If you know what this waterfall is you are probably thinking, what the actual heck? I visited this waterfall in Dec 2018. I came to the top of the falls but there was no possible way down to the bottom. I could only see it from a side view which was not very good. Since that time I wondered how I could see it from the bottom. There must be a way. Somehow. I came up with an idea. A crazy idea. A mad idea. I would raft to the end of Lake Eleanor from Frog Creek. Yep, it is a mad idea all right. But I am the Madman, am I not?
Five and a half years elapse. It was finally time to put my idea into action. It would be an adventure. A mad adventure. I picked up my permit, drove to Lake Eleanor and hefted my heavy bag complete with inflatable raft onto my back.
As I hiked up towards Frog Creek the first thing that comes into view is Kibbie Falls. It looked absolutely massive. I have never seen it so big. Uh, this could be a problem. My plan had been to cross Frog Creek and camp on the other side so I would have a much shorter distance to raft to the end of the lake. When I came to the Frog Creek crossing, I realized that was not happening. It was uncrossable. Frankly, it made no sense. The creek should be much lower than when I was here last time and was able to cross, but instead it was a lot higher. Why? I talked to someone at the campsite who said there was torrential rain here the previous day. Could that be the reason? I don’t know but it doesn’t seem right. Anyway, I decided to camp at Frog Creek and raft from here in the evening. I found a really nice spot to setup camp, very secluded, away from the main camping area, and right near the mouth of the creek.
The weather forecast said there was zero percent chance of rain. If there is zero percent chance of rain then why is there a massive thunderhead across the lake heading straight in my direction? It did not look very pleasant. I got all my stuff ready to throw into the tent just in case and I waited. The clouds broke up before they reached me and it turned out to be nothing. There were still other menacing clouds around, however. There was also wind. Wind would make rafting to the end of the lake very difficult, especially coming back with a head wind, but the forecast said that the wind was to die down by 6PM. I decided to continue my plan with the rafting after I ate my dinner. It took about 45 minutes to get to lake end. It was very hard even though there was a tailwind going there. The lake was quite choppy. It was almost like paddling in class 1 rapids. Maybe. Coming back was no better. The wind did not die down so I had a headwind but it only took about 5 minutes longer on the return trip. It was difficult both ways.
Eleanor Creek Falls was absolutely incredible. Very high flow. A spectacular cascade, 110 ft. high. There was no good place to land the raft so I had a difficult time getting out. I could not get a good hold on the rocks along the shore but finally I managed to step out onto a submerged rock ledge and drag my raft out of the water. Then I had to climb up the huge boulders to find a viewpoint of the waterfall. It was an amazing spot. I was ecstatic that I finally made it to the bottom of Eleanor Creek Falls.
When I got back to camp everything was all wet from water splashing into the raft. My daypack was soaked though of course I had all my important stuff in dry bags. My clothes were soaked. Thankfully I had an extra shirt and extra jacket with me. I did not have extra pants or extra underwear. My hiking pants were still very wet in the morning so I wore my sleeping underwear until my pants dried and I went commando. Too much information, Madman! LOL. Next time I will know to bring extra pants/underwear and somehow keep my daypack dry. There will be a next time. I was quite nervous before this trip because it was a lot more than I have ever done in the raft before but I was quite happy with the result.
I did not sleep well so I got up later than originally planned. I have had a sore neck for some time and can only sleep on one side. It is quite uncomfortable in a sleeping bag. I took my time hiking back, stopping for a coffee break in the sun alongside the lakeshore, trying to photograph Kibbie Falls, and stopping at the dam waterfall to take some photos as well. I was home in time for the Canucks game. It was a crazy adventurous weekend in Yosemite National Park.
After work I took Journey and drove up the hill. I’ve wanted to check this place out for awhile now and it finally seemed like the time to do it. It is partly off trail but I did not think it would be too hard or steep for Journey.
I had loaded the route and map into my GPS but for some reason it did not load properly. Thankfully there was cell service here so I downloaded the map into my phone. If there was no service I’m not sure if I would have been able to find the waterfall. It’s always good to check your map before you leave the house (obviously I did not do that!).
This area is all part of the massive Caldor Fire of 2021. All the trees were scorched. We found a parking spot and started hiking down the logging road. There were already mosquitoes out. I had heard this from another person recently as well. This is crazy to me. It is only April. At least they were not biting yet. Anyhow, I think that Journey did not really want to hike today. She was going slow and stopping and I felt she wanted to go back to the car. She had been playing hard with mom all day long so she was probably quite tired to begin with. Nonetheless, I encouraged her to continue on. When we came to the large snow patches on the road, she perked up notably. She wanted to run in the snow! She was so excited. She loves the snow!
Eventually we came to the off trail section where we would go down to the river. It was not difficult. The last part was a bit steep but Journey did fine. We came to the waterfall. I was quite disappointed. I really thought this one would be a lot nicer and a lot cleaner. I have a feeling it was a lot nicer before the fire. It is a 30 ft. cascade, but not very interesting and hardly worth taking a photo. I did take a photo of it though. What do you think?
Journey ate a snack and then we hiked back up the mountain. It was a bit tough and we were both tired when we got back to the road. At least I was tired. I think Journey had gotten her second wind and was happy hiking back down the road. She knew we were on our way back. We arrived at the car just after dark and drove home. It was a lovely evening in the scorched Eldorado National Forest.
This is not a recent image. This is from March 2009. This past weekend I went back to Rock Creek Falls with Journey, thinking that she would have no trouble getting down to the waterfall. I forgot one important thing about the hike, however.
We arrived at the trailhead and started the hike down to the creek on the One Eye Trail. It is so named because back in the old days a mountain lion attacked a miner on this trail and he lost an eye. I love these old names from history. We did not see any mountain lion but we did see quite a few deer. Journey was quite interested in the deer but they did not let us get very close to them.
