The final snow stats are in as of Apr 1: snow pack is 124% of normal (north), 107% (central), and 100% (south). Precipitation is at 97% (north), 86% (central), 85% (south). So as you can see we ended the season just slightly above normal for snow pack. After the Great Blizzard the first weekend in March we had nothing at all until the last week. It is a bit unfortunate it is not more but it is pretty good. We will have a good spring season for waterfallin.
I had never been to Pinnacles National Park before and Saturday of Easter weekend seemed like a good day to try it. I was not expecting too much. It had rained over two inches there in the past week. I was hoping to see at least three decent waterfalls and something else as well. Meh. It turned out to be better than I expected, exactly as I expected, and also worse than I expected.
I was risen at 3AM. It is a very long drive. Thus the reason I had not been there before. Also it does not rain much there. Thus the second reason. I arrived at sunrise. There were already people there starting out on the cave trail before me.
I wanted to do the cave trail first. This is a very popular hike and I did not want to do it with a lot of other people on the trail. I saw just three other groups on the trail so it wasn’t too bad. I first came upon Moses Springs Falls, a tall 72 ft. waterfall but not exactly a high flowing stream. With the recent rain, however, it was kinda cool to stand right under this one. My photo (to be posted laster) did not do it justice, it was much better in person. Unfortunately there is poison oak there and I did not realize it before I touched it. Ugh.
After this you enter the caves. This was perhaps the highlight of the hike. It was much better than anticipated and very cool. A lot of the time you are hiking through the creek bed. It is completely dark. (of course I had my headlamp). The deepest part was up to my shins. One section you had to climb straight up a small cascade. Other parts were so narrow I could barely fit through them. I had to really squeeze (and I am not fat, obviously). There are a couple decent waterfalls in here as well but it is too dark to photograph them. One in particular I thought for quite some time about trying to photograph but decided not to.
After the caves you come to some steps to climb up and beside the main highlight: Bear Gulch Cave Falls, 34 ft. high. This is the main waterfall I wanted to see on this trip. I knew it would be decent after the rain, and it was just exactly as I expected. It is a bit difficult to photograph from halfway up the steps. I’m not sure how much of the waterfall is man-made, being just below the man-made reservoir, but it is a very pretty drop.
I went back down on the Rim trail and when I got back to my car I found the parking lot completely full (it is not a big lot). I drove down to the lower lot and it was almost completely full as well. It was only about an hour after sunrise. I first hiked down to the lower Bear Gulch Creek Falls but found it completely dry. That was very disappointing especially because there was quite a bit of water in the creek (it seems to go underground before the waterfall). For my third hike, I wanted to hike up the Condor Gulch trail for two reasons: One, there are a couple waterfalls on this hike. I was not expecting much from them and it was even worse than I expected. The trail comes to the top of Condor Gulch Falls but there is no view of the waterfall. It did not look like much of a waterfall anyway but I’ll maybe try again some other day when it is flowing better.
The second reason I wanted to hike up this trail was to see the condors. I have never seen any condors in the wild before, and “Condor Gulch” seemed like a good spot to see some. I was right on all accounts. There were many soaring above me. I did not go all the way to the top but came to an open spot where it seemed a perfect place for lunch and to watch the birds soaring through the canyon. As soon as I arrived, one of them flew right over my head very close. I did not have my camera ready, but a short while later it happened again, and this time I did have my camera ready. I’m not sure I got any decent shots of it, however, because my tripod was not working properly. We’ll see. Anyway, it was a very cool experience seeing these amazing birds. When it started to rain, I hiked back down to the car and then made the long drive home. I was so tired I slept for 11 hours that night. I was up in time for church to celebrate the most important day of the year. Jesus risen from the grave to save us, all of us. It was a great weekend at Pinnacles National Park.
I did not get the poison oak itch too horribly bad. A few spots. I have had better but I have had worse. I definitely made the right decision leaving early and washing up when I got home. My wife still thinks I am an idiot for hiking anyplace where this is oak. LOL. But dang, Manning Falls was an awesome waterfall.
This is Upper Salmon Creek Falls. It was not particularly easy getting down to it. The slope is steep and the ground is very hard. You will definitely be sliding down, not walking down. Thankfully there is no cliff. I was very much impressed with this one, it was much better than I expected. I measured it to be 26 ft. high, but it seems more like 36 ft. when you are down there. It is better in real life than in pictures. It is a beauty.
The sun is out. It is time for backpacking! Let’s go to Big Sur!
I wasn’t really sure about this hike as far as a backpacking trip goes. It is only a 2 mile hike. I could easily do it as a day hike. The problem is that it is so far from home. There is no way I could do it as a day hike. Either I would have to stay in a hotel somewhere, or stay in a campground somewhere, or backpack. I chose to backpack.
I arrived at the Salmon Creek Falls trailhead at about 9:15am. I went up to the waterfall by the road first. I was quite surprised at how strongly Salmon Creek Falls was flowing. It has not rained in quite some time. The Great Blizzard was two weeks ago but even with that storm the central coast did not get that much rain. I figured Salmon Creek would be mellow. Instead it was roaring. It was a good sign.
I continued up to camp and arrived about noon. This trail was a lot easier than I expected as well. I thought there would be a lot more elevation gain in the two miles up to camp. The campsite was not very exciting. There was very little sun. That might be good in the summer, but not so much in the winter. I had my lunch, set up camp, relaxed for a few hours (trying to find some sun to sit in), ate my dinner, then set out on a waterfall search.
