I am very much enjoying my hikes with Journey. I am having more fun going on an easier hike with her that I have done before than going on something more difficult by myself. And she loves it so much, it makes me very happy. This week’s journey to a repeat waterfall: Grouse Falls. Well, it was “supposed to be” Grouse Falls.
As we drove up Mosquito Ridge Road I could see all the small creeks and waterfalls were flowing. I was surprised but this was a good sign for Grouse Falls. It should be spectacular. Then we hit the snow. At the turnoff for Grouse Falls there was too much snow to drive the road. I expected there to be some snow but not this much. We decided to hike from here. It would be 10 miles round trip which is not too bad but actually it was. There was six to eight inches on the ground for pretty much the entire hike. It was quite difficult, especially for Journey. She loved it though. She would run way ahead in the snow and she was having a blast. But somehow she hurt her leg. It did not seem to slow her down and she was not limping but she would not let me touch it so I know it was hurting. We hiked an hour on the road and we were not even half way there. I felt that another 3 hours of hiking in this deep snow would be too much with her hurt leg so I decided to turn back. If there was just 3-4 inches less snow I think we would have had no troubles making it all the way, and with the warm weather coming this week all this snow will probably be gone so perhaps we will try this again soon.
On the way back I stopped at this waterfall by the roadside. I have seen it before but never had a good chance to stop and photograph it. Although it is on an unnamed stream it is a very pretty one and I think it deserves a spot on my website. I am calling it Mosquito Ridge Falls and it is 60 ft. high. It was a wonderful snow day in Tahoe National Forest.
Since my wife had to take our daughter back to the Bay Area after her spring break, Journey had a choice to either go with mom or myself. If it was really up to her she would certainly choose mom but she would have a lot more fun with me. The decision is made: hiking with daddy. But there was four feet of new snow in the mountains and I did not feel like that would be a good spot to take Journey this weekend. She would be swimming. Literally. Maybe I should go on a lower elevation hike. I decided to go to Burma Falls in Oroville. I have not been to this one in a long time and there would not be any poison oak or ticks.
I thought the gate opened at sunrise but I was wrong. It did not open until 8AM. I could not wait around until then. It would be too late getting to the waterfall for photos. I thought about just going up to Table Mountain but I did not feel like it so I found a place to park off the road outside the gate and we walked in. It was only an extra 1.5 miles round trip so not a big deal.
It is an easy and flat walk along the road to the waterfall. The last time I was here there were cows right on the road. I was worried about that with Journey along but we saw no cows today. Even if there were the road was wide so we probably could have gotten past them easily. I was also a bit worried about the sun because we had a longer walk and thus were a little bit late so we ran a bit on the downhill sections. This made up time and we arrived at the waterfall on time. The last part involves a bit of scrambling along the creek and hillside. Journey did excellent. She’s getting to be an expert now with the scrambling.
We rested at the waterfall and Journey ate her breakfast while I took photos.
On the way back there was a vulture sitting on a railing by the road. This was so funny: Journey just casually and slowly walked towards it. So nonchalantly. La la la la. Then all of a sudden she bolted towards it. The bird took off just in time. It was so hilarious. And I got it all on video. We also saw a couple squirrels on the hike. Journey loves chasing squirrels also (and she did). It was a very lovely morning in Oroville and we saw no one on the entire hike.
Now that it is March it is time to start heading to higher elevations to hike. I want to be above 4000 ft. in order to avoid poison oak and ticks. I thought about taking Journey up to the snow but when I looked at the weather for that hike it said 23 degrees. Yikes. I would not mind that so much but I did not want to freeze Journey to death. Plus that would mean it would be icy and possibly dangerous for her.
I decided to take her to the Lake Spaulding area. Someone posted a photo of Fuller Lake Falls from last week and it was a very nice one. The waterfall was flowing well but not too strongly. Of course all that could change in an instant since it is dam controlled (and indeed it would). Anyway, I did not have a good photo of this waterfall yet and Journey has not been there so it seemed like a good adventure for us.
We left the house at 5:30AM and drove up the hill. When we got up there I saw that there was snow! I was not expecting this at 4500 ft. elevation. I drove up to Fuller Lake and there was quite a bit of it. We could have started from here as I had planned but I decided to drive back down to the river and hike from there. It would be longer but probably a lot nicer and easier. I am really glad I did that considering what we found when we got to the waterfall (below).
There was only about 1 inch of snow on the ground, up to 4 inches in some places. It was quite a nice hike and Journey was very happy. She loves the snow! We had a lot of fun and saw no one else on the entire hike.
We stopped at Lake Spaulding Falls first which was roaring then continued up to Fuller Lake Falls. It was 2.5 miles one way. There was one creek crossing which Journey would not do. I had to find an easier spot for her to cross it and I had to lift her down one big dropoff. As I did this I slipped and fell hard on a rock, banking up my shin in the process. Journey had a bit of a hard landing but she was ok. She made it across the creek but now I was worried about her crossing Fuller Lake Falls which would be a lot bigger than this little creek. I should not have worried so much.
The Fuller Lake waterfall was ABSOLUTELY UNCROSSABLE. It was ROARING. Much more so than in the photo I saw from a week ago. At least three times as much water or more was coming out of Fuller Lake. It unveiled itself in three large segments, about 150 ft. wide in total. This was the end of the road for us. NONE SHALL PASS.
