Leon Turnbull Photography

You win some and you lose some in waterfall hunting. This one was a loss but even losers can be interesting.

My topo maps indicated that there “might be” a 40 ft waterfall on Otter Creek near Georgetown. No, I do not mean Silver Falls which I have been to before, this would be a different one. Surely it was worth checking out at least. This is what I love to do. Find new waterfalls. For this one on Otter Creek … I was pretty sure there had to be a decent waterfall down there, the question in my mind was could I get down to it?

I found a trail leading down to the creek. It was only a mile but with 1000 ft elevation loss it was certainly not for sissies. Surprisingly though, it was a pretty good trail, not overgrown, and I saw only one tick. Good so far. Once I got down to Otter Creek I knew the waterfall was about a quarter mile downstream and this is where the fun began (or not). The trail ended abruptly, a full scale bushwhack was in order. There was a bit of a path as it seemed people had gone down there before, but the going was difficult, it was very cliffy, and worst of all was the poison oak, which was overwhelmingly insane.

I came to one point where I had to cross the creek. I took off my boots, put on my “non slippery” water shoes, took one step into the creek and promptly fell onto my butt, getting most of me quite wet, but my camera was safe in my backpack (which is all that matters of course). No one but the squirrels were around to see me spill, and I am sure they were laughing hysterically. Dang those rocks were sure extremely slick. I continued down the creek (more carefully) to the waterfall. The non waterfall. My 40 ft high waterfall was a whopping five feet high. There was another little thing shortly below this one, which was ten feet high. My forty footer was non existent. And I was so sure there would be something good down here. I crossed over the slippery rocks in the creek again so I could get down to photograph the five footer. The ten footer was a bit too difficult to get down to so I skipped it but all in all this was not worth the extreme effort to visit. I’m sure I will be regretting it in a couple days big time when the poison oak rash sets in.

The hike back up was tough but I took it slowly. I had to. My belt buckle broke so keeping my shorts up was not as easy as it might seem. I addition to this, my shorts got totally ripped somehow (probably when I took a dump in that creek). Geez, good thing I wasn’t on the Yosemite Falls trail. The squirrels were having a field day. My GPS also wasn’t functioning very well. My old GPS broke recently and I had to get a new one. I loved that old GPS. It was so reliable and would function great even under heavy tree cover and in deep canyons. So I bought the exact same model this time (though they don’t even make this model anymore). You would think this new one would work exactly the same as the old one. No sir-ee Bob. I lost a signal down in this canyon and it just did not want get a good satellite lock down there. I know my old one would not have had this problem down there. This is really bad news if I can’t rely on my GPS. Ugh. Good thing I was able to find my way out of the canyon without a GPS today. I just followed the chattering squirrels.

After work on Thursday I headed up to Devils Falls to do some exploring. My wife is out of state, so that means I will not be able to go hiking as per usual on the weekend since I will have my daughter with me. My son is up at Nana’s, probably driving her crazy. Speaking of my daughter, Wednesday evening was incredible. She danced at a pre-game show for a Sacramento Kings NBA game (vs. Chicago Bulls). It was so awesome and fun, and the girls were just absolutely fantastic. What an experience for them to dance in a big arena with so many people watching (of course, there weren’t really that many people watching since it was a pre-game show, but there were still quite a few). We were able to watch the dance from the front row on the floor, and I was able to videotape it for posterity. Afterwards, we watched the basketball game (in which the Kings clobbered the Bulls – which is pretty amazing in itself considering they are a last place team), and Nekoda was really into the game, clapping and cheering the entire game. She thoroughly enjoyed her experience, and I am so proud of her.

Anyway back to Devils Falls. You may recall I said earlier I was planning to go back here to look for new waterfalls. Well guess what? I did. And I found one too. The plan was to climb up above Devils Falls and try to find more waterfalls upstream. The very first time I came to Devils Falls, I went up to the top of it, but I did not go very far. I had not been up there since. That was about 100 years ago. This time, I went much further. It is literally a mad scramble up the mountain above Devils Falls. There is a path (actually many paths), because people often go up here, but you are essentially climbing up the mountain on all fours; it is steep, with crumbly ground, and overgrown branches all over the place. The good news is that the fire last year cleared out the brush and poison oak, and the ticks as well. I did get one tick on me, and it totally freaked me out. I did not find it on me until afterwards on the drive home, I felt in my hair and the little bugger came off onto my hand. I slammed on the brakes, got out of the car, brushed it off, then madly shook my hair all over in case there were more. There were no more but for the rest of the night I was constantly feeling my hair for other ticks. Ooh, shivers!

