Leon Turnbull Photography

After my short hike to Lower Rattlesnake Falls, I got in the car and drove to the next destination. This road was not plowed and with 8 inches of new snow on the ground, that is pretty much the limit that my four wheel drive SUV with low clearance can handle. The snow was rubbing against my car’s tummy, but I made it to the trailhead without any difficulty.

It is a six mile round trip hike to this waterfall, and I had my snowshoes on. That may not seem far but if you have hiked in the snow before you know that it is at least twice as difficult as a hike without any snow. So essentially I was hiking 12 miles today (plus the two already to Lower Rattlesnake). This was no cake walk and I was dead tired by the end of it. It started off totally great, however, and it was just what I needed. A fabulous snowshoe hike on a gorgeous morning with fresh snow all around. It was amazing. But before I even got to the waterfall, I was extremely tired (and I still had to hike back!).

I have wanted to do this particular hike for awhile but kept putting it off. I did not really think there would be much of a waterfall here on the South Yuba River, and I was pretty sure if there was anything here it would be quite a bit under 20 ft. high. It was low priority for me, but this seemed like a really good day to try it anyhow. And what did I find? A small 10 foot waterfall? No! A 26 ft. high falls funneling through a narrow chute between the rocks. It was absolutely marvelous.

And my was it ever snowing! The snow was coming down like gangbusters. I did not spend much time here but by the time I finished taking photographs, my GPS and my hiking pole were completely buried, and my backpack was getting close to being buried. There was now about 4 inches of new snow on the ground, almost a foot total in this storm. Now I was getting worried about my car, driving back along that unplowed road with four new inches (and I still had 3 miles to hike and it was still coming down). I was also very tired, and my feet were wet and I had blisters (no doubt caused by wading through that stream earlier). I was anxious to get going back, so I did not spend as much time here as I would have liked. I think perhaps I could have gotten down closer to it, but it was definitely a bit harry being out on this cliff overlooking the falls. If the ground was dry it would have been no issue, but with wet snow covered ground, it was definitely on the dangerous side of things. On the plus side, I really like how this photograph turned out, it looks very cool with the crazy falling snow.

Well it did take some time, but I made it back to my car, even though my prior snow shoe tracks were almost all covered up. I was definitely trudging back through that now deep snow quite slowly. The drive back on that road was also a bit crazy, but I made it without going in the ditch. All is good. It was a great snow day in the Sierra. Let’s have a lot more of these kind of days, please!