Leon Turnbull Photography

I tried a new hike this weekend and it was almost really great. That is, to hike up above Horsetail Falls in the Desolation Wilderness without actually hiking up Horsetail Falls. That could be a challenge, yes? But I hate, really hate, the route up alongside Horsetail Falls. Of course I have done it before many times, but it freaks me out now in my old age. So how can I get up to the amazing area above Horsetail Falls without going up Horsetail Falls? The answer: Rocky Canyon.

Rocky Canyon is a steeper route and more difficult, but not so crazy treacherous and dangerous. In fact, it is not dangerous at all. The only problem is the brush, the awful brush. Indeed, I almost turned back, but persevered and found the way through, and after that the rest of the hike was easy smeasy.

However, I arrived at my destination, Ropi Lake, much too late. According to my calculations, the waterfall still should’ve been in shade, but it was clearly not. This is the second time in a row that the Photographers Ephemeris program screwed me over. Has anyone else found issues with this program recently? Well, I’m sure it was user error, and I will not be making this mistake again (he says so confidently). The sun still should have been behind the ridge, but it was well above it, for at least an hour or more, and I was not that late in arriving. Anyhow, I climbed out on the very slippery and dangerous logs to get in the middle of the creek, in order to get this shot of the lower part of the falls, which is certainly not a particularly good one.

On the way back, I passed through a campsite. The backpackers were gone off on a day hike, I saw them heading in the direction of Pyramid Peak. What amused me about their camp site, was the way they hung their food. It was horrendous! The food was strapped on a rope over a branch, only a couple feet off the ground. It would not have been able to prevent squirrels from getting into it, let alone bears. Seriously, you may as well just lay out all your food on a table cloth complete with napkins and utensils for the bears. A royal feast for them I would say.

I did hike back down along Horsetail Falls. I have never had trouble before going down that route, only going up. I knew there was one sketchy section but I was certain that I would have no troubles getting down. But alas, I was wrong again. There were a couple other sketchy sections that I did not remember even seeing before. One of them in particular was pretty crazy to get down safely. It was also darn hard on my old knees. Well, I did make it down and all in one piece. I’m definitely not too excited about trying that again. I would definitely do the Rocky Canyon route again though, if I can figure out a way to get around that awful brush.

And this is exactly what God is going to do this winter all over California: weave this little thread together into a gigantic strand of waterfalls.

And I will be back to see it.

This was mainly a scouting hike today as I knew the creek would not be flowing much, in fact I wondered if it would be completely dry, but it turned into quite a fun little hike, even though I totally miscalculated the sun.

It was not exactly fun when I started the hike, and I was feeling quite unmotivated. Perhaps the warm weather had something to do with it, but I think it was mostly that I knew the creek would be just a trickle. The trail was easy going to start with, and thus boring, but after a couple miles or so I came to a very rocky section. At this point things started to become slightly interesting since it was a challenge to keep on the trail. But it was when I left the trail to go cross country, that’s when the fun started. Now what does that say about me, I wonder? It was a fairly easy jaunt through the forest down to the creek at the top of the falls, but there was no possible way to get down to the bottom on that side of the creek. The rocks were slick and treacherous, reminding me very much like at Horsetail Falls. So what to do? … I had to rock hop across, and then scramble around the cliffs to find a way down to the bottom. No problem.

Charity Valley Creek Falls is a cool vertical shot of 30 feet. Just a thread. The bottom of it was kind of in the shade, but my calculation said it would be completely in the shade by about 4 PM. Not so. The sun was still high in the sky and it would be one or two hours that I would have to wait. No thank you. Well I got a decent shot anyway. It was pretty cool being down here in the wilderness, with no other soul around within a 3 mile radius at least. This is what I love. And I will certainly be back here when this is a magnificent strand of waterfall. Next year.

For more info on this waterfall:
http://waterfallswest.com/waterfall.php?id=charity-valley-creek-falls-705

The planning was perfect. The execution was perfect. The result not so much.

It’s been awhile since I’ve been out hiking and waterfallin’. I normally do not hike much in the summer. The heat and the bugs do not agree with me, and eating too much ice cream  tends to mean I gain weight over the summer. It was 100 degrees on Friday, but dropping by over 10 degrees for Saturday. I thought it would be nice and cool in the mountains on Saturday morning. Yes waterfall madman, it is time to get back at it. This would be a perfect day to hike, and a perfect time to try to get to Mini Curtain Falls on the North Fork Stanislaus River.

Yes we are in a four year drought. Yes there is water flowing on the North Fork Stanislaus River. This river is a controlled river though, and it flows year round. Normally, however, it has about twice the flow at this time of year (give or take a little bit). So yes, the drought is affecting this river as well, but 110 cfs is still pretty good for waterfallin’.

I planned my route on Google Earth and I did an impeccable job of it (if I may say so). There is no trail down to the river. It is a 1300 ft. descent from the road, down through the forest, following bear trails and not much else. Lots of brush (but not too bad), and steep. Very very steep. This is my first waterfall hike in quite a while, and I guess I must be out of hiking shape. I almost did myself in on this one. I have been working out over the summer, but that is not the same as hiking up and down steep mountains. This one was a doozy.