Anyway back to Devils Falls. I scrambled up and came upon this very decent 29 ft. high slide. I did not stop, because I wanted to go much further up the creek and was hoping to find an even bigger and better waterfall. I went quite a ways, but did not find anything bigger. There were plenty of small falls and cascades, but nothing struck my fancy too much. The entire creek drainage, however, is very scenic and with a lot more flow in the creek I think you could definitely find plenty of excellent photographic opportunities. If you like mad scrambling, that is. It is not an easy task to climb up there. I went back down to this lower slide and found a spot to photograph it. It was starting to get dark so I quickly took my shots then scuttled back down the mountain to the car. It was a great evening at Devils Falls.

Here is a vertical shot of Canyon Creek Falls. There was very little room to photograph this waterfall. I was standing on a rock outcropping in the middle of the creek, but I could not move anywhere to the left or right because I would have been stepping right into a very deep pool. There was no where else to stand but here, leaving little room for any variety in the way of compositions.

Still looking for more rain this year. My guy says it is still looking good for end of this month, but geez it sure seems like spring now. And that usually means we are done and over for the year. We are now well into the third straight month with little rain. It is depressing!

I set my clock ahead an hour on Friday night. One day early. All part of my plan for the weekend. Actually, Thursday would have even been better, but of course I had to work on Friday, so I couldn’t do it then. I also went to bed a little earlier than usual on Friday night, so I really only lost half an hour. By the end of the day on Saturday, I am fully adjusted to the new time, so that will make getting up to go hiking on Sunday morning very easy, and with sunrise an hour later now, I will get an extra hour of sleep back as well. Does that make any sense at all to anyone but myself? P.S. Don’t tell my pastor I might be skipping church on Sunday.

I drove up to Foresthill on Saturday morning, anxious to get a good hike in with my brand new hiking boots. They would certainly end up getting a good workout. I had a great plan, but this time around, the plan did not come together. I came to a locked gate, private property, and an ominous sign that said: no “warning” shots will be fired. Ah ok, I guess we all know what that implies. I will definitely not be hiking here. Time to implement Plan B.

Plan B was to hike down into Snyder Canyon. I found this waterfall when I was hiking to Blind Canyon last year. I could hear the waterfall from the road, but could I get down to it? It was very steep. Like practically vertical steep. At least that is what I remembered from my nightmares. When I arrived this weekend, and peered down into the canyon, I saw steep but it was not vertical steep. It was definitely do-able, but I could not see all the way down to the creek though, and it looked quite brushy down there. It was going to be a challenge but Leon the Waterfall Hunter was ready. Down I went. Weeeeeeeeeee ahhhhhh…..

The first part was not so hard getting down (getting back up was another story, however). I could not see any waterfall, but I could hear the creek, and I let my ears do the walking towards the loudest part of the creek. I knew there was a waterfall down there, but I was not sure exactly where on the creek it would be. Once I got down to the trees, I found a bit of a path, and it led me through most of the brushy-ness. Obviously people had been down here before. That in itself is a bit shocking. This canyon just seems too steep and remote, and who the heck would think there would be a waterfall down here anyway (besides me). There was a heckuva lot of poison oak down closer to the creek as well, and I eventually gave up trying to avoid it. Here’s hoping I don’t get the itch.

I could finally see the creek and a waterfall, and I made my way down to it. The last step was a doozy, I had to jump down from a rock to the creek level. Once down I turned around. Umm, how am I going to climb back up that rock? Oh well, let’s worry about that after I take pictures shall I? The waterfall is not a photogenic one, and it was not flowing very great, even after some recent rain we just had. This was the best view I could find, and I had to climb up a slippery rock to get to this spot, then slide back down the rock afterwards, all with camera and tripod in hand.

Now about climbing back up that other rock? There was just no way I could do it. I would be stuck down here forever. I looked around for another possibility, and I found one, managing to hook my rope around a tree branch and hoist my way back up the drop-off. It was a bit on the crazy side of things but it worked. Fortunately my wife will probably not read this because she is currently in Alaska. (don’t anyone tell her, ok) Haha. Back up through the poison oak, and up the very steep mountain. I was beat, but I made it. I can’t imagine I will ever be back down in this canyon, it is just too steep and difficult, but ask me again in a year, and I might give a different answer. I do think there are other waterfalls down there.

