It was time to return to the Bay Area this weekend after the big storms. My wife joined Journey and myself because we would visit our daughter for lunch after our hike. It was going to be a good day.
The plan was to visit three waterfalls I have not seen before: Lower, Middle, and Upper Pensacola Falls. Thanks to friend Mike for telling me about these waterfalls. We arrived at the trailhead at sunrise. It is a residential neighborhood and the neighbor was watching me through the window as I got ready for the hike. Come on lady, it is a public trail and a public street. It is ok for us to be here. That is one excellent thing about Marin County. There are so many public open spaces for hiking, even right in residential areas.
The hike begins on a trail up a very steep incline. I was huffing in very short order. Journey had no such problem. Before long, the route leaves the nice trail and descends steeply to the creek. No more trails. It was a lot more difficult than I expected. It was brushy. It was not really that bad but it was enough that Journey decided she did not want to continue. There’s no trail this way, daddy. Let’s get back on the proper path! I encouraged her to keep going on the non-path and she followed me faithfully. There was poison oak. I tried to avoid touching it and I think I succeeded. Barely. I did not end up getting the itch when I got home. Whew. There were ticks. I plucked two or three off of my legs. The bad thing is that I knew if I had some on myself, that meant Journey would be getting quite a few as well. Should I turn back now? We were already too far committed on this hike. We had to keep going and deal with the ticks later.
We made it down to the creek and the middle falls, which was very lovely. There was not any good place for Journey to sit at any of these three waterfalls, so she just stood there while I took photos. She was very patient as always. We crossed the creek and climbed the steep slope to the upper falls, a smaller one but very pretty. From here we climbed up to the top of the ridge. Lo and behold, there was a trail! This trail is not on any of my maps but it was a pretty good one and looked to descend all the way back down to the neighborhood where we started. This would probably be a lot better than going back the way we came, through all the brush and ticks and oak. But first, we had to descend to the lower falls (off trail, again).
Lower Pensacola Falls is the biggest of the three waterfalls and is 40 ft. high (pictured here). It is a gorgeous waterfall, hidden away in an unlikely place. I went down and stood in the middle of the creek to take photos, while Journey waited patiently for me up on the steep slope with nowhere to sit.
We climbed back up the hill. When we got back to the trail I checked Journey over very thoroughly (so I thought). I plucked about 10 or so ticks off of her. I thought this would be the end of it. I did not see anything more on her. I must have gotten them all. I was pleased. The trail did go back to the neighborhood where we started and it was very easy. I should have gone up this way in the first place. It would have been a thousand times better. Well, now I know for next time. When we got back to my wife at the car we checked Journey over again, together. We must have plucked another 50 ticks off of her. They just kept appearing in her fur, a never ending nightmare. I was disheartened because there were so many. I did not think the hike was really that bad in terms of ticks but it was bad. No harm done. We got them all off of her but we still found a couple more once we got back home.
We had a good lunch with our daughter and drove home. It was a gorgeous morning in tick infested Marin County.
I was on-call for my work this weekend. That meant I could not go hiking anywhere, at least not anywhere far from home. It would have to be a short hike and one that has cell service. It is a bummer too because it was a long weekend for me.
On Saturday I just took Journey to the lake. It is our favorite place to go for a walk. It is such a huge area and usually no one is there, especially if we go in the morning. She can just run and run and run. We love it there. And it is free. You would think more people would take their dogs there, it is such a great place. But I am not going to blast the location over the internet, you can be sure of that.
On Sunday I took Journey to Black Hole of Calcutta Falls before church. I did not really want to go here and I knew it would not be flowing great, but I wanted to go to a waterfall this weekend. This is the only one I could think of that was a short hike and had cell service.
We arrived at the trailhead before sunrise. This is a popular place for running and hiking but it seems we were the only ones on the trail. Or were we? As we started down the trail it was not long before Journey alerted me to someone coming up the trail. She is usually ahead of me and always notices other people well before I see them. It was a couple of joggers. So early! They must have started in the dark for sure. It was only sunrise now and they were just finishing up their run? We did not see anyone else until we got to the waterfall but a couple other joggers came by when we were at the falls and of course we saw some people on the way back, but not too many.
