Leon Turnbull Photography

Friday evening’s adventure saw me off to Lake Tahoe after work. Why you ask? Waterfalls of course. But the waterfalls are not flowing anymore you say? Not exactly. There is actually still a bit of snow in the mountains but definitely the creeks are on their way out for the year.

My plan: Cascade Falls. You can see the waterfall from Emerald Bay Road before you get to the trailhead, and I examined it closely before starting on the hike. It was looking a bit meager from a distance without a doubt, but I decided to go anyway. Up close and personal, I thought it would be decent enough. And it was.

The trail was busy with plenty of other hikers, as expected. But no one would be thinking of going down to the base of Cascade Falls. Right? I had never been down to the bottom before, and this was my primary goal for the evening. How hard could it be? The waterfall only drops off a sheer 149 ft. cliff. No problems, right? Well of course, it would be a rather big problem if I went down to the bottom from the top of the cliff, but there is another way, my friends. And as it turned out, it was fairly easy. Also, fairly difficult. It was easy in the sense that it was not very steep and certainly not dangerous. It was difficult in the sense that it took quite a while and there is a lot of manzanita brush to negotiate. The “trail” winds its way down through the brush, down down down, almost all the way to the lake, then finally cuts back to the waterfall. The low flow in the waterfall allowed me to get up very close to it, which I certainly could not have done at higher flows. It was certainly quite decent.

So when I was here, I witnessed more full fledged Darwinism at work. Why does this always seem to happen at Lake Tahoe for me? Some dufus with three bushels short of a full load decided to scale down the sheer cliff beside the waterfall. I thought I was about to witness his certain destruction, and even tried to video it (but I messed up on that part – ugh). One missed step and he would have been done for, but he made it down the cliff safely. I expected him then to go over to the waterfall, but he disappeared and I did not see him again. He must have just gone back up the cliff in a spot where I could not see him, but that makes no sense at all. If you are going to risk your life and limb to scale down a sheer cliff (and not to mention when there is another easy path down to the bottom), why on earth would you not even go over to see the waterfall? I don’t get it. I suppose it is quite possible he was an expert climber and this was all child’s play to him, but I have seen too much stupidity in my lifetime.

Anyway, I decided to follow his lead, and went straight up the cliff to get to the top of the waterfall. Just kidding!!! I did go to the top of the waterfall though (the normal way), and then beyond. What I found next will amaze you. I am kidding again. Well, it might amaze you. Or surprise you. It did surprise me. But you will have to wait for my next post to find out what it was. Hint: it is probably a waterfall.