– Hannibal Smith
So … what a great hike this weekend. One of the best hikes I have had in quite some time. Why was it so great? The waterfall was certainly not spectacular with the low flow in the creek. It was a killer hike down to it too. Lots of ticks. Fresh mountain lion scat. Poison oak. Does that sound like a fantastic hike to you?

Well it does sound pretty good to me, but mostly it was because I did not think I would have any chance in a cat’s meow to ever get to this waterfall. I knew there was a waterfall here because the rafters stop here on their way down the Middle Fork American River. I never heard of anyone ever hiking to this waterfall. I never heard of any trail to it. Certainly it was not possible.

Then I heard recently that there was a powerhouse down at the bottom of Canyon Creek. Hmmm, surely if there was a powerhouse, there must be a road to it as well. This is logical. They have to get to the powerhouse somehow, don’t they? (never mind that they could take a very short boat ride across the river). I studied Google Earth for hours looking for such road. I could not see one. The image quality of this particular area in GE is quite bad. Well if there is any road, I determined it would come from one of three directions. I picked the most logical one and decided to try it. If I struck out, I figured that I could just go on a different hike in that area instead.

I chose wisely my friends. I was so pleased. I drove up to Georgetown on Saturday morning, in the early morning hours. I only had to 10:30AM to finish this hike. My daughter’s birthday party started at noon at Sunrise Rollerland (near the Sunrise Mall). It would be close but I was sure I could do it. The road crosses Canyon Creek and I got out (in the dark) and checked the creek conditions. The creek was flowing quite strongly. I was happy. I continued driving up on rough dirt roads until I reached my proposed trailhead. There was a gate here, and lots of no trespassing signs. Humph!

Well I knew no one would be around so I decided to just go. I was pretty sure that this was a public road anyway, at least to begin with. As it turns out, this is a public historic trail, the Wendell T Robie Trail. I had no idea this trail went here, and it actually goes all the way down to Canyon Creek and continues along the river to Sliger Mine. As I said, I had no clue about this. I did not think there could possibly be a trail here since no one had ever mentioned hiking to this waterfall. Well what do I know anyway. As for the gate and signs? They are illegal, I am sure of it. Someone has built a new house down here, and put up the gates and signs to keep people out, but they have no right to block access to a historic trail, and the trail does not even go anywhere near the house anyway. It really bugs me.

So anyway, I was quite pleased to find out my route continued all the way down to Canyon Creek. That is the understatement of the year thus far. I was ecstatic. It was steep though, eventually losing 1600 ft. in elevation by the time I reached the river. The last 1000 ft. were particularly nasty. Nothing dangerous. Just straight down steepness. Hiking back up the trail was nightmarish. The road is clearly not used anymore by the powerhouse people. I suspect at one time it was, though it is so steep and narrow, I don’t think you could ever drive a vehicle down it, but they must have used it for something or other.

Once down at the creek, I needed to work my way back upstream to the waterfall. This part I figured would be easy, since the rafters come here all the time, I was certain there must be a good trail leading up to the falls. Ah, no. No trail at all. The only way to do it is to hike right up the creekbed. It was slippery, there were cascades and big boulders that you had to climb up, crossing the creek back and forth a few times, and also poison oak that you had to go through in a couple places. It was actually quite fun.

It took awhile but I finally got up to the waterfall, cascading down into a beautiful deep pool. There was about half the flow in the creek that was up at the bridge crossing. No doubt this is due to the water being sucked out of the creek into the powerhouse. It is a pretty waterfall but it would look much better at higher flows, and I really would like to come back here someday. The only thing is, I do not think it is going to be possible to hike up the creekbed at higher flows. I will probably try it someday anyhow. Could be fun.

On the hike back up, I saw what appeared to be fresh mountain lion scat along the trail. At least I think it was mountain lion. Whatever it was, it was very fresh. Two weeks ago, a mountain lion was stalking a hiker in Colfax and eventually had to be killed. I have been on edge since hearing about that. I was prepared today, with my bear spray very handy as I hiked (hoping that bear spray also works on mountain lions) – normally I am more worried about ticks and poison oak. Anyway, I did not see anything but quail, squirrels, and a deer. And I did make it to my daughter’s birthday party on time. What a great day.