It was a beautiful morning. A storm was on the way but the sun was out right now. We spent quite a bit of time at the waterfall taking photos and enjoying the morning. Then we hiked back to the car and drove home. Journey always likes to tell Mom how much fun she had on the hike as soon as we get home, but she was still sleeping. Ha ha. It was a gorgeous morning in Auburn State Recreation Area.
It was Sunday afternoon. Super Bowl Sunday. I had no desire whatsoever to watch it. I wanted to hike. So did Journey. I heard it was a boring game anyway. Good choice, Madman.
We went to Canyon Creek Falls at Quintette. It has been 16 years since I was here. I knew the last part would be difficult but I thought Journey would be able to do it. The hike starts out easily enough on a dirt road for 2.5 miles. It crosses one of the branches of the creek that the waterfall is on. Bone dry. Ugh. I was not expecting this. What if the other branch is dry as well? That would really suck the bone. I would be very unhappy. Maybe I should have gone somewhere else. We continued on. Worst case scenario is that Journey gets a good hike.
We got down to the creek below the waterfall. The creek was not dry. Yay! It seemed fairly decent flow. About as good as I could expect after a month and a half of dry weather. Now the hard part. There are two paths, one on each side of the creek. My notes said to go on the south side. The north side path does not go all the way up to the waterfall. The route we took was extremely difficult. It was very brushy. It was very steep. I really wasn’t too sure about doing it and thought about going back. It is a short distance though so I kept going. Journey did not really want to do it but she is such a trooper. She followed me up the whole way, through the brush, over logs, up very steep terrain. I am so proud of her. She did so awesome. Finally we made it to the base of the waterfall and relaxed and ate a snack. I took photos.
Canyon Creek Falls is very gorgeous and is 83 ft. high. It was so refreshing standing at the bottom of the waterfall.
On the way back we took a MUCH EASIER path. I had to lift Journey over a huge log but that wasn’t really a problem. We crossed the creek and then it was very easy following the path back to the road. I should have gone that way in the first place though that log was a big obstacle for Journey. We hiked back up the mountain, getting back to the car just before sunset. It was a fantastic hike on Super Bore Sunday in Eldorado National Forest.
When going to new waterfalls it is difficult to know if I should take Journey or not. I have no idea if there is going to be too much brush or if it will be too cliffy for her or something else. Well, I had my eyes on a new waterfall in Oroville area and I thought she might be able to do it. The waterfall is basically beside a dirt road. It should be all right, I hoped. We did not get very far. The road was completely washed out. If I was by myself I think I could have gotten by it but there is no way Journey could do it. Well, that was a washout. (pun intended) We did end up hiking 8 miles so she was happy at least that we had a good hike.
Two days later. My birthday. I took the day off work and wanted to get a good hike in with Journey. We would be getting to a waterfall this time. 100 percent.
My initial plan was to go back to Oroville area but I wasn’t so keen on it. It would be a good hike for sure but the waterfall was just a little one and I have been to it before. For my birthday I wanted something better. But I could not think of another option. I woke up Monday morning and considered it. What if we go up into the snow? How about Rattlesnake Creek Falls? I looked at the satellite. There was not that much snow so it should be do-able and the creek should be flowing as well. This is going to be a much better hike for my birthday. And Journey gets to sleep in an extra hour. She’ll be happier. (she would be happy anyway)
We arrived at the trailhead at sunrise. The usual parking was all snowed in. There is no other legal place to park. I found one small spot that seemed to be legal enough. Off we went. It was 28 degrees.
They are doing construction work on the Fordyce Dam and they have the road entirely closed to the public. It is ok to go here in winter since they are not working but I had hoped to go backpacking up here with Journey in the spring. I don’t think I’ll be allowed to do that until 2029 according to the sign. That kinda sucks. Sigh.
