I returned to Upper Bidwell Park in Chico. They received an additional 2 inches of rain in the past week (after the big storm the prior week) so I was sure the waterfalls here would still be flowing well.
As Journey and I hiked down the trail there were many little streams flowing along down beside the trail, sometimes in the middle of the trail. Other little creeks had very good flow. These are all normally dry. This was a great sign. Lovejoy Falls and Iron Canyon Falls would be roaring. Right?
We came to the Lovejoy Falls stream. It was pathetic. It was worse than when I was here before. What the heck? Why isn’t this creek flowing better? Indeed it should be very strong. Iron Canyon was the same way. It barely had any flow at all. It was all quite disappointing.
Iron Canyon Falls is 63 ft. high. I have not been to it before. There is a very interesting slot canyon you can go down to get to the bottom of it. I was not sure if Journey would be able to do it but a friend who has a dog said it was not a problem for his pooch. Indeed Journey had no trouble getting down the slot. I, on the other hand, did have a slight issue. There is a very narrow spot at the bottom and I got stuck trying to go through it. I had to take my backpack off then I was able to squeeze through, pulling my backpack down after me, with Journey following along behind. We made it. It is an incredibly cool spot. Even with the low flow there was a lot of spray from the falls and it was difficult to take photos. I can’t imagine taking photos down here at high flow (but a friend of mine has a great photo from the bottom – how did he manage?). Anyway, I will definitely be back here again when there is more water. Give me more more more.
We climbed back up the slot and over to Lovejoy Falls. Then we hiked back to the car and drove home. Even though the water flow was disappointing, it was still a gorgeous hike in Upper Bidwell Park.
It was dance show weekend so my wife and I had to go to the Bay Area to see our daughter perform. Leaving at 5AM so Journey and I could do a hike beforehand was an allowed thing. Let’s go!
This was going to be a 4.5 mile hike and all on trail so not difficult, and no ticks, and no poison oak. What a relief.
After a short distance we came to a creek crossing and lo and behold there is a waterfall here! A surprise waterfall! It was not exactly a spectacular one but I thought it was worth taking a photo, so I got out my camera gear and set up in the creek. I was not paying attention and I did not hear the group of hikers coming up behind us until it was too late. Journey got scared. The reason was that the trail here is very narrow. There was no room for the hikers to pass by her so she got scared and started running up the trail to get away from them because they did not stop and wait for me to get her first. I told the lady in front to stop and I left my camera in the creek and went up to get her. Even though Journey was scared she came back to me when I called her and I got her into a place where the hikers could go by. She is such a good girl. She is not normally like that and we had no issues with anyone else we saw that day but it was just because the trail was narrow and there was no place to pass. No worries. We continued our hike.
After this we came to the main waterfall of the day: Tucker Falls. The information I had on this one was lacking so I was only 90% sure of its location but I turned out to be right on. Supposedly there is a campsite here called Tucker Camp but I saw no obvious place for one. It was not a particularly flat area but I did see the waterfall from the trail so I knew we were in the right spot. You have to climb up to it. It was a little difficult but Journey did well of course. Once up at the falls I saw that I went the wrong way up which was more difficult than the proper way. Ah well, c’est la vie.
Tucker Falls is 23 ft. high. It is not an incredible waterfall but it is a good little one for sure.
We took photos and continued up the trail doing a big loop back to the car. We saw a lot of bikers, hikers, and runners along the way. It was still early when we got back to the car so we went to a park where Journey played fetch for another couple hours. Where does she get all the energy? She was tuckered out afterwards though. It was a great morning in Marin County.
It was time to return to the Bay Area this weekend after the big storms. My wife joined Journey and myself because we would visit our daughter for lunch after our hike. It was going to be a good day.
The plan was to visit three waterfalls I have not seen before: Lower, Middle, and Upper Pensacola Falls. Thanks to friend Mike for telling me about these waterfalls. We arrived at the trailhead at sunrise. It is a residential neighborhood and the neighbor was watching me through the window as I got ready for the hike. Come on lady, it is a public trail and a public street. It is ok for us to be here. That is one excellent thing about Marin County. There are so many public open spaces for hiking, even right in residential areas.
The hike begins on a trail up a very steep incline. I was huffing in very short order. Journey had no such problem. Before long, the route leaves the nice trail and descends steeply to the creek. No more trails. It was a lot more difficult than I expected. It was brushy. It was not really that bad but it was enough that Journey decided she did not want to continue. There’s no trail this way, daddy. Let’s get back on the proper path! I encouraged her to keep going on the non-path and she followed me faithfully. There was poison oak. I tried to avoid touching it and I think I succeeded. Barely. I did not end up getting the itch when I got home. Whew. There were ticks. I plucked two or three off of my legs. The bad thing is that I knew if I had some on myself, that meant Journey would be getting quite a few as well. Should I turn back now? We were already too far committed on this hike. We had to keep going and deal with the ticks later.
