SWAMPED
So my wife was in Israel of all places this weekend, her boat ride on the Sea of Galilee being swamped by water, just like the disciples of Jesus. I’m kidding about her boat being swamped, but she was on the Sea of Galilee on the same day that we went to Swamp Creek. (not at the same time of course – there is a 10 hour time difference – or something like that).
It was a chore getting my kids up in the morning to go hiking. Neither of them wanted to go. They both gave me a hard time about it, and I was very frustrated with them, to the point where I almost gave up. Nonetheless, we all got in the car and drove up the road to the north.
The weather was a bit interesting today. One weather forecast said it would be sunny in the morning and cloudy later. The other one said it would be cloudy in the morning and sunny later. Which one would it be?!? The way it was looking, I was thinking it was going to be sunny. That is not a good thing for photographing waterfalls, and we were late starting as it was.
I have known about this waterfall for a few years now, but never attempted to go to it before. Thanks to a friend of waterfallswest, it was put back on my immediate radar, and now I knew it could be seen fairly easily. However … it required a hike along the active railroad tracks. The first part of the hike involved crossing the railroad bridge, a long walk over the bridge, and hope and pray that no trains come along. Have you seen the movie, Stand By Me? You know what I am talking about. This was a scene straight out of that movie. No trains came along, however.
After this, it is a pretty easy hike along the tracks to the waterfall. The grade is wide, and if any train came by, there was plenty of room to get out of the way. I think the hike to Mossbrae Falls is a bit worse than this one overall. Anyhow, we saw no trains. We made it to the creek, then hiked up the mountain to the waterfall viewpoint.
The waterfall is 170 ft. high in total, and it is a very marvelous cascade. The upper portion shown here is the big section, 120 ft. high. There is a 50 ft. drop below this that you can get down to the bottom of, and I certainly did that. The kids, however, did not want to go down to the bottom, so they waited for me up on the ridge. Jadon, I can certainly see not wanting to go down, but Nekoda is normally very adventurous. I don’t understand why she did not want to go down. It was not too difficult to get down to the bottom, and I took photos of the lower falls which is a terrific 50 ft. drop (pic coming in next post).
On the way back, we did not see any train, but we did see a vehicle come by us on the tracks. I thought he was going to stop and say we were not supposed to be there, but he just waved at us. When we got back to the car, it was raining (so not sunny, but rain!) I kinda wanted to do another hike, but I knew the kids would not want to do anything more, so we drove back to Oroville and had lunch at my favorite burger place, Jakes. Then drove home after that.
NEED A MIRACLE
As of March 1, the rain fall in California is at 59% of normal (north), 38% (central), and 27% (south). The snow pack is at 20% of normal (northern CA), 27% (central Sierra), and 22% (southern Sierra). Pretty darn pathetic. This is not counting the big storm we had this weekend. That storm will up those totals a bit, and there is more rain in the forecast in the next couple weeks. But will we get a miracle March? It remains to be seen, and I am hopeful and praying, but we need a heck of a lot more big storms.
This weekend, I wanted to go up into the snow and do some snowshoeing. My thought was to hike to Grouse Falls in the snow. However, there was a lot more snow than expected. There was snow in the town of Foresthill, and quite a lot. Driving down Mosquito Ridge Rd was pretty dicey. (with huge dropoffs along the road, don’t forget). I could not drive as close to Grouse Falls as I had hoped. I probably could have done the hike, but it would have been a much longer hike than I wanted to do. So instead, I drove back down to the bridge over the North Fork of the Middle Fork American River, and hiked the trail up the river from there. It is something I’ve always wanted to do but hadn’t done yet (there are no waterfalls, which is probably why I haven’t hiked it). Unfortunately, the trail was much shorter than I thought it would be or hoped it would be. After 1.5 miles, the trail ended. So I hiked back, drove to the Auburn Confluence and hiked the short mile to Black Hole of Calcutta Falls.
