Leon Turnbull Photography

My big plan for the first afternoon in Yosemite was to hike up to Chilnualna Falls at Wawona. 4 miles one way. 2500 ft. elevation gain. I was already tired before I started thanks to the scrambling I did at Foresta Falls in the morning. Not a good thing.

The hike starts out with a bang as you quickly come to what I am calling Lower Chilnualna Falls. It is not the actual Chilnualna Falls, but it is a fabulous waterfall in its own right and deserves its own recognition, as it is about an 80 ft. high falls. Chilnualna Creek was roaring like all the creeks in Yosemite, it seemed more like a river than a creek. And once again, Lower Chilnualna Falls was very difficult to photograph because of all the mist.

After the lower falls, the trail begins to climb, and climb, and climb. But to be perfectly honest, I did not find this hike very hard. It was up hill the entire distance, no doubt about that. But it was a very gentle up hill climb for the vast majority of the hike. I kept expecting the trail to get a lot steeper, but it never did.

Nonetheless, it was a long up hill trek. When you first come into view of the actual Chilnualna Falls, you have two thoughts. The first is “Wow!” What an awesome waterfall! The second is “Crap!” Look at how far up I still have to go! Maybe those two thoughts will be reversed for you. Slowly, ploddingly, you make your way up to the brink of Chilnualna Falls.

But well before I made it up there, it started to snow! It was the end of April, and it was snowing! What’s up with that? At first, it was quite light and was not sticking. I much prefer snow to rain, and I was dressed warmly enough, so I was not worried too much about it. I met one other hiker coming down from the top, who said it was snowing more up there, and he had to turn around at a creek crossing. I checked my map to see which creek he was referring to. I wondered how difficult it would be to cross it when the creeks are all flowing so heavily. I didn’t want to get up there and not make it to the falls. I also didn’t want to have to take my boots off to ford a creek in the cold and the snow. I continued on.

The trouble with the Chilnualna Falls hike is that you can never actually see the waterfall. The trail comes to the brink of Chilnualna Falls, but there is no way to view the falls. The cliffs are much too steep. I imagine that some people have scrambled down to the brink and looked over at the roiling, massive, falls. But that’s way too out there for me, especially in the middle of a blizzard. Yes, it was an all out blizzard when I reached the top of the waterfall. The snow was sticking too, about a half inch it ended up leaving on the ground.

But all is not lost. There is another excellent cascade just upstream. I continued on up the trail to the creek crossing that the other hiker was telling me about. Yep, I’d have to get my feet wet to cross it. But wait! There’s some logs I can walk across on. No problem whatsoever. I crossed the creek and made my way back over to Chilnualna Creek where the waterfall is. This cascade is what most of the guidebooks call Chilnualna Falls, which is quite incorrect. Nonetheless, it is a fabulous 80 ft. high cascade. But the snow was blowing like crazy when I was here, directly into my face. None of my photos turned out at all, which is quite unfortunate.

I figure I should leave you with a little something more from Chilnualna Falls. There are many fabulous cascades along this creek worth a look and a photograph. This one is just up from the brink of the main waterfall.

Cascade Creek and Tamarack Creek collide together at the top of a huge waterfall.

After scrambling around at Foresta Falls, I headed down into the valley. Along the way, I made an unscheduled stop at the turnout for The Cascades. There is only one way to describe how the waterfalls were at Yosemite when I was there. They had gone completely nuts. The snow was melting, all the waterfalls were roaring mad, and the Merced River was hog wild. I have only been to Yosemite once before at this time of year when the waterfalls are going crazy like this. It was completely awesome, but it also makes for very challenging photography. When I went to the base of the Cascades, it may as well have been pouring rain, because I was totally drenched standing there. I tried to take a photo, but it did not turn out at all. At the top of the waterfall though, it was a different story. I scrambled down in between the two creeks to where I could get a vantage of them colliding together. I didn’t really want to do too much more scrambling around this day because I had done enough of that at Foresta and I had a killer hike yet to do in the afternoon. More on that later. Nonetheless, I ventured down to this view point, and took a shot. It was not difficult, but you wouldn’t want to fall here, that’s for sure.

I just returned from a marvelous and very quick weekend trip to Yosemite National Park, a much needed time for me to get away from the grind. I am tired, sore, and I have a zillion pictures to process. My goal this trip was to visit “different” waterfalls in Yosemite, ones that are off the beaten path, and ones that I have not seen before.

