunrise to one hour after sunset.