Leon Turnbull Photography

REI thinks they are leading some sort of innovation with their #optoutside and not opening on Black Friday. Well I have news for them, they are not. I have been hiking on Black Friday for years. It has always been my favorite day of the year to hike. I know many of you also already opt outside on this day.

I don’t get why they are doing this anyway. They’re just losing money. I personally don’t care if people like to shop on Black Friday. In fact I prefer it. Then I won’t see anyone on the trails.

But either way I knew I wouldn’t see anyone on the trail where I was going on this Black Friday  (and I didn’t).

Last time I was up in this area I was hiking with a bad back. That was not cool. I also saw a fisher. That was very cool. Neither of those things were true today. It was, however, only 10 degrees outside. Too cool (literally). It was so cold I put on an extra sweater for the hike. I knew I would be shedding it and have to carry it. Not cool. Sure enough less than a mile in I was sweating and I had to take it off. Oh well. At least I was warm for that first mile.

It occurred to me (after I had driven 150 miles to get here) that the creek might be completely frozen, which would mean no waterfall. That would most certainly suck. Fortunately though, it was not and it did have decent (but not great) flow.

After three miles or so my road ended at a creek crossing. The road actually continued on the other side but there was a huge dropoff. The ground was very icy and I just could not climb up the other side in a safe manner. I spent a lot of time trying but finally gave up. Not to be deterred though, I backtracked a half mile and crossed where it was less steep, then climbed up the other side eventually getting back to the road. Now I was worried about the inevitable descent back down to the creek, which would undoubtedly be icy and steep. Plus I was worried about the sun. I only had til 9:30 before the sun would be on the falls. Time was running out.

I came to the descent. It didn’t look too bad. Down I went … until the very last section I came to a cliff right above the falls. Seriously? All this way for nothing? I contemplated about what to do, and I almost gave up.

But again I was not deterred. I got out my rope and descended down to the creek. Not down the cliff! There was a slope down, it was very steep and as I said the ground was hard and icy but I carefully made it down. I could not have done it without the rope. Once down I realized I had to cross the creek to get the best view of the falls. You do understand that the water was freezing! It was very slippery too, but I made it across safely. Such a gorgeous 25 ft cascade in this remote canyon, and a stunning emerald green pool it dropped into. It was a fantastic Black Friday for me! And I saw absolutely no one all day.

My hike on Saturday was a bust. If I had made it where I was hoping, it would have been glorious, but that darn canyon wracks my nerves every time.

I had thought that if I could just climb up this certain ridge, *somewhere* deep within the American River canyon, after about a 600 ft. ascent, then I could easily get down the other side to where this *certain* waterfall was located. From the topo maps and GE it looked quite do-able. The worst part, it seemed, would be the ascent, and possibly quite cliffy, but definitely very steep with lots of poison oak. Well as it turned out the ascent was no problem, there was (surprisingly) even a trail to follow. There was just one sketchy section near the top, but I got past it to the top of the ridge. All right, I thought, I am actually going to make it. It will be a cakewalk from here. Then I looked down the other side. Nothing but cliff. It was much much cliffier on this other side, and no way was I getting down it in one piece. Ugh! Struck out again on this waterfall. Will I ever get to that one? Yes, I say, yes. But not today.

Well, after that mess, I really did not want a complete shutout from the weekend, so I went on a second hike. This would be an easy one, Hidden Falls in Auburn. I have been to it before, but I was hoping for something a bit different, thinking perhaps I could get down to the bottom of it. I knew it was steep at the overlook, but obviously had forgotten just how steep it was. When I arrived, I realized there was no possibility of getting down to the bottom safely. I could almost do it, maybe, with a rope, and I think some have perhaps done it, but it just seemed a bit too cliffy and unsafe, so I settled for the usual photo, settling my tripod up right beside the poison oak. The creek actually had more water flowing than last time I was here, and I was quite surprised to see this much flow.