I thought it would be a pretty easy hike to the first waterfall. It was less than a mile from camp. It was off-trail of course but I thought it would take an hour at most, probably less. It took 2 hours. And it was certainly not easy. In fact, it was absolutely grueling. It was almost impossible. And the poison oak!
From the trail you need to scramble down a very steep and hard slope to Salmon Creek, cross Salmon Creek, and then scramble up to the falls. Once down at Salmon Creek I could not find the creek confluence. It was not exactly where it is indicated on the USGS Topo map and the location was not obvious. I eventually found it. I thought it would be an easy creek walk up to the falls. Ha! It started out well enough but soon I came to a blockage (small waterfall) with no way to continue. There was a bit of a path (people have been to this one before), and it seemed to go up and around the blockage, however this route did not work either. I got cliffed out.
By now I had spent a lot more time in this canyon than anticipated and it was starting to get late. I was ready to give up and I started to head back down. I decided to try one more thing, climbing straight up the mountain to the very top of the ridge. Maybe I could traverse the ridge and at least get a good view of the waterfall from the top. It was not easy. I came to a few difficult spots. I thought about turning back more than once. I did not really want to continue on, it was much too hard, but I decided to at least go on until I reached my turn-around time. The biggest problem along the traverse was the poison oak. It was atrocious and unavoidable. I was in it like gangbusters. I could now glimpse the top of the falls but there was no clear view. I had to descend down across a steep ravine and up the other side. The waterfall was right there but still no clear view. There was a steep descent down to the bottom. I did not want to do it (I would have to climb back up after), but now I was so close that I had to do it. I made it down to the base of the waterfall. The poison oak down at the bottom was out of this world. I have never seen so much. I could not get photos from up close because it was so misty so I had to find a spot further back, setting up my tripod and standing right in the middle of the oak. This was not going to be pretty later.
Manning Falls is 100 ft. high exactly. Touchdown! I don’t know if it is named after Eli or Peyton. ha ha. Actually I think it is named after the person who discovered it. That’s kinda crappy. How many waterfalls have I discovered and none named after me. Well, Manning Falls is very pretty at low flows but at high flow like this it is spectacular. Absolutely magnificent. Was it worth the effort? I think so but maybe ask me again in a couple days when I see how bad my poison oak is.
It took an hour to hike back to the trail. There was still time so I went to Upper Salmon Creek Falls. This was easier but still quite hard to get down to.
When I got back to camp it was a little before sunset. I knew the poison oak would be bad so I made a new decision. I would pack up, hike back to the car in the dark, and drive home so I could wash up. I arrived back home at about 1am. So essentially this turned out to be just a day hike after all (carrying a heavy backpack) but I think it was a good decision. It was an incredible day in Silver Peak Wilderness.
I had a big whompin hike planned for Saturday but I just wanted to sleep in. When I got up I thought if there was another hike closer to home that I could do and maybe take Journey as well. I thought about Jay Bird Canyon Falls. It has been 13 years since I was there. It should be flowing well but could I get there? There would be a lot of snow. I didn’t think they normally plow this road and thus I figured it was quite unlikely but decided to try it anyway. I had a backup plan to go to Bassi Falls if the road was all snowed in.
Good news. The road was plowed all the way down to the power house. It was no problem at all driving all the way down to the gate. If it was not plowed there is no way I would have made it. The gate is interesting. The road is officially closed because of storm damage from 2017 so you need to walk from the gate (about 1.5 miles). But the road damage is fixed! So why is the road still closed? It does not make sense. At least there is a big area to park by the gate and it is not a difficult walk from here. But also, it is not very exciting to hike along the paved road either. It is rather boring. Nonetheless, Journey was very happy. She is always very happy to go hiking with daddy. Even on a boring road walk.
When you get down to the waterfall there is a steep section to climb up to the falls. At the base of the falls it was incredibly misty. Jay Bird Canyon Falls was roaring. There was no way to take photos from there. The only option was to climb up the ridge opposite the waterfall. It was very steep and the rocks were incredibly slick. I was worried about Journey. Not for climbing up but for going back down. She made it up no problem. I pondered how we were going to get her back down afterwards. Would she balk? Would I have to somehow carry her down? Or would she do all right?
In the meantime I took some photos from the top of the ridge. Jay Bird Canyon Falls is 173 ft. high. It was spectacular. I think it may have been slightly stronger when I was here last in 2011 but it was pretty similar. Absolutely amazing.
We very carefully hiked back down to the creek level. Journey did awesome! She made it down those steep slick rocks without slipping once. I was so proud of her. We had our lunch at the bottom, then hiked back up the road to the car. It was a fabulous day in Eldorado National Forest.
Here’s another Folsom waterfall. It looked a lot bigger from the road and definitely seemed to be more than 20 ft. high, but when I got down to it I realized it was only 15 ft. high at most. I won’t be including this on my website but I did take a photo of it, so here you go.
After this I took Journey on a hike by the lake. The last time I hiked this trail was 15 years ago when I came across a scene straight out of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds: 20 vultures all lined up on fence posts along the trail, such a strange and incredible experience. It was a cold sunny day and they were all warming themselves on the fence. Well it was a cold sunny day again today, perfect conditions for a sequel. Would I see them again, I wondered? Lo and behold, I did see the vultures today warming themselves on the posts. It was not quite the same experience as before and not as many this time (9 or 10), but it was very cool. Unfortunately a dog on the other side of the fence came down to see us and scared the birds away but I was able to take some photos. Journey was much more interested in the dog than the birds. It was a beautiful morning at Folsom Lake.
