Leon Turnbull Photography

The first time I came to this waterfall was in May 2011. Stevenson Creek was raging. It was raging so much that the water was crashing over the bridge making it completely impossible to cross. The problem was that the best views of the waterfall are on the far side of the bridge, so I could only get a partial view of the falls from the near side. I vowed to return some day.

Ten years later …

It was time …

I’m not sure why I chose to go back this past weekend. You know, it just felt right, I guess. I knew the creek was flowing (and not raging).  It is a 4 hour drive from my home. That makes for a very long day.

I arrived at the trailhead at 1PM. The parking along the road was completely packed of cars. I expected to see some people for sure, but not this many! It was crazy! Ugh. Well, there was no choice. I had to continue with my plan. Hopefully, by the time I got to the falls everyone will have left and be on their way back. I took my mask with me (not something I normally do on a hike), expecting there to be just way too many people, but it really wasn’t like that. Everyone was well spread out, and the road is very wide so there is plenty of room and I did not feel that there were too many people on the trail.

When I arrived at the waterfall there were two other groups still there and they were in my way for taking photos, so I continued down the road a bit and climbed up the cliffs. I wanted to see if I could see the upper tier of the waterfall. I just could not get a full view of it, however. I could not climb up high enough as it became too cliffy and I could only see the very top of it. Well, it was a pretty good and unique viewpoint so I took a photo from up there. By the time I got back down to the bridge, everyone had left and I had it to myself. For a bit. Stevenson Creek Falls was flowing quite nice but I did expect there to be more flow in it. Nonetheless, I was able to get some good photos. Redemption achieved.

The litter along the road was awful. People left their toilet paper everywhere. People threw out their masks on the side of road (so some poor bird or animal can come along and get caught up in it). Why are people so bloody disgusting? Pack out your stupid trash, people. Especially your toilet paper! You should not be allowed to hike if you cannot pack our trash. Of course, no one else bothered to pick up any of the trash along the road (of the many people who hiked there this day). I suppose I should not blame them, but I do blame them. Everyone should be doing their part to clean up litter. I had to pick it all up myself.  So annoying. End rant.

Well anyway, Stevenson Creek Falls is definitely a beautiful sight. I have at least 3 more good photos other than this one and I spent a lot longer time here than I anticipated. Someone else eventually did come down to the waterfall as I was finishing up taking my photos. I’m not sure what he was doing, he was acting a bit strange; I think he was getting ready to fly a drone though I did not see him put one up. Anyway, whatever he was doing, he was friendly and worried that he was in my way of taking photos. Then another family came down as I was leaving, and I saw another couple coming down as well a bit later. All these people would be hiking back in the dark. As it was, I did not get back to my car until after dark as well. Usually I am the last one on the trail but not today. I really had a very pleasant hike and the walk back in the dusk was very peaceful and relaxing. It was a wonderful day in Sierra National Forest.

 

 

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A lot of people were excited when we got our *first* big storm of the season this week. I mean, it is good to be excited about that, but people were saying all our seasonal woes were solved by this one big storm. Now everything is fine and back to normal. Ummm, not even close. What are the facts, man? As of Feb 1, the snowpack is now 66% of average (northern CA), 73% (central Sierra), 58% (southern Sierra). Rainfall is at 51% (north), 60% (central), 46% (south). The snowpack did go up from this storm, but obviously we need a lot more *just* to get back to average (4 more big storms at least). The second big storm that was supposed to happen on Feb 1 looks like it is turning out to be somewhat of a bust, and now we are going back to a dry period again. Pray it does not last long.

Enjoy your week everyone. Here’s a pretty waterfall for you. Mill Creek Falls, Lassen Volcanic National Park.

 

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It was only about 33° at night and not very cold at all. I woke up in the morning after having a pretty decent sleep. I packed up, had my breakfast (without coffee), then I started the big hike back up the hill. I was still incredibly tired. I really had quite overdone it the previous day. Would I have enough energy to get home? Without coffee?

The photo is from Kings Creek Cascades. As you can see, it was mostly frozen also. If you look closely, you can see animal tracks going down to the creek where the water is flowing. It is one of the very few places one could get down to get some water. I have no idea what kind of animal, but I saw a few tracks similar to this along the creek. Perhaps deer, but I did not see a distinctive hoof print in the deep snow.

It is a big ascent from Kings Creek Falls back to the road and I had just enough water to make it. I filled up with water, going down the same steep and sketchy section to the creek. Now I would have enough for the rest of the hike. After this first ascent, most of the hike back to Mill Creek Falls was downhill. From Mill Creek Falls, however, it’s another two and a half miles with a lot of up and down hiking. When you are very tired, it’s a very hard hike. You feel every little up. In painful agony. It took quite a bit of time. But at least now, the trail was very well trodden. A lot of people had been here in just one day.