What really bugged me, however, was the overlook here seems to have become somewhat of a garbage dump. A lot of people have just thrown their garbage down from the overlook, into places where it is impossible for anyone to go pick it up, and yet there is a trash can literally within a two minute walk of the overlook. What a$$holes. I hope those people get bitten by ticks and get lyme disease. Speaking of which, the ticks are definitely out now. I saw quite a few of the little buggers this weekend. So much for them dying off in the drought.

Now onto your El Nino update: if you missed my post earlier this past week (and thanks Facebook, it seems most people did miss it), *unofficially* El Nino 2015-16 has become the largest El Nino in recorded history, surpassing 1997-98. It is not official because El Nino is measured in three month segments, so we will need to wait a couple months for the official results, but when it comes out you are going to see that this year’s El Nino is not just a little stronger than 98, but a heckuva lot stronger than 98. It still has not even peaked yet. It is a monster. But will that translate into rain/snow? Well that is up to God of course, because He is the one that brings the rain, not El Nino. But He did bring us a monster El Nino. The very few storms we have had thus far this year have not had anything to do with El Nino, however I have heard an unsubstantiated rumour that this may change in early December, and we will start seeing those much anticipated El Nino storms. Stay tuned for that.

Had an awesome little father daughter hike with Nekoda this weekend. Though for her, she probably thought it was a big hike, not a little one.

After last weekend when I found a new waterfall but the creek was almost completely bone dry, I was a bit concerned about where to go this week. We still have not received enough rain here to get the waterfalls going yet.

American Canyon Creek Falls is one of those waterfalls that do not need a lot of water to look nice. It is very pretty even with only a little water flowing, and that makes it a great one to go to early in the waterfall season. Indeed, it is my go to waterfall in the early season, and one of my favorites of the little waterfalls in the area. It is incredibly gorgeous, tucked between the narrow rocks, and dumping into that incredible pool.

It was 37 degrees when we started the hike, just a bit on the nippy side, but we warmed up quickly as we descended the hill. The hike down was uneventful. There was a decent amount of water in American Canyon Creek, not much, but it was not dry. Hoboken Creek (which flows into the main creek) was dry, however. I have never seen that creek dry before. I was also disappointed at not seeing any newts along the trail. You always see plenty of these little guys on this trail. I hope they did not die off because of the drought. I was *not* disappointed at not seeing any ticks, however. I would be quite happy if they died off from the drought.

We got down to the falls, and crossed the creek in front of the waterfall. The rocks are very slippery and Nekoda’s boots have zero traction, so I was anxious that she not slip and fall into that big pool, but I managed to keep her from doing that. She sat down and waited patiently on the cold, wet rocks while I took my photos.

She did quite well on the hike back up the mountain. She said she almost died but not quite (I think that means it was not an overly difficult hike). We got back to the car and I could not find my keys anywhere. I always make sure to put my keys and wallet in the top pouch of my backpack. They were not there. My wallet was in my back pocket. How the heck did it get there? I could not find the keys. The car door was also unlocked! I was absolutely certain that I had locked the car before we started. What the heck is wrong with me today?!?! The keys were not in the car, though. I carefully unpacked everything from my backpack. I found them inside the rain cover that I put over my backpack, so in other words they were on the outside of my backpack, inside the rain cover. I could have lost them on the hike so easily. Whew that was lucky. Thank you God for not letting this bozo lose his keys down in that canyon.

I know this is not a good photo, but it is the best I could muster up today.

I went back to the East Fork of the North Fork of the North Fork American River (EFNFNFAR) again this weekend, trying to get to that mischievous and elusive upper falls. I found it, however it was not exactly what I hoped for.

