I don’t know what I was thinking with this one. I knew it was iffy getting down to the bottom of Lower Battle Creek Falls, and that was in the summer when there is no snow. In the winter, it is downright treacherous. I should have known that. But I naively figured I could find a way down there. With my dog too.
Well, I wasn’t actually planning on going to this waterfall anyway. I was looking for another waterfall on Battle Creek. But snow stopped me on that quest. I didn’t want to just go home without having anything to show for my getting up so darn golly early, so I figured to try this waterfall since I was in the area. It was rather a fun hike from the highway down to the creek over the snow. Other people had gone down there, so it was easy to follow in their tracks. Once down at the creek, I needed to work my way downstream to the falls. No more tracks to follow. Without snowshoes, it was difficult, and I often fell through the snow. But the snow was hard, so it wasn’t too bad. Battle Creek was a winter wonderland, with plenty of snow and ice all around. The trail goes right along the creek, and it was impossible to tell where the creek was and where the land was. It would have been easy to plop right through the snow into the water. Not a good thing. I decided to take the high road, well above the creek. Eventually, I made it down to the top of the falls. Okay, it was a lot more steep and treacherous than I remembered. With the hard snow, one slip and I would’ve been down at the bottom in a couple seconds, and it would not have been pretty. I stood there pondering the situation for quite awhile. How could I get down there? My dog is apparently much smarter than I am. She was having none of this pondering nonsense. No way was she going to go down to the bottom. Eventually, I decided to heed my dog’s advice and give up trying to get down. But I just had to get some sort of photo out of this adventure, so I took this shot from the top of the falls. It was a bit dicey shooting from this location as well. It is not a great shot, but it does show just how pretty this waterfall is in the winter. Too bad you can’t get down to the bottom without killing yourself in the process.
My first post of 2009 is a waterfall of course. I wanted to get back to Burney Falls while there was still snow there, so I managed to talk my friend Brian into going there with me, even though he had been to Burney twice in the past two weeks. It probably wouldn’t have been his first choice. Indeed, he wanted me to take him to a couple different waterfall locations, both of which were on private property. I’m not keen on trespassing, but I took him anyway to see we could find any legal access to those waterfalls. Instead, we found lots of brand new fencing and no trespassing signs (and surveillance cameras!). It is definitely a huge bummer when once accessible scenic locations (such as waterfalls) are no longer accessible to the public because owners no longer permit access to those locations (sometimes illegally too).
Anyway, it was off to Burney Falls for us instead. It was very cold, and we were the only ones out and about this morning at the park. Unfortunately, it would have been better to have been at Burney Falls right after the last snow storm when there was still snow on the rocks and trees. We did see three river otters near the bottom of the falls, which was very neat. They were very curious looking up at me to see what I was doing. But as soon as I took out my camera to photograph them, poof, they were gone.
Here’s the GBH I found at my own little marsh near my house in Folsom. I had an enjoyable time watching this guy, though he didn’t move around too much. LOL. As soon as I left though, he flew over to very near where I was sitting. Doh!
The day after Christmas, my friend Rob and I made some plans to go out waterfall hunting. We decided to try Seven Falls near Oroville, a poison oak infested, steep cliff hanging, and brush scrambling ratfest, but an incredibly beautiful waterfall area. If there is one place that is worth getting a case of poison oak for, it is Seven Falls. We made the long, slow drive up there; tagging along for the ride was Rob’s daughter and her friend. I’m not sure Rob did such a great job informing them of what they were getting into on this hike. They seemed surprised when I mentioned what the hike was going to be like.
Well, we didn’t make it anyway. We surprisingly ran into a lot of snow on the road up past the Feather Falls area. Too much snow for my big 4 wheel drive SUV to handle. We had to turn around. In doing so, we managed to get stuck. It took awhile for us to dig out (fortunately, I had Rob and the girls to help me, or I might still be up there). We decided to head on back down and make the hike out to see spectacular Feather Falls instead. It was a good choice.
I was anxious to return to Feather Falls this winter for a couple reasons. The first is because of the huge wildfire that occurred here this summer, causing the trail to be closed for most of the summer. There was damage to the overlook as well as many fallen trees along the trail. The burnt areas were definitely noticeable, but it was certainly not awful. There were a few fallen trees but not too many, and the overlook was completely restored and damage was not noticeable except for a few burnt boards that were replaced.
The second reason I wanted to get back to Feather Falls was to determine its true height. I had read on Bryan Swan and Dean Goss’ world waterfalls website that they had determined that Feather Falls was not 640 ft. high, as is widely reported. Indeed, after examining the topo maps, it seemed to be more in the neighborhood of 400 ft. high. I wanted to measure it more officially with my laser rangefinder and clinometer to confirm this difference of opinion. I found that indeed Feather Falls is only 410 ft. high. It is definitely *not* 640 ft. high, and certainly nowhere near being the 6th highest waterfall in the U.S. (which is also widely reported). This came as a complete shock and big disappointment to me. I had always just assumed the 640 figure was accurate. Who came up with that figure and how? But the truth is now revealed: Feather Falls true height is 410 ft.
In other tidbits, Rob came oh so close to making it to the base of Feather Falls. If you’ve been to Feather Falls, you know how crazy that sounds and how sheer steep the cliffs around this canyon are. I thought he was crazy as well. I waited for him at the overlook while he made the scramble down. It didn’t seem too bad. I figured if he made it and didn’t die, I might try it as well. As it turned out, he came to one final section where the only way to continue was to grab onto some poison oak with his hands. He decided against it in the end, perhaps very wisely. As for the two girls with us, they talked a lot … about food. It made Rob and I very hungry. Fortunately, Rob had a solution. Stop at Jake’s Burger joint in Oroville on the way back. Man, they have some good burgers and shakes there. Waterfall bagged. Hunger satisfied. A good day indeed.
I’ve been antsy lately to get out to see some waterfalls. I get this way once the rain starts here. I love the rain. You may think I’m crazy, but to me, rain means waterfalls. I love hiking in the rain too. You may think I’m crazy about that too. The only thing that is a bit tough is taking photographs in the rain. After striking out waterfall hunting the previous weekend, on Christmas Eve, I was pretty much going bonkers. My wife let me (or kicked me) out of the house for a couple hours, and off I went to Traverse Creek Falls.
Traverse Creek Falls is a nice little 30 ft. high waterfall, close by, and fairly easy to get to. It is a good one for seeing how the waterfalls are flowing generally, because its flow varies so much. In the summer, it is completely dry. When it is flowing, it varies from a single segmented form (seen here), to a beautiful Havasu Falls type double segmented form, to an all out 25 foot wide torrent of water. I was hoping it would be in double segmented form, but unfortunately it was still in single segment form. We just need a little more rain.
But it has been raining quite a bit this month. We’ve gotten quite a lot of snow in the mountains, much needed for our water supply (and the spring waterfall season of course). Snow in the mountains usually means rain in the valley. And that means the valley and coastal waterfalls flowing again. On Christmas Eve it was raining in Folsom when I headed out to Traverse Creek. Did I say I love the rain? But fortunately, it was only drizzle by the time I got to the waterfall for taking pics, though I only took this one picture while I was here. But it was definitely nice to get out in the rain and see a waterfall. Merry Christmas everyone!