First up is Foresta Falls. Actually, this is Lower Foresta Falls. The vast majority of visitors to Yosemite do not know about Foresta Falls, which is a 40 ft. cascade on Crane Creek near the settlement of Foresta, in the northern end of the park. Those who may know about it wouldn’t bother to visit it because it is not very exciting compared to the waterfalls in the valley. Of those few who do know about Foresta Falls, only a small fraction of those know about Lower Foresta Falls, which is just down the road a short distance from the upper falls, and is a much bigger waterfall. All in all, Lower Foresta Falls is about 200 ft. high. Still nothing to sneeze at compared to Yosemite or Bridalveil Falls, but a fabulous cascade nonetheless. The reason most people would not know about Lower Foresta Falls is because it is not marked on any map. In fact, there are three guidebooks published dealing exclusively with California waterfalls. All three mention the upper Foresta Falls, but none of them say squat about Lower Foresta Falls. I find that rather amusing. It is only another mile down the road.

Anyway, onto my story. I woke up at 2:30AM in the morning, after about 3 and a half hours of sleep. I was planning to leave at 2:45AM to get to Yosemite by sunrise. Astonishingly, my wife had not gone to bed yet! She often stays up late, but this was a bit ridiculous. Why are you still up, honey? She said she was staying awake until I got up, because she didn’t want to wake me when she came to bed. That was thoughtful of her, but arck, she wouldn’t have woken me up. So anyway, I grab my coffee, and I hit the road. 2:45AM.

As I arrived in Yosemite, it was raining. The weather forecast did not call for rain. I don’t really mind the rain as long as it’s not so bad that I can’t take photos, and it wasn’t raining very hard. Just off and on. I get down to the first waterfall, the upper Foresta Falls. I wasn’t sure if I could drive on the road, or if I would have to walk to it. The road was very narrow and a bit rough, but I managed it with my SUV. I just wondered how I would turn the beast around on this narrow road. The upper falls is kinda nice but nothing too special. It was quite difficult to photograph from the bridge (which is the only spot it can be photographed from), due to all the mist from the falls. This would be the theme for my weekend. Too much mist to photograph.

After the upper falls, I continued on down the road. Now I was really unsure if I should just walk or continue driving. I decided to save my energy (which I would need later in the day), and drive. The road was very rough and very narrow. Again, I made it down to the lower falls without incident. Once down at the lower falls, I had to turn the beast around on the narrow road. Not an easy task. Think Austin Powers (except with a 200 foot drop-off on one side of the road). I think I came pretty close to getting stuck.

Lower Foresta Falls is about 200 ft. in total height. About half of the falls is above the bridge and the other half is below the bridge. I did scramble down to the bottom of the falls, which was quite tricky. It was worth the effort but it was difficult to photograph the falls from the bottom due to obstructing trees and bushes. I liked this photo much better, which is just a small portion of the falls above the bridge. It was a good start to my weekend.

Well, there was no craziness to get to this waterfall. It is actually a very easy one to get right up to, and it is a beauty, towering 173 ft high.

This is an interesting location. The creek funnels right into the powerhouse here, just below the waterfall. Whenever I am here, I always wonder if anyone has ever slipped into the creek here. If they did, there’s a good possibility the creek would flush them right into the powerhouse. That would be rather freaky. I sure wouldn’t want to be that person. Of course, if you just stay on the proper trail, there would be no risk of that happening. But who wants to do that?

Sugar Pine Creek Falls is a doozy of a waterfall to bag. If you’ve been down to Jay Bird Canyon Powerhouse, you know that the canyon walls are incredibly steep here. Almost unbelievably steep. And you’ve probably noticed this waterfall on Sugar Pine Creek from across the canyon. But how to get up close to it?

The third time is a charm for me. The first time I was here, last year, I didn’t really do much exploring cuz the light was quite bad, but I noticed that the route down from the road looked way too steep to try. So I didn’t. The second time, I tried going up Silver Creek from the powerhouse. I almost made it, but I came to a dead end and could go no further. I realized the only possible way to get a view of this waterfall was to scramble down from the road. I decided to try it again this past weekend. I even brought rope, thinking it might help me get down if it was too steep. When I arrived, I found that it wasn’t nearly as steep as I thought it was. There was an obvious route down from the road to a viewpoint overlooking the falls, and I didn’t even need the rope.

I made it to the viewpoint, took a couple photos, and then thought it might be possible to go even further, maybe all the way down to the bottom. I decided to try going further. Well, that’s when it started getting much more dicey, and the poison oak decided to make an appearance as well. Going further required putting my hand right in the stuff, and the terrain got quite a lot steeper. I made it to a second (and better) viewpoint, and took another photo (shown here).

From there, I decided not to continue any further. I had gotten to a great view of the waterfall, and felt I had bagged it. I didn’t need to get to the bottom. Plus, it looked a lot steeper further down, with lots more poison oak, and I didn’t need to push my luck any further. Though, maybe someday I’ll return and try it. Who knows. Sugar Pine Creek Falls is a huge waterfall, about 600 ft. high. This is the lower 100 ft. of the falls, dropping into Silver Creek. The upper sections of this massive waterfall are not really viewable, but this lower section is definitely a beauty.