Leon Turnbull Photography

Codfish Creek Falls is not one I would normally go to on my own for a number of reasons. I have been to it many times before and usually I like going to new stuff. But on Sunday afternoon I wanted an easy hike that our whole family could go to and Codfish definitely qualifies.

I tried to go out to a waterfall on Saturday. With four inches or so of new rain in the foothills I figured Canyon Creek at Gold Run would be perfect. And it almost was. I like to call Canyon Creek, Tick City because it is infested with the little buggers in the spring. I once had to brush off about fifty ticks clinging to me after hiking about a mile down the canyon. I figured this trip would be no different. It is early in the season but the ticks are out already due to the warm weather and lack of precip this year. Out in force. I have heard it is the worst season for ticks perhaps ever (and I know that the last two seasons have been very awful). However, I did have some good news. This last storm brought low snow, about a foot to Gold Run. All the ticks were buried under it, making my hike more difficult but much more pleasant with no ticks. Unfortunately it also brought one more difficulty: that darn narrow freaky bridge crossing over Canyon Creek just above the first waterfall. As it was very early in the morning and very cold, the bridge was a skating rink, very icy, and very dangerous to cross. One slip and I would have plunged into the cold fast rushing creek below. Not good. I decided to turn back. A wise decision but it made me very disappointed.

So that is why I wanted to go out on Sunday. I needed to at least get to one waterfall this weekend even if it is one I’ve been to before. My family has been sick and didn’t really want to go, especially my daughter, but I managed to talk them into it and everyone had a really nice time.

There was a lot of people out on the trail to Codfish even though it was late on Sunday afternoon. This is another reason I don’t like to come here anymore and if I do it would be at sunrise before anyone else is out and about. Once we got to the falls I had to wait quite awhile for everyone and their dog to clear out of the way so I could have a view of the falls with no one in the way. In the meantime the kids had fun throwing plenty of rocks into the creek. I was able to easily get right into the creek to take this photo. After an inch or more of recent rain here I thought the creek would have quite a bit more flow on it. Not so.

The last reason I may not come here much in the future, though, is a new one: there is now a $10 fee to park here! What the heck? You have to now pay ten dollars to go on a one hour hike?? Let’s be honest folks, this is totally ridiculous. And let’s just consider how awful the access road down to the river is, which requires a high clearance vehicle to drive on, and the facilities consist of one small dirty outhouse. So what is my fee going towards anyway? I would not likely mind to pay perhaps a $5 fee (at most) but $10 for a one hour hike is way way over the top. Nuff said.

After taking a couple weeks off, my ankle finally feels better. Not 100 percent yet for sure, but more than enough that I feel I can do some serious hiking again. Off trail hiking. To remote, tough to get to waterfalls. Down in the LA area, I went to a couple easy ones. Not a problem for my healing ankle. Walking around Disneyland for four days I survived. The worst part of that was just the fact that you are walking around on pavement all day. Walking on pavement is many times worse than walking on dirt trails. My feet were in agony by the end of that. But my ankle was fine. Last weekend, I wanted to get out hiking, but instead took the weekend off. This weekend, though, I definitely wanted to get back on the hiking grid. And I did.

The destination was to be a new waterfall for me: Upper Marble Creek Falls. I was not sure about access to this waterfall, and I had heard it was difficult, cliffy, and with abundant poison oak. I also expected to find many ticks, as this year is supposedly the worst in ages (and the last two years have been incredibly awful for ticks). I decided to take my dog along on this hike. Normally on a hike like this I would not take her, because I do not know the terrain, and I could easily get to a place where she would not be able to go any further. But she is getting older, and probably does not have too many hiking years left in her, and I was feeling like she needs to have as much fun now as she possibly can. So I took her along. And of course, that made her very happy.

If there were a lot of ticks though, the hike would not last long for either of us. I was watching very closely but I saw none of the little buggers all day long. I’m not sure why, but I suspect it may have been much too cold for them. Poison oak though was a different matter. There was plenty of that and more. Doh.

My initial thought on this waterfall was to approach it from above. Looking at a map that seems to be the quickest route. Unfortunately it is all private property above the falls, and I did not see any way to get to it without crossing through anyone’s backyard. Not wanting to give up, I looked at my map again, and saw a possible route from below. A longer route but maybe that would not be private, and as I found out it was not. Yeah. We parked the car and walked across a wide open field over to the creek drainage. From there, we started up towards the falls, and that is where we encountered all the oak, but the going was not too bad otherwise. As we got closer to the falls, the terrain got a bit rougher and steeper, but again, not too bad. I just had to be careful with my ankle is all. I could hear the waterfall as we approached, but I could not see any water in the creek downstream. Weird, I thought. When we arrived at the falls I found out why. At the base of the falls, the water disappeared underground. It must  re-emerge somewhere, but I’m not sure where. If there was more water flowing, it obviously would not all go underground, but there was not a lot of water flowing right now. It should be spectacular right now, of course, but our very dry winter has taken that away. It was still a very lovely waterfall though, even at low water flows, dropping an amazing 77 ft. into a tight narrow gorge. At high flows it would be an amazing spot to be, but also likely very difficult to photograph if there was a lot of spray. I’m quite certain I will return here when the waterfall is flowing greater. It was not difficult to get to, the only tough part was all the poison oak.