I left the dirt road and headed straight down to the river. I was pretty certain I could come out right at the base of the waterfall, and have a perfect view of this crazy thing. Not quite. The descent was very brushy, in particular near the top, but I persevered and got through the worst of it. Continuing on down down down, 700 ft. down. It was not too steep or cliffy, and I soon began to think my grandiose plan was going to be perfection again. Then I came to the last 100 ft. of the descent. Cliff. Cliff. Everywhere a cliff. I made my way a bit further downstream, and found a non cliffy descent, it was steep, but I made it all the way down to the river. When I got down to the river, I saw a tripod head laying there. Gee, I thought, someone was down here before and dropped their tripod head. That is not very good at all. I looked a bit closer … that sure looks very similar to mine. Umm, wait that is mine! Crashing through the trees down that steep terrain, it must have come off the tripod and rolled on down ahead of me. Dang, I could have easily lost this and not even had a clue.

All righty then. I scooped it up and screwed it back on the tripod (securely). Now I just needed to work my way upriver to the falls, I really thought I was going to make it without any difficulty. I was almost there. I came around a corner, face to face with a deep and large pool, followed by a 15 ft. cascade, cliffs on both side, and no way to get up past it. The main waterfall was just out of sight, above this little cascade and around the next corner. I was skumped. And I was so darn close.

Well I went back, and then climbed up the mountain the way I came. I tried to get over closer to the waterfall above it. Maybe I could at least get a good view of it. Well here it is, I found a view. I was literally hanging on the edge of the cliff, looking down at the falls. I could not find any good place (or any place at all) to put my tripod, so I had to take the photo hand held. Not very good, but what can you do. It does not look very big from the photo, but the waterfall is really 30 ft. high or even more (I could not get an official measurement either).

It is a nice one, but man oh man is it so darn elusive. And absolutely impossible to get to, unless you are going to rapel down the river from above the falls. As you can see, it looks like someone has actually done this, and they left their rope hanging beside the falls. That quite annoys me and is very irresponsible to leave your rope out in a pristine canyon, so that the next person to come here (ie. me) has to look at your ugly rope beside a beautiful waterfall. Leave no trace, people! End rant. End story.

Well I was definitely pleased and surprised to find this waterfall, but it wasn’t my plan. Let me please explain my dear readers. Why, of course, you say…

There is, I believe, a bigger waterfall on this river, above this one. It is the East Fork of the North Fork of the North Fork of the American River. Say that three times fast. Or try EFNFNFAR for short. I first learned about these waterfalls from the late Russell Towle. I did not see any photos from him, but he indicated this lower falls was 10-15 ft. high. Later on, a friend of waterfallswest also got down to the lower falls, and not the upper one, and he also is crazier than I am (you can take that as a complement, Joey). However, his photo and description also made it seem that the lower falls was only 15 ft. high at the very most. So in a nutshell, I figured I could either try to get to the upper falls in which there was a 95 percent chance that I would fail miserably, or I could go to the very small lower falls. Neither of which appealed to me, and so I just did not even bother.

Well so this weekend rolls around and I have nothing better to do, so I determined to give this one a go, but my plan was to try to make that 5 percent happen and get to the upper falls. To be sure, years ago I have tried this waterfall before, but my route at that time was faulty. This time, the route was golden. I was very pleasantly surprised when I got down to the river to find it flowing halfway decent. There was about an inch of rain a week ago, but that is not much considering the drought, and I expected the river to be all but a trickle. How awesome that I might actually get to see some water flowing over a waterfall today. Well as it turned out, my routed put me too far to the left, it was too cliffy further to the right, and thus I ended up coming all the way down to the river below the lower falls. I figured I would at least try to get up to that small one, if nothing else. I had to cross the river (which fortunately was easy to do so, and then waded up the river towards the falls). Then I saw it ahead of me.

Wow! What a surprise, what a beauty! It is not a piddly little 10-15 footer, but a very gorgeous 32 ft. high gem. Magnificent! The cliffs on both sides of the river were completely massive, in fact it was just a teensy bit scary standing in the pool below the falls with the massive cliff looming above me. What if a big old bear above decided to knock a nice big old rock onto my head. That would not be very fun. Anyway, it certainly is a surprisingly nice waterfall, and the emerald green water was amazing. Will I try that upper falls again someday? Absolutely, and if we don’t get rain anytime soon, maybe it won’t be too long in the future.