I saw a quite a few hikers on the trail. None of them seemed too friendly and did not say much to me, even when I tried to say anything to them. Is it because of COVID? Well, at least all the tracks in the snow made the hiking a bit easier. I finally arrived back at the parking lot at 3PM. The parking lot was completely full. I couldn’t believe how many people had come up for the day to Lassen. Every one was hanging out (too) close together in the parking lot, and not wearing masks. Compare that to the people I passed on the trail. They were wearing masks and freaking out when I passed them (so it seemed). Shouldn’t it be opposite? It was an interesting and difficult backpacking trip in magnificent Lassen Volcanic National Park.

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Kings Creek Falls in the winter? Impossible, you say. You would have to walk 20 miles one way in the snow. But if anyone can do it, the madman can do it. Right?

Going to Kings Creek Falls in the winter has been in my dreams for a few years now. But how to do it? Well, I found a route that would be about 7 miles one way. That is not doable as a day hike but it would work for a backpacking trip. But it is so cold in the winter! Normal temperatures at night are in the low 20’s or below. Enter this last week: unusually high temperatures for January. MLK long weekend in January. It would only be 33° at night. This might actually be a very good time to do this trip. Unfortunately, my dream did not happen as I envisioned it, but yes, I did make it there. (and back)

It was hard!

My route took me past Mill Creek Falls again. This time, there was only one other set of tracks on the trail. (unlike at Christmas, when the trail was very well trodden). Mill Creek Falls was flowing well, even better than before. This was due to the snow melting from all the warm weather we have had. Kings Creek Falls should be fantastic … so I thought.

I was following the other snow-shoer past Mill Creek, all the way to Cold Boiling Lake. I was surprised he went that far. Or she. It seemed like he (she) camped at Cold Boiling Lake and after that, I was all on my own. The snow was heavy. Slushy. Deep. Very hard going. It took a lot of effort. I was beaten down tired well before I reached my destination. Yet, I continued on. I was past the point of no return, so I must continue on all the way. Or die.

There is literally no water from the trailhead until you get to Kings Creek. Obviously you cannot drink from Mill Creek, which has a lot of sulfur in it. That would taste super great. Not! I hoped to fill up at Kings Creek. However, when I got there I discovered a huge and unexpected problem. There was no way to get down to the creek! The snowbanks on each side of the creek were 5 feet high at least. It was impossible to get down to it. If I went down, I would not be getting back up until spring. At least I’d have water to drink until the snow all melted. Ha. Well, what could I do? I searched around and I finally found one spot that was doable. It was steep and sketchy but I made it down and got some water. More importantly, I got back up.

At the road, Kings Creek had pretty good flow. I was feeling very optimistic. From here, it is a 1 mile hike down to the falls and about a 600 foot descent. There should be even more water in the creek down at the falls. Humph. There was a lot more snow in Kings Creek Canyon. It was very deep and very tough going.

Worst of all, there was no water flowing down at the falls. The creek was all snowed over and iced over. Where did all that water go from up on the road? Kings Creek Falls itself was completely frozen. How disappointing. I was really expecting it to have a good decent flow considering how well Mill Creek Falls was. Yes, I know it is higher elevation but with the warm weather there should have been a lot of snow melting into the creek. The more I think about it, the more I think it should have been a lot better.

Oh well, what can you do? It was still very interesting to see and I did take photos of it. I was so tired. I still had to set up camp. In the snow. And there was no water. I could not get any water from the creek anywhere, so I had to melt snow for my drinking water. This took a long time and used up all my gas. That meant that I would not be able to have coffee in the morning. Well, what is more important, drinking water or coffee? Drinking water, I guess. Sigh.

I watched a movie, and went to bed …

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I was surprised there was no snow (or not much) at the trailhead at 5500 ft. elevation. I did not think I’d be able to drive up there, but when I looked at the satellite, I did not see much snow. Maybe this hike to Spruce Creek Falls would be a good one to do right now.

There was maybe just a couple inches of snow so it was easy to drive to the trailhead. It was icy, however. I had fun sliding along the ice as I hiked down the road. Coming back up later would be a bit more difficult. The road crosses Spruce Creek a few minutes into the hike. It was just barely flowing. I really considered just turning back now. But I drove all the way up here. I figured I should at least do a hike down to where I need to get off the road and scramble down to the falls (3 miles of road walking). If the creek is just a trickle down there, then I would not do the off trail (very difficult) part of the hike.

It is about a 1400 ft. descent down to the falls (900 on the road). When I got down to the end of the road, I could hear the creek flowing much better (I could not see it from the road). Ok then, maybe I will continue as planned. I have tried this hike once before, but I found it too steep and cliffy. I returned this time with rope and with a better planned route. (so I thought). The cliffs get really crazy near the top of the waterfall. Cliff cliff, everywhere a cliff. There is no way down. But there is! I found a path leading down to the bottom of the lower tier of the falls. The last section was very steep and indeed I needed to use my rope for safety. I made it down successfully.

This lower tier of Spruce Creek Falls is 39 ft. high. It is quite nice, and you can see the upper tier in my photo. It is much bigger. Unfortunately, I could not find a way up to it. It is extremely sketchy and I did not have any more rope. I was also out of time. I will return in the spring with more rope and more time and more determination.

It was dark when I got back to my car at 5:30PM. It was a cliffy day in Tahoe National Forest.

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