Don’t worry folks. I have plenty of new stuff coming this spring. I have four trips already planned for Yosemite National Park (weather permitting) and there will be some epic new waterfalls found. Don’t worry, be happy. In the meantime, Journey and I made a return trip to Grouse Falls. I knew that all the snow from last week would be melted and I would have no troubles driving the road this week. I did check the satellite images beforehand to make sure and I was not wrong. The road was all clear.
I am certainly the first person this year to visit Grouse Falls. I know that because there were two blockades across the road of fallen tree branches. I had to get out and cut them down in order to get by in my vehicle. The road is a bit rougher than I remember. You definitely need a high clearance vehicle now but it is easy as long as you have that kind of thing. We got to the last turnoff and parked. It is still a half mile to the trailhead from here but both Journey and myself had more than enough of the long excruciating drive and needed to get out and walk. I could have driven this last half mile except there was a big tree down in the road just before the trailhead. In any case I am glad we walked.
The trail to Grouse Falls is messed up. This area was burned in the Mosquito Fire of 2022. The trail is very indistinct in some places and hard to follow. There are a lot of downed trees and branches strewn all over the trail. It is not difficult as long as you know where to go. (which I do of course). The overlook is completely gone. Burned in the fire. You can still see the waterfall, obviously. However, there is a better viewpoint down the hill a short distance. It is a steep descent but Journey is awesome and had no trouble. Then she waited very patiently beside me while I took photos because there was no place for her to sit down on the steep hillside.
Grouse Falls was flowing magnificently. This is the perfect time to see it with the snow melting right now. A spectacular 504 ft. high waterfall. The other side of the canyon (where the falls is) was not burned (thankfully).
After taking photos we went back up to the non-existent overlook where there is a spot to sit. Journey ate her breakfast and I enjoyed the waterfall, then we hiked back up the trail. I spent a lot of time on the way back clearing debris and branches from the trail. I think I made it a small bit better. Journey was wondering what the heck I was doing and why I was going so slowly. Hurry up, daddy!
When we got back to the car we had only hiked two miles. I could tell Journey did not want to quit yet and neither did I so I put my tripod in the car and then we continued down a different logging road for 2.5 miles all the way to South Branch Grouse Creek. It was easy hiking. In total we hiked about 7 miles. It was a wonderful brisk morning in Tahoe National Forest.
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.