The trail starts out as a nice wide road but soon becomes a single track. There is poison oak and there are ticks. It was impossible to keep Journey out of the poison oak. My primary concern was keeping the ticks off of her (and me). I went first on this section and swatted them off the bushes with my hiking pole as we went along. I did not see very many of them on the hike (less than 5). However, when we got back up to the road later I had to pluck about 6 or 7 of them off of Journey. How did she get so many ticks on her? I don’t understand, there should not have been any on her at all. I hoped I got them all off her. When I got home I found more on her and those ones were embedded and more difficult to remove. In retrospect, I should not have taken her on this hike, however, I did not think the ticks would be so bad because of the rain and cold weather. My mistake.
Anyway, we arrived down at Rock Creek. There was a lot of water flowing as I expected, but it was not in flood stage (as it was in March 2009). From here you need to rock scramble downstream. This is difficult. Journey did very well and we made it down almost to the brink of the waterfall, however at this point she could not continue any further. The water was too deep and it was too difficult or dangerous for her. At lower flows I think she could have made it but there was just too much water today. We retreated back upstream, had our lunch by the creek, and then climbed out of the canyon and back to the car. Even though we did not make it to the destination, it was still a great hike for Journey in Eldorado National Forest.
The final snow stats are in as of Apr 1: snow pack is 124% of normal (north), 107% (central), and 100% (south). Precipitation is at 97% (north), 86% (central), 85% (south). So as you can see we ended the season just slightly above normal for snow pack. After the Great Blizzard the first weekend in March we had nothing at all until the last week. It is a bit unfortunate it is not more but it is pretty good. We will have a good spring season for waterfallin.
I had never been to Pinnacles National Park before and Saturday of Easter weekend seemed like a good day to try it. I was not expecting too much. It had rained over two inches there in the past week. I was hoping to see at least three decent waterfalls and something else as well. Meh. It turned out to be better than I expected, exactly as I expected, and also worse than I expected.
I was risen at 3AM. It is a very long drive. Thus the reason I had not been there before. Also it does not rain much there. Thus the second reason. I arrived at sunrise. There were already people there starting out on the cave trail before me.
I wanted to do the cave trail first. This is a very popular hike and I did not want to do it with a lot of other people on the trail. I saw just three other groups on the trail so it wasn’t too bad. I first came upon Moses Springs Falls, a tall 72 ft. waterfall but not exactly a high flowing stream. With the recent rain, however, it was kinda cool to stand right under this one. My photo (to be posted laster) did not do it justice, it was much better in person. Unfortunately there is poison oak there and I did not realize it before I touched it. Ugh.
After this you enter the caves. This was perhaps the highlight of the hike. It was much better than anticipated and very cool. A lot of the time you are hiking through the creek bed. It is completely dark. (of course I had my headlamp). The deepest part was up to my shins. One section you had to climb straight up a small cascade. Other parts were so narrow I could barely fit through them. I had to really squeeze (and I am not fat, obviously). There are a couple decent waterfalls in here as well but it is too dark to photograph them. One in particular I thought for quite some time about trying to photograph but decided not to.
After the caves you come to some steps to climb up and beside the main highlight: Bear Gulch Cave Falls, 34 ft. high. This is the main waterfall I wanted to see on this trip. I knew it would be decent after the rain, and it was just exactly as I expected. It is a bit difficult to photograph from halfway up the steps. I’m not sure how much of the waterfall is man-made, being just below the man-made reservoir, but it is a very pretty drop.
I went back down on the Rim trail and when I got back to my car I found the parking lot completely full (it is not a big lot). I drove down to the lower lot and it was almost completely full as well. It was only about an hour after sunrise. I first hiked down to the lower Bear Gulch Creek Falls but found it completely dry. That was very disappointing especially because there was quite a bit of water in the creek (it seems to go underground before the waterfall). For my third hike, I wanted to hike up the Condor Gulch trail for two reasons: One, there are a couple waterfalls on this hike. I was not expecting much from them and it was even worse than I expected. The trail comes to the top of Condor Gulch Falls but there is no view of the waterfall. It did not look like much of a waterfall anyway but I’ll maybe try again some other day when it is flowing better.
The second reason I wanted to hike up this trail was to see the condors. I have never seen any condors in the wild before, and “Condor Gulch” seemed like a good spot to see some. I was right on all accounts. There were many soaring above me. I did not go all the way to the top but came to an open spot where it seemed a perfect place for lunch and to watch the birds soaring through the canyon. As soon as I arrived, one of them flew right over my head very close. I did not have my camera ready, but a short while later it happened again, and this time I did have my camera ready. I’m not sure I got any decent shots of it, however, because my tripod was not working properly. We’ll see. Anyway, it was a very cool experience seeing these amazing birds. When it started to rain, I hiked back down to the car and then made the long drive home. I was so tired I slept for 11 hours that night. I was up in time for church to celebrate the most important day of the year. Jesus risen from the grave to save us, all of us. It was a great weekend at Pinnacles National Park.
I did not get the poison oak itch too horribly bad. A few spots. I have had better but I have had worse. I definitely made the right decision leaving early and washing up when I got home. My wife still thinks I am an idiot for hiking anyplace where this is oak. LOL. But dang, Manning Falls was an awesome waterfall.
This is Upper Salmon Creek Falls. It was not particularly easy getting down to it. The slope is steep and the ground is very hard. You will definitely be sliding down, not walking down. Thankfully there is no cliff. I was very much impressed with this one, it was much better than I expected. I measured it to be 26 ft. high, but it seems more like 36 ft. when you are down there. It is better in real life than in pictures. It is a beauty.