I was quite certain that I would not be able to get up to the falls from along the river, due to the sheer cliffs on each side. I did go all the way down to take a gander, and yes I was correct. There was no way to get up close to it. That meant I had to climb up the cliff to where I could get a long distance view of the falls from a ridge. Google Earth shows a clear view of the falls from here, so I was fairly certain that IF I could get up there, then I would have a grand view of the falls. Wrong. I climbed up on the ridge without much difficulty (though it was not easy by any stretch of the imagination), and I got to the exact point that I had planned. I was even able to go further than I had planned. However, there was a big huge rock in the way. This rock is not showing any blockage of the falls on GE. It is a clear viewpoint. I even checked again when I got home. Nonetheless, the rock was there. I could only see the top half of the waterfall. I tried to find other vantage points. I made my darnedest effort, and everything I could do, but there was nothing doing. This shot was the best view I could find. The height of the falls is about 20 ft. (I suspect even a bit more than that), but the entire thing is not to be seen.

By this time I was quite tired from all the scrambling around. I still had to climb 1300 ft. out of the canyon. I took a rest (many rests), and eventually I made it back up to my car (barely, perhaps). I hope my body behaves a bit better on future hikes this winter. I have a ton of big hikes planned, and hopefully next time with better results.

The latest El Nino forecast has arrived and it continues to increase in strength. It hit the “strong” level in August for the first time. A key factor will be when it peaks. It not showing any sign of peaking yet, but is apparently forecast to max out in the December timeframe. If it peaks too early, it will not have the impact on our winter weather that we are hoping and praying for.

Despite what you may have heard from other forecasters, there have only been FOUR strong El Ninos since 1950. To clarify: four strong El Ninos “in the winter”; three of these had above average rain in California in the winter, and the fourth had “slightly above average” rain. Let me explain: The four strong El Ninos were: 1998, 1983, 1958, and 1973. As we all probably know, the first three had well above average precipitation for northern CA in the winter. No question about that. In 1973, however, I see about 103% of average precipitation for northern CA, noting that this strong El Nino peaked early in November (but still remained strong through the winter). Usually, forecasters referring to 1973 say it was an above average year for this strong El Nino, but I don’t think you can say 103% is “above average”, to me it is more “average”, but if you really want to then say “slightly above average”. The Southern Sierra may have been slightly higher that year.

There were two other strong El Ninos since 1950: 1966 and 1988. Both of these years had well below average winters for northern CA. However, it must be noted that both of these El Ninos were on the very low end of strong; the El Nino of 1988 peaked in the summer and was not strong when winter started; the El Nino of 1966 peaked in November/December and by January it was down to moderate strength. That is a very important distinction. Does it rain in the summer in California? No it doesn’t! So in the heart of winter, these strong El Ninos were not strong! Therefore, in my opinion, it is not appropriate to say El Nino was strong in those years if you are talking about predicting precipitation in the winter for California; they were moderate El Ninos during the winter of those years, not strong ones.

The other factor we have is the warm blob of water off the coast. In past strong events, this blob did not exist, and it also could be the reason we are currently in a four year drought. If it was not there, it is quite likely at least 2 of the 4 years we would have had average or above average precipitation. So will it affect the strong El Nino, and how? No one knows of course; personally I think it likely it will have some sort of negative effect, but the question is how much.

If we do have a big winter, I will be extremely excited of course. I was not living in California during the last big El Nino. I moved down here in 1999. I am already trying to map out where I will be hiking and what waterfalls I will be visiting this winter. Are you making your list yet? Pictured here is the Lower Middle Fork Tuolumne River Falls, 182 ft. high. Is this going to one of the waterfalls I will be visiting? Perhaps it will, though it is not specifically on my list (but nonetheless, I will be visiting this area for sure next year). If you have not seen it yet yourself, then you will certainly want to put it on your list. It is going to be amazing next year at high flows.

Our company moved its office to Roseville this week and I must say I’m hating the commute thus far. I used to work 10 minutes from home. Not anymore. The traffic is not so bad but it’s all the darn lights. There are about 5000 of them and I swear the city has programmed them so it is impossible to hit any of them green. Argh.

It also means it is now too difficult to get to the south shore of Tahoe after work on Friday. Going to the north shore is about the only option. So that’s what I did.

It was raining hard when I got to Truckee but by the time I started my hike it was all done. A nice sunset over looking the lake would sure be nice. I haven’t had good luck up here for sunsets this year. I hiked up the Tahoe Rim Trail (first time I’ve ever been on this trail). The info I read said there were good views of the lake on this section. I found nada. I think I would have had to walk a lot farther on the trail to see any, so I decided to climb up to the top of Barker Peak. Surely there would be a good view from up there. Instead I found a big old ridge blocking my view. I could only see a partial view of the lake and it didn’t seem worth staying up there for sunset. I did not like it. Plus I was way off the main trail and I did not have my GPS. Hiking back in the dark might be big trouble.

So I ran back down the mountain to the car as fast as my chubby legs would take me, and drove back down to lakeside, arriving there just before sunset. There was a dock there which I walked out on, but there was not much color out over the lake. Bummer. Then I looked behind me and saw some spectacular color. I was on the wrong side of the lake. Doh! I should have gone to the east side. No time to do that now. I tried to take some shots anyway. It was pretty nice but the angle was not great. The weird thing was there was another photographer there on the dock shooting the nice color but he was standing right along the shore, a far worse angle. Why didn’t he pass by me to get a better angle? Strange. Anyway the color was all done so I packed up and made the long drive home.