Leon Turnbull Photography

I was hoping for a good hike but not a killer hike this past weekend, so I chose Antoine Canyon, near Foresthill. This area was ravaged last year by the American Fire and I thought it might be interesting to hike down into it, perhaps it would be easier now after it has burned. Or perhaps harder? Either way, I have never hiked down on the south side of Foresthill Rd before, I always hike on the north side into the North Fork American River canyon. The south side drains into the North Fork of the Middle Fork American River, and is not too shabby either. It won’t be my last time down there for sure.

The road passed right through the burned area, and even though it was very early, there were workers blocking the road and my access. Ummm, can I get through here? I asked. You can “now”, they said, with the emphasis on the “now”. Ummm, will I be able to come back through here later? Who knows, they said, we are getting ready to cut down these burned trees. Yeah, that is quite reassuring, isn’t it. I was actually quite surprised that these guys would be out here working on a weekend, shocked even. I wasn’t sure if I should turn around, I didn’t want to be stuck in there all day, but I decided to take a chance on it. As it turned out, coming back through was not a problem at all, even though they were still busy working.

I parked the SUV and started my hike continuing down the dirt road. I could have driven further on the road, but I wanted to get a decent hike in this morning. I am certainly glad I did that, otherwise the hike would have been too short. I had calculated I had about 1.5 hours to make it down to the falls but the sun was already above the ridge line. Would I be too late? Well obviously I made it in time, otherwise I wouldn’t be too glad about it. I done good in my calculation this time. After 1.5 miles, you need to cut off the road and head down down down to the bottom of the canyon. It started off all right but got steeper as I went along. Much steeper. The last section to the creek was bordering on cliffy steep. One good thing is that I brought my rope, and I used it get down the last part to the creek. No problems getting down there with the rope (without a rope, it certainly might have been a problem). The bad thing is that I did not bring my water shoes. Stupid stupid stupid. This is the problem with having a bad back, and trying to save on precious weight on my hikes: I do not bring along items I think I might not need, and I was not thinking that I would be doing any creek wading this morning at all. However, I ended up down at the creek further downstream than I anticipated. Now I had to wade upstream to the waterfall. The creek was a bit deep in places, and the rocks were super slippery. It would have been very easy if I had my water shoes, but instead I had to wade upstream in my bare feet. I only slipped one time, but in the process, I managed to get my hiking boots (that I was carrying) completely soaked. Ugh.

Well I got up near the waterfall but there was a little cascade and small falls I still had to negotiate. I had to cross the creek again, climb up on a narrow ledge and continue climbing to get above the cascade. It was pretty fun, actually. Finally, I got up to the waterfall. It is quite a unique looking falls, and I think I will definitely be back to this one someday. I think it would be awesome at higher flows. The only trouble is that I would not be able to wade upstream at higher flows. It could be an interesting adventure.

I know that I am certainly not the first one to see this waterfall. There was a miner’s camp here, with a chair, gold panning equipment, and an axe that looked fairly new. Obviously someone has a claim down here. I wonder how he hikes down to it? It is not exactly easy to get down here, but it is certainly a quaint little place. Speaking of gold, when I climbed back out of the canyon up to the road, I saw three cars coming down the road, all filled with older guys, older than me, but not too much older. They said to me, Is that your SUV we saw parked way up the hill? Yes, it is. Wow, you hiked all the way down here, that is awesome, you are an iron man, amazing. (it is only 1.5 miles on an easy dirt road). When I told them I just hiked to the bottom of this steep canyon and back up, they practically fell down at my feet and worshiped me. I am kidding. But they were very much in awe, for sure. Well, it was a tough hike, but I have certainly done plenty of tougher ones. They all had metal detectors, and apparently, they were looking for gold along the hillside. It seemed rather odd to me. There are no streams up here, I would think they would more likely find gold down at the bottom of the canyon. But maybe they know something I don’t, it seemed like they had done this before. Well good luck to them, I guess. I certainly found my gold down at the canyon bottom.