We made it down to the creek and the middle falls, which was very lovely. There was not any good place for Journey to sit at any of these three waterfalls, so she just stood there while I took photos. She was very patient as always. We crossed the creek and climbed the steep slope to the upper falls, a smaller one but very pretty. From here we climbed up to the top of the ridge. Lo and behold, there was a trail! This trail is not on any of my maps but it was a pretty good one and looked to descend all the way back down to the neighborhood where we started. This would probably be a lot better than going back the way we came, through all the brush and ticks and oak. But first, we had to descend to the lower falls (off trail, again).
Lower Pensacola Falls is the biggest of the three waterfalls and is 40 ft. high (pictured here). It is a gorgeous waterfall, hidden away in an unlikely place. I went down and stood in the middle of the creek to take photos, while Journey waited patiently for me up on the steep slope with nowhere to sit.
We climbed back up the hill. When we got back to the trail I checked Journey over very thoroughly (so I thought). I plucked about 10 or so ticks off of her. I thought this would be the end of it. I did not see anything more on her. I must have gotten them all. I was pleased. The trail did go back to the neighborhood where we started and it was very easy. I should have gone up this way in the first place. It would have been a thousand times better. Well, now I know for next time. When we got back to my wife at the car we checked Journey over again, together. We must have plucked another 50 ticks off of her. They just kept appearing in her fur, a never ending nightmare. I was disheartened because there were so many. I did not think the hike was really that bad in terms of ticks but it was bad. No harm done. We got them all off of her but we still found a couple more once we got back home.
We had a good lunch with our daughter and drove home. It was a gorgeous morning in tick infested Marin County.
I was on-call for my work this weekend. That meant I could not go hiking anywhere, at least not anywhere far from home. It would have to be a short hike and one that has cell service. It is a bummer too because it was a long weekend for me.
On Saturday I just took Journey to the lake. It is our favorite place to go for a walk. It is such a huge area and usually no one is there, especially if we go in the morning. She can just run and run and run. We love it there. And it is free. You would think more people would take their dogs there, it is such a great place. But I am not going to blast the location over the internet, you can be sure of that.
On Sunday I took Journey to Black Hole of Calcutta Falls before church. I did not really want to go here and I knew it would not be flowing great, but I wanted to go to a waterfall this weekend. This is the only one I could think of that was a short hike and had cell service.
We arrived at the trailhead before sunrise. This is a popular place for running and hiking but it seems we were the only ones on the trail. Or were we? As we started down the trail it was not long before Journey alerted me to someone coming up the trail. She is usually ahead of me and always notices other people well before I see them. It was a couple of joggers. So early! They must have started in the dark for sure. It was only sunrise now and they were just finishing up their run? We did not see anyone else until we got to the waterfall but a couple other joggers came by when we were at the falls and of course we saw some people on the way back, but not too many.
It was a beautiful morning. A storm was on the way but the sun was out right now. We spent quite a bit of time at the waterfall taking photos and enjoying the morning. Then we hiked back to the car and drove home. Journey always likes to tell Mom how much fun she had on the hike as soon as we get home, but she was still sleeping. Ha ha. It was a gorgeous morning in Auburn State Recreation Area.
It was Sunday afternoon. Super Bowl Sunday. I had no desire whatsoever to watch it. I wanted to hike. So did Journey. I heard it was a boring game anyway. Good choice, Madman.
We went to Canyon Creek Falls at Quintette. It has been 16 years since I was here. I knew the last part would be difficult but I thought Journey would be able to do it. The hike starts out easily enough on a dirt road for 2.5 miles. It crosses one of the branches of the creek that the waterfall is on. Bone dry. Ugh. I was not expecting this. What if the other branch is dry as well? That would really suck the bone. I would be very unhappy. Maybe I should have gone somewhere else. We continued on. Worst case scenario is that Journey gets a good hike.
We got down to the creek below the waterfall. The creek was not dry. Yay! It seemed fairly decent flow. About as good as I could expect after a month and a half of dry weather. Now the hard part. There are two paths, one on each side of the creek. My notes said to go on the south side. The north side path does not go all the way up to the waterfall. The route we took was extremely difficult. It was very brushy. It was very steep. I really wasn’t too sure about doing it and thought about going back. It is a short distance though so I kept going. Journey did not really want to do it but she is such a trooper. She followed me up the whole way, through the brush, over logs, up very steep terrain. I am so proud of her. She did so awesome. Finally we made it to the base of the waterfall and relaxed and ate a snack. I took photos.
Canyon Creek Falls is very gorgeous and is 83 ft. high. It was so refreshing standing at the bottom of the waterfall.
On the way back we took a MUCH EASIER path. I had to lift Journey over a huge log but that wasn’t really a problem. We crossed the creek and then it was very easy following the path back to the road. I should have gone that way in the first place though that log was a big obstacle for Journey. We hiked back up the mountain, getting back to the car just before sunset. It was a fantastic hike on Super Bore Sunday in Eldorado National Forest.