Anyway, we stopped at the lower falls first for a quick shot. Then hiked up to the middle falls for a quick shot. Then continued to the upper falls (shown here). There was snow on the road the entire way but there have been people snowmobiling up here so it was very easy walking on the road in the tracks. There was not much snow either. Sadly. We need a lot more snow this winter. Please. The last part over to the waterfall is off the road and there were no tracks. There was more snow here and it was icy and hard but I was still post-holing a bit. Journey had no troubles with that. She is much lighter than I am.
We came to the viewpoint of upper Rattlesnake Creek Falls. It was very pretty covered in snow and ice. I am certain this picture is not going to be appreciated as much as I think it should be. I really loved the look of it. It was so gorgeous.
We took our photos and Journey had her snack, then we hiked back down to the car. We were home by 12:30PM. It was a fabulous and cold and snowy birthday hike in Tahoe National Forest.
After dark a girl came into the Lion Den, setting up her camp right next to me, IN MY SPACE. Why couldn’t she pick a different spot well away from everyone else? I would never set up camp right next to someone. It is just rude. Afterwards, she and the other guy (who borrowed my water filter) ended up chatting well into the night when I was trying to sleep. The guy was loud. So disrespectful. You don’t know how to boil water and you don’t know how to be quiet when someone is sleeping? Well maybe I am not going to feel bad about waking you when I get up super early and pack up my camp.
After all that I slept fairly well, actually. I was up at 5AM in the dark and packed up. I did try to be as quiet as possible but it is impossible to be completely quiet when you are packing up a tent and all your gear. I don’t know if the guy woke up but I am pretty sure the girl did. Well, she should not have set up her camp in my space.
My primary goal for this trip was to get down to Jewel Falls. It is a four mile hike from the campsite and it gets early sun so this is why I had to hike in the dark. Much of the hike is on a road. I did not even realize that it was possible to drive your vehicle on this road. I saw a few cars parked along the road including one exactly at the trail where I had to go down to the falls. They were blocking the trail. What am I supposed to do about this? I had no choice but to walk through their camp. They heard me in their tent so I said “just passing through”. The guy rudely said “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” I said, “going down to the waterfall”. On the way back they were up and the guy again was rude to me, saying “it’s not cool to walk through our camp, DUDE”. “Well DUDE, you are literally blocking the trail, what the H&*& am I supposed to do?”. I was really kinda ticked off with them, frankly. I tried to be nice and polite and received rudeness in return. If you are going block access to a hiking trail you need to expect someone is going to come through your campsite.
It did not help that my hike was an UTTER FAILURE and I was upset about that and feeling extremely disappointed. I know people have been down to Jewel Falls in the past but it was the distant past. Jewel Falls is LOST. The trail is now completely overgrown. Impassable. The brush was OVER MY HEAD. I tried going through it. I tried multiple routes to find a way through or around it. I tried my best. I could not do it. I retreated. At least there was no more poison oak.
On the way back I saw a guy parked along the road with his car hood up, looking into it. For the third time this trip I was nice again, asking if he needed help (though there was nothing really I could do to help him). He was polite though, at least, and said he was fine.
There were a lot of hikers on the way back down the Salmon Creek Falls trail. A lot of day hikers. Too many hikers. Some had dogs. Hopefully they escaped the ticks. One dog was barking at me, probably because the trail was narrow and he could not get by. The lady apologized but I told her I have a barking dog as well. Journey will bark her head off to protect her mama but if she is alone with me she will not bark at all. Funny girl. I decided to stop at Upper Salmon Creek Falls. It was about 11AM and still in shade. I was not planning to go down here again and I skipped it on the way up. However, since I failed at Jewel Falls I decided to go down to this waterfall. It was a small consolation. I did manage to get a different composition from the last time I was here so that is a plus. I got back to the car at about 1:30PM and made the long drive home. It was a rough two days in Ventana Wilderness.