I took photos of the waterfall and then let Journey have a snack before heading back down. I had wanted to do a longer hike than 5 miles but this was a good one for us and Journey had a lot of fun in the snow. It was a brisk and gorgeous morning in Tahoe National Forest.
It was dance show weekend for my daughter Nekoda. Since we had to go to the Bay Area it seemed like a perfect day to go early with Journey for a waterfall hike. Cataract Falls was our destination.
Cataract Falls is a very popular hike. We arrived at the trailhead at 7AM. There was already one car there in the very small parking area and two cars showed up right behind me. Already people on the trail and it is only 7AM! You will want to read to the end of the story.
We had the trail mostly to ourselves although I did see other people, of course. The weather forecast said it was going to be cloudy in the morning. There were absolutely zero clouds in the sky. Not even one. Doggone it. Those darn forecasters strike again. That meant I did not have a lot of time to get to the top so I did not stop at every waterfall along the way, just a few of them. Also, it is a little hard for Journey to get to some of the falls and I did not want to make things too difficult for her.
We rested at the top and Journey had breakfast. Instead of going back down the same way I decided to go back on the High Marsh Trail and Helen Markt Trail. This is a much longer hike but we had a lot of time and there were no people on this trail so Journey could be off leash the entire time. There would’ve been a lot of people going back on the Cataract trail. It was fairly tiring so when we finally got back down to the lake I thought we would have a good long rest there. Journey laid down for two minutes then she wanted to get going again. Crazy dog.
We got back to the main Cataract trail. Holy crikey! I could not believe my eyes. I must have cataracts! Major traffic jam! It is only about a mile back to the car from here but there were literally hundreds of people. Going up and going down. I knew there would be quite a few but this many? It was absolutely nuts. Journey was as surprised as I was to see so many people. It was a slow slog back to the car following the long line of people and not being able to pass any of them. It did not matter to us because we were done with our hike and had seen all the waterfalls but if you were hiking at this time, tell me how is this an enjoyable hike? It is far from enjoyable with this many people on the trail.
We got back to the car and drove to the park where we would meet up with my wife. Journey of course was overly ecstatic to see her and wanted to play fetch with her for the next hour. How are you not completely tired from our five hour hike, Journey? She is such an energizer bunny (as my wife always says). It was a wonderful and eye-popping morning in Marin County.
It was a cold night. I had all my clothes on but I was warm and I slept well. I had a leisurely breakfast, packed up, and climbed back up the mountain.
It was a 1300 ft. climb and I was tired when I got back up to the top of the ridge. My back was starting to hurt as well. What should I do now? The waterfalls I had initially planned to see were impossible to reach with the Gamboa trail obliterated. I thought about going down the Middle Fork Devils Canyon but that just seemed far too difficult. A 2000 ft. descent off trail and no idea if I could even make it down there. If I got stuck I would be in severe trouble. Did I say my back was hurting? I decided to go back down the Coast Ridge trail to Vicente Flat.
The water sources I passed on the day before were now completely dry. I was counting on filling up my water before I got down to Vicente. No dice on that. I should have enough, however.
The Vicente trail is a fairly popular one. It should be in good shape. Right? NOPE. Ventana Wilderness strikes again. The trail was very overgrown with a lot of tree blowdowns. There was one spot where I literally had to take off my pack and crawl on my belly under the brush, dragging my pack along with me. I was so tired of this crap. If there was anything more as bad as this I was going to turn around and go home. Thankfully there was not anything else like that and eventually I made it down to the Vicente Creek confluence. There was a nice camping spot here so I decided to stay here instead of going down to the official camp which was another half mile further. I was tired and it was getting late.
Somehow I managed to get a poison oak rash and I had not even gone up to the waterfall yet. I have no idea how. I had not seen any poison oak at all in the last couple days of hiking. There was a little bit on the trail down to Vicente but I was certain I had not touched it. Apparently I must have because when I woke up in the morning I had a bad rash. I knew there was a lot of oak going up to Vicente Falls and I was prepared for that but I was mad at myself that I already had a rash before I even started that hike.
There is no trail to Vicente Falls. It is about a half mile upstream and you just walk straight up the creek and along the side of the creek (in the poison oak). It is not too difficult and it is fun. Except for a couple parts where (yet again) there were some big tree blowdowns in the canyon from the Dolan Fire. This made the hike almost impassable but not quite. I was able to continue past them and made it up to the waterfall.
Vicente Falls is a magnificent and stunning 191 ft. cascade. It is definitely worth seeing and enduring the poison oak. Especially at high flows. I took my time and enjoyed the views although there was only one composition for taking photos. Everything else was covered in too much mist. That is all right. As I was enjoying the waterfall a squirrel came up close to me. We did not see each other and scared the crap out of each other when we did. He took off running down the hill and across the creek and up the other side to get away from me. Ha ha.
I returned to camp and ate my breakfast before packing up and going home. I only saw two other groups of backpackers all weekend, both going up the trail from Vicente camp this morning. One of them were a couple of girls with a dog. I love my Journey and I want to take her backpacking but I have to say that Ventana Wilderness is no place for dogs. It is just far too difficult. Too brushy. Too hot. Poison oak. Scarce water. This dog seemed to be doing all right but what about the ticks! There is no way this dog got home with less than 20 ticks on him, I guarantee it.
I got back to the car at about 1:30PM and drove home, stopping for well deserved pizza along the way. It was a wild weekend in Ventana Wilderness.
