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.
Here’s another Folsom waterfall. It looked a lot bigger from the road and definitely seemed to be more than 20 ft. high, but when I got down to it I realized it was only 15 ft. high at most. I won’t be including this on my website but I did take a photo of it, so here you go.
After this I took Journey on a hike by the lake. The last time I hiked this trail was 15 years ago when I came across a scene straight out of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds: 20 vultures all lined up on fence posts along the trail, such a strange and incredible experience. It was a cold sunny day and they were all warming themselves on the fence. Well it was a cold sunny day again today, perfect conditions for a sequel. Would I see them again, I wondered? Lo and behold, I did see the vultures today warming themselves on the posts. It was not quite the same experience as before and not as many this time (9 or 10), but it was very cool. Unfortunately a dog on the other side of the fence came down to see us and scared the birds away but I was able to take some photos. Journey was much more interested in the dog than the birds. It was a beautiful morning at Folsom Lake.
As of Mar 1, the snow pack in California is 92% of normal (north), 77% (central) and 76% (south). Rain is at 91% (north), 75% (central) and 76% (south). In the southern Sierra we are still quite a bit below average as of Mar 1. Certainly we have gained much ground since Jan 1 when the snow pack was 30% but March is going to be the make or break month. With the Great Blizzard happening this first weekend in March, I suspect we will end up slightly above average for the year. This makes me quite happy. DISCLAIMER: I wrote this post before the Great Blizzard. This past weekend has indeed put us over the top for snow pack this year. We are now above average overall but there is still a full month to go, so the final stats could still change for better or worse (if we don’t get any more snow this year).
It would have been nice to get into the snow this weekend but it didn’t seem very intelligent to do so, and the roads were closed anyway. I thought about going to Oroville again but I did not feel like getting up and doing that. Instead, I took Journey for a good long walk in the morning before it was to start raining again. After that I decided to go on a drive by Folsom Lake in search of a new waterfall. You may be thinking, well that is stupid. Folsom Lake does not have any waterfalls. That makes logical sense but it is not quite correct. I actually had this one on my radar for many years but never bothered to go check it out. It did not seem worth it. Much rain would be needed. Folsom does not usually get a lot of rain. Well, after this weekend there has been a lot of rain, right?
I found the waterfall. It was not difficult to get down to it. Parking was a bit of a problem but I found a spot. The waterfall is 76 ft. high in total, with two separate tiers. This lower tier is 32 ft. high. The upper tier is 44 ft. Both are nice but I thought the lower one was slightly prettier so I’m showing it here first. As for the creek flow, I was disappointed. It was not good. After all the rain I thought it would be much better. I would definitely come back if I knew the creek was higher. It is a pretty one, though. The only bad thing is that it seems to be a place where people dump all their old tires. There were a whole bunch of them, including some right beside the upper waterfall. Definitely a bit perturbing. I also found a better waterfall nearby on a different creek but it could be tough to get to it. That will be an adventure for another day.
I had to be in the Bay Area on Saturday afternoon for my daughter’s dance show. I had two choices for hiking: (1) I could leave early with Journey and hike in the Bay Area in the morning, then wait around all day until her dance show started. (boring), or (2) I could hike near home in the morning with Journey, leave her at home, and drive to the Bay Area in the afternoon. Option 2 seemed like the best idea at the time. I should have known better, especially as I drove to and back from Auburn and everyone seemed to be driving extraordinarily slowly. Very slowly. Well below the speed limit slowly. This was a bad omen for my drive to the Bay Area. I allowed 3 hours for the drive (twice as long as it normally takes), and I barely made it in time for her show. I had just a couple minutes to spare. Traffic was ridiculously bad. Oh I hate that drive. At least I made it.
Anyway, back to the hike. I hiked this trail 14 years ago with my dog Kaya. We saw a couple bears that day. I did not see any this time with Journey, although I did see fresh bear poop. Also, last time I parked at the ASRA headquarters (free parking). Well now they have removed all the public parking there so I had to park at the Robie Point trailhead (also free parking). This would be a longer hike now and I wasn’t sure if I had enough time to make it so Journey and I ran down the trail as much as we could (only on the non-muddy sections). We passed one girl whose bum was rather brown from slipping in the mud. (I hope that is what it was from anyway – just kidding). We made it to the waterfall with plenty of time to spare.
Black Hole of Calcutta Falls is 40 ft. high. It is a very gorgeous drop right alongside the trail. Journey was being very silly and was rubbing up against me and my tripod as I took photos. She was in a very funny mood. I love it but she also wouldn’t co-operate for me to take photos of her. So silly.
After this we continued hiking down to Tamaroo Bar along the river. There were a lot of people out on the trail: runners, hikers, dogs. It was a bit overwhelming, frankly. I prefer hiking when no one else is around. It is more peaceful. But Journey had a fabulous day. If you go down to Tamaroo Bar you will notice a bunch of big barrels strung out on a line above the trail. They seemed to extend halfway down the mountain. You will wonder what the heck they are there for. Well, the truth is they were put there by cavemen 100,000 years ago for their drinking water which they needed to store because it was a desert back then. Ha, well I am kidding obviously but my point is you should not believe everything you read or hear on the internet. Do your own research and verification. People will believe anything, it seems to me sometimes. Why would anyone believe birds evolved from huge dinosaurs when there is absolutely zero proof? (just a small example). In actual truth, the barrels are leftover from the old Auburn dam that failed in 1986. That was before my time here in California. We had a beautiful morning hike in Auburn State Recreation Area.
It is mid January now and we still have not had any big storms yet this winter. We have only had a few small storms. The snow pack is less than 50% of normal. There are still no big storms in the forecast and unfortunately, we may be going back into a dry pattern at the end of January. Ugh!
But Saturday was a rain day. I decided I wanted to go out in the rain but just an easy hike. I left Journey at home because it was so wet. She probably would have enjoyed the wetness anyway, but the rocks were slippery and a bit dangerous. I would be going to a waterfall I have not been to before. Well, I made it to the waterfall all right and it was an easy hike all right, however the creek was almost completely dry! I could not believe it. This was a good sized creek. I was not expecting greatness but I was definitely expecting decency. Darn it! Now what should I do? Go home?
Since I was already in the area I figured I would go back to Mooney Flat Falls, which I have been to before. It is an easy hike and I knew it would be flowing a lot better than the first one. I did not want to do anything too difficult today (such as going down to the upper falls), so I just went to the lower falls. Even though it was raining the entire time, I was able to get some good photos of this 29 ft. cascade. It was a lovely rainy day out in Nevada County.