On the way back across the fields, I noticed from a long way off a couple dogs on the other side of the field. No owners. No houses nearby. They saw us coming, and just waited beside my car for us to come. They knew we were coming back that way. They were just puppies, and incredibly friendly little guys, jumping all over us when we got there. We eventually managed to escape them, and got back in the car, at which time they continued to play with each other, rolling around in the grass. Fun stuff.

After this hike, we went on a second hike in the area, looking for a second waterfall. I found it, a very big one, but it was surrounded by huge cliffs on each side of it, and the waterfall offered up no views of itself. I searched for one in vain. There must be a way to see this one. I will definitely be looking for a way to get back to this one.

Instead of spending a second whole day at Joshua Tree NP, we took a drive down to Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge, about a hundred miles from where we were staying. It seemed that another whole day at Joshua Tree would have been too much, and I went back and forth about it in my head. I think we probably should have spent another day there, I could have gotten up for another nice sunrise shot or two at Joshua Tree, and I regret only having the one really nice sunset shot from there. But it is not that Salton Sea is not an interesting place, it really is. We saw tons of birds there, and some of them from really closeup, right beside the road, such as these cattle egrets. So I got quite a few good bird shots, and I will likely share some more.

On the way back to Twentynine Palms, we went back through Joshua Tree park, with plans of shooting sunset there. But the clouds rolled in at the last moment, and I got nuthin. We did have a very interesting drive, however, as we took some back roads to get back to JT, including a stop at a border patrol station hundreds of miles north of the border. They asked us all our citizenship and had a dog sniffing our car. What is up with that?

On our way down to Disneyland we first stopped off for a couple days at Joshua Tree National Park. The first night there we had a pretty darn nice sunset, but unfortunately we were not in a great “scenic” location. This was taken from the Indian Cove area, where we hiked along a loop before sunset. I wasn’t happy about the location (and my composition in particular), but the sunset colors more than made up for it. This was the only decent photo I took at Joshua Tree. It is my own fault, I should have made more of an effort there, but we did other things instead. I really liked the park and the desert, it is incredibly interesting. I was hoping to see more wildlife, however. The most interesting thing we saw was a jack rabbit, and that was on the first evening here (when I took this shot). We spent the entire next day wandering around the park, seeing the sites, and hiking the easy trails. I think everyone (kids included) really liked the desert and the park. They loved climbing around on the rocks and exploring beside the trails. By the end of that day I was totally beat. We got back to the hotel, I took a nap, and ended up missing a second nice colorful sunset. That did not make me too happy. The third evening we tried for a sunset shot, but the clouds rolled in an hour before the sun went down, and it was a washout. Bummer-ness!

A surprise rain in Southern California, and it got the waterfalls down there trickling.

We were down vacationing at Disneyland for the week. My initial plan on going to Disneyland in February was that I figured I could take a couple days and go waterfallin’ while we were down there. I had not yet been to any SoCal waterfalls, and I was really hoping to add to my collection this year. God had other plans, however. No rain in December and January meant the waterfalls were bone dry. I did not even take any of my maps or GPS down to SoCal, figuring it would be completely pointless to try going to any waterfalls. Instead, we took a side trip first to Joshua Tree National Park, then continued on over to Disneyland. It would have been pointless for sure. but then the surprise rain came.

It was not much rain, about an inch at the most. But I thought, what the hey, maybe the creeks got enough water in them to make a waterfallin hike worthwhile. So I quickly planned out a couple easy waterfalls to hike to the next morning.

I got up super early. I did not want to deal with any traffic through Los Angeles. Even at 5AM, there was a ton of traffic on the road. This should not have surprised me, but it did. Yikes, that is crazy, but at least the traffic was moving along quickly. It was still dark when I arrived at the trailhead to Sturtevant Falls, and I started my hike down to the waterfall, a steep descent along a paved road. Once down at the bottom of the canyon I began to have second thoughts. There was not a lot of water flowing in the creek. I continued on up to the falls. The flow was about what I expected, but I was certainly hoping for more. Nonetheless, Sturtevant Falls is a pretty 40 ft. high waterfall, and fortunately it does not need a lot of water flow to look nice.

I finished taking my photos quickly because there was a second waterfall I wanted to get to before the sun got too high. As I was finishing my last shot, a group of Japanese men came up the trail behind me to the falls. What? I was a bit shocked to see anyone out on the trail so early, and especially on a week day. If this was northern California, there would certainly be no one out so early (not counting Yosemite of course). On the hike back, I saw even more hikers coming up the trail. I guess that is just the way things are in Los Angeles but I prefer having my waterfalls all to myself, which is one reason why I always get to them so early in the morning.