Leon Turnbull Photography

This was an extremely difficult waterfall to get to, there was a ton of poison oak, steep terrain, and I did not even get as far as I wanted to. But I did find this new 38 ft. high waterfall, so all was not completely lost.

This is Peavine Creek, near Foresthill. From Mosquito Ridge Rd, it is more than a 1400 ft. drop down to Peavine Creek. There is no trail. The poison oak is very abundant, especially as you get closer to the creek. I did not feel very comfortable hiking down into this canyon, for many reasons, some of which included wild animals jumping out of the wooded trees onto me. I thought multiple times about giving up and going back up. Usually these thoughts were most numerous in my head when the going started to get too brushy or the poison oak got worse. Then the terrain would clear a bit, and I decided to keep going. Down. Down. Down.

After a long struggle, I finally got close to the creek. Then it started getting much steeper, and the oak got much more plentiful. There was no avoiding the stuff anymore. When I got to the creek, I started working my way upstream. I still had a long way to go. I came to a couple small waterfalls where the creek split. The best way was to climb up between them. Off came my hiking shoes and on came my water shoes. Above these small waterfalls, I could see a larger waterfall in the distance, and this was my final destination. I measured it to be 38 ft. high, and it was difficult to photograph. I do not really like the big log sticking out in the middle, but I could not move any further to the right or I would be swimming. My camera also stopped working here for some reason. I have no idea why, and it seems to have fixed itself magically now, so perhaps God was telling me not to continue further.

I had no intentions of continuing on anyway, so God did not need to tell me that, but I am pretty sure there is a bigger waterfall above this one. It may or may not have been possible to get to it, but I was completely spent by the time I got to this one, and there was no way I could continue any more. Oh yeah, I still had to climb back 1400 ft. out of the canyon.

When I finally got back to the car, I found that I had a couple ticks embedded in me. It has been many years since I have had a tick bite. I am always very careful about checking myself constantly during hikes, but somehow these ones snuck under my clothing without me noticing. One was on the back of my arm, and I managed to get it out, but the other was on my back and I could not see it. I only saw it by the reflection in the window of my car when I checked myself over. I tried to pluck it out, but I was not certain I got all of it. I could not see “back there”. I was concerned so I decided I would drive quickly back down to the river where there surely would be people around I could get to help. On the way down, however, I saw a couple bicyclists ascending up the hill. I stopped and asked them if they would look at it. I am quite certain they thought I must have been some kind of maniac, because they were very hesitant about stopping. I do not blame them at all. Some weirdo saying he had a tick in his back way out in the middle of nowhere? Finally the guy turned around and came to look at it, and he was able to see that I had indeed gotten the entire tick out. Well I was sure glad about that and I thanked them profusely for stopping to help out the maniacal stranger.

So will I be back someday to do battle with the ticks and oak again? Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t. Probably I will.

Here is the latest Waterfall Madman video. Feel the roar at Bassi Falls: