BRING IT ON
Finally! It is raining! Woo hoo! The waterfall madman is a happy camper! At least for one weekend, anyway. Praise God for the rain, seriously. This weekend is the FIRST major storm we have had in 14 months. We have had a few small storms, but I don’t think we had anything in which we received over 2 feet of snow in the last 14 months. That is incredibly awful. Usually in every month of winter we get at least one if not more of these big storms. But we have one this weekend finally. Over six inches of rain is expected in the foothills, and up to 5 or 6 feet of snow in the mountains. Now that’s what I am talking about, but we really need so much more still, so keep praying.
Anyway, Saturday rolled around and rain or not, you know I am going to get out there. In fact, I love the rain. Bring it on! And it did come on!
But where should I go? I really had no good idea. I finally decided on going to Nevada City and Kenebec Creek Falls. I have been there before, but there are some other potential new waterfalls in the same area that I wanted to check out. I thought I would go to Kenebec first, then hit some of the new ones.
Well, it rained steadily the whole day. The lady at the gas station in Nevada City told me to stay dry. I told her I had plans to get very wet. I am not sure she believed me. But I sure did get wet. In fact, I would not have been more wet if I had swam across the South Yuba River in all my clothes! The rain also makes it quite difficult for photography. But I did not complain! No way, Jose. I am just so happy to see all this rain this weekend. Anyway, I had an umbrella and tried to manage to keep it over my camera while I took the photos. It worked all right.
Kenebec Creek Falls was not really flowing all that great. It is a very small creek, but I have seen it much better. Indeed, it probably will be much much better Sunday or Monday, and although I do plan to go out hiking again this weekend, it won’t be back to Kenebec. I had hoped though, that it would have more flow than it did. It probably rained about an inch or so in the area on Friday. It needs a lot more.
After shooting Kenebec Creek Falls, I went over to the unnamed waterfall beside Kenebec. I was at this one before when it was flowing much better. I should have photographed it then. Today it was not quite flowing too well, but I took a photo anyway. Then I did something a bit crazy. I went for an additional 5 mile hike in the rain. By the time I was all done, I was a drenched rat. Literally. Everything was completely soaked through, including my waterproof boots and waterproof gloves. I followed the South Yuba trail over to North Canyon. I thought there “might be” a waterfall there, and I wanted to check it out. I figured I should do it now, because who knows when I will be back this way. Well, I did not quite find a waterfall. But oh it was oh so close. I found a little cascade, and it was close to 20 feet high (my lower limit) and perhaps was, but it just was not quite interesting enough. It was just a small cascade, but the biggest problem was it was not clean, there were just too many branches obstructing the view of it. It was not worthy. And that was just sad.
It was a long hike out there for nothing, and by the time I got back to the car, I was far too wet to try going anywhere else. The other ones will have to wait for another day, but at least I got one decent waterfall to see at Kenebec Creek. It was a fun and very wet day.
Here is the next Waterfall Madman episode. Please check it out!