It was raining when I started the hike, but by the time I got to the falls, it was sunny. I waited and waited for the clouds to come back, and when they did, I took some photos, and hiked back to the car, just as it started raining again. An interesting thing about this waterfall is there is a new bridge over the creek here. I have not been to the waterfall in four years, and there was no bridge back at that time. When I saw a photo of the waterfall recently, with the new bridge in the foreground, I was utterly confused. At first, I thought it was a different waterfall that I had not known about before! I even went on a hike awhile back on another trail, thinking the falls must be on that trail somewhere. Well I finally I figured out the waterfall was indeed Black Hole of Calcutta with a brand new bridge. So weird. (btw, I did not take a photo of the new bridge – but I did take a photo from the first hike I did along the river)
THE SELFIE
I did not think I would be going out hiking to any waterfalls this weekend. The plan was for the family to go to Monterey for the weekend in celebration of my daughter Nekoda’s 13th birthday. THIRTEEN !! Now I have TWO TEENAGERS! I don’t believe it. It was her desire to go to the beach, shop around in Monterey, relax, have fun, etc. My son Jadon also had a birthday this month, and he also wanted to go to the coast. Of course, my wife always wants to go to the coast. So hiking to waterfalls was not going to be happening this weekend, which was perfectly fine.
HOWEVER, I put out into the air to the family the suggestion of going on this hike to this waterfall. It was a nice little waterfall close by, and not too hard of a hike. I was not expecting any good response from them. Tara and Jadon did not want to go, but I ended up having a big ally in Nekoda. Once she saw some other people’s photos of the waterfall, she really really really wanted to go on this hike. Why? Was it because it was such an awesome and spectacular waterfall? (which would have been daddy’s preferable response) No! No! No! It was because of the big log in front of the falls. She wanted to climb out on it! And of course, she wanted to take selfie photos and post them on Instagram. Teenagers! She was not technically a teenager yet, but in essence she has been one for at least a year now. Mom said no way, too dangerous, and I was on the fence about it, but if it did not seem too dangerous when we got there, then I said she could do it, just so long as I could go to a new waterfall and leave early enough so I could photograph it in good light. Hey let’s do it people!
Getting the family up early enough was a huge challenge, and it was a bit late by the time we got on the trail. I calculated that we needed to be at the falls by 9:30AM, and we would not make it. We would have to start jogging. Tara and Jadon stayed back for a slow, leisurely pace. Nekoda and I ran ahead. There were a couple trail junctions along the way. We left arrows for Tara and Jadon, and I hoped they would see them and go the right way. We also left some trail magic along the trail for them (my water bottle), to help urge them along the hike. About 3/4 of the way there, Nekoda’s hiking boot broke apart. The sole of the boot came off, so she was basically hiking with no bottom to the boot. That is not easy on the feet! She wanted to keep on going. She was determined to climb up on that log. When she gets something in her head that she wants to do, nothing can stop her (which is one of the many things I love about her). The last couple miles of the hike involved many stream crossings. With the lack of rain it was easy to rock hop. The creek was not flowing too well, but at least it was not completely dry. We arrived at the falls precisely at 9:30AM. Perfect timing.
I took my photos of the waterfall, then examined the log. The log is not really totally secure and it was bouncy. I don’t know how long it has been there (I don’t think it has been there very many years, actually), but sooner or later it is going to fall. If someone is on it when that happens, they will be in a world of pain. But anyway, that did not happen today and it seemed safe enough for now. I let Nekoda go out. She basically had to scoot on her butt up the log towards the waterfall. I took some photos (for her Instagram, and for me as well), and some video of her going out on it. It was fun for her, and she was a happy camper.
We waited almost an hour for Tara and Jadon to show up. They never did, so we headed back down the trail. We saw one couple coming up the trail to the falls. They had not seen them. This was odd. They never picked up the trail magic. Did they make a wrong turn? We finally saw a sign they had left on the trail further back. It said “cat” with a smiley face and an arrow pointing back to the trailhead. That was certainly a sign left by Jadon. They got to within 1.5 miles of the waterfall, then turned back. Ugh. We found them back at the car, waiting, and cold. We saw a ton of other people on the trails on the way back, but only that one couple going to the waterfall. The parking lot was completely full. Nekoda’s foot really started hurting in the last half mile of the hike, but she made it. We drove back to Monterey, had lunch at Bubba Gumps, went to the beach again, then drove home. It was a good day on the California coast.
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