It was 2008 the last time I went down this trail. I had a wild cougar encounter. Seventeen years later and it was time to go back and find my beloved. I did not find her. I was so sad. Ha ha!
Fifteen inches of rain in the foothills this past week. All the waterfalls were roaring. I had many choices but I decided on Knickerbocker Falls. I have been wanting to go back here and in particular try to get up close to the middle waterfall on this creek. It eluded me last time and I wanted to fix that.
I did not take Journey with me. I thought it was going to be too steep and cliffy but actually she could have made it pretty easily. Except the ticks are out now so that would not have been very good for her. I managed to pick up a couple of the buggers but Journey would have gotten it a lot worse. The route I took last time was too brushy now. I remembered it being quite easy before but I could not find my way through it. I was about to give up but I finally bashed my way through and came upon a much better route. It was open and it was a good path to follow, leading me down the mountain. This entire area is prime mountain lion territory but I did not see my cougar. I suppose I should be relieved about that. My new route took me down past the middle falls so I had to work my way back to it and I came upon a terrific viewpoint of the waterfall on the edge of a cliff.
The middle falls is 144 ft. high. You cannot quite see the bottom from the viewpoint but you can see most of it. It is a beauty. You can see the upper waterfall from here (sort of) but I could see no way to get up close to it. It was also not possible to get down any further to the creek because of the cliffs so I turned back and went down to the lower waterfall at the river. This time I went all the way down to the bottom of it for a better view.
At the bottom I was surprised to find a trail. It seemed to follow the river upstream. It is not on my map but it was well defined and I suspect it is an easier way to get to Knickerbocker Falls. I will have to try it next time (with Journey). It was a very beautiful morning in Auburn State Recreation Area.
I said I would return here to the scene of the crime with weapons in hand. Mission accomplished. It was raining on Saturday. No hiking. On Sunday, I did not have much time to hike after church in the morning and Journey was with her mom, so it seemed like a perfect time to return to Lower American Canyon Creek Falls.
There was quite a bit less water in the creek. I thought there would be more because it had rained on Saturday. Not enough, I guess. I quickly made it down to the lower falls and continued on to Maine Bar. I wanted to go further but that is all I had time for. I returned to the lower falls and prepared for my descent down into the poison oak. My new strategy for combating the oak this year? I put on my rain pants before I get down into it and once back on the trail I carefully take them off. It worked. I did not get any itch and I did not even have to scrub down when I got back home. Next time I think I may also wear my rain jacket in case I rub against the stuff with my arms.
I did get a better photo of the lower falls, I think. It was a bit dicey to go any further down to the creek so I did not, though I probably could have if I really wanted to. I hiked back up to the car in the dusk, constantly thinking about the girl that was killed by a mountain lion on this very trail way back in 1994. I did not have Journey to protect me today. Ah well, I survived. It was a lovely quick little hike in Auburn State Recreation Area.
Just two months ago all our astute forecasters said there was a very high probability we would be having a weak La Nina this winter. Today, La Nina is nowhere to be found and now they are saying it is probably not coming at all this winter. We are stuck in an ENSO NEUTRAL state. How did they get this so wrong? It is bad news and it explains why we have not had much rain yet this December. I was quite excited for a weak La Nina which meant we would have a very good chance for another above average winter (same as in 2023). But now? Technically we are still around average thanks to that Bomb Cyclone in November but how will the rest of the winter fare? I guess we will just keep praying.
I did not have much time for hiking this past weekend so I just took Journey on an easy/moderate hike back to American Canyon Creek Falls. It is my go to early season local waterfall. Journey went to this one last year and I knew she would not be able to get down all the way to the bottom of it. I imagined I could just have her wait up top again while I went down to take a couple quick photos. She is usually very good and patient when I take photos. However, I did not do this. The creek was flowing pretty quick but worse than that all the rock was very wet and slick on both sides. It would have been extremely difficult for me to attempt to cross the creek at the waterfall. I decided to skip it and instead try to get down to the lower falls.
The problem: I was wearing shorts and did not have long pants. This was very stupid. There is a lot of poison oak at the lower falls. I did *not* want to be in the poison oak. What to do, what to do? Well, there was not any oak at the top so I went down with Journey as far as possible. At the bottom there was indeed a lot of it so I figured I would just take a photo from the hill side while Journey waited for me patiently. I am going to have to come back here again soon for a better photo (and with long pants). I’m not sure I will take Journey though. It’s probably not a good thing for her to be in a lot of poison oak. Ah, we’ll see. We hiked back up the trail. I love how Journey runs up the trail ahead of me and then stops and waits for me to catch up. She is so good and smart. We arrived back to the car at sunset. It was a lovely little hike in Auburn State Recreation Area.
After work I took Journey and drove up the hill. I’ve wanted to check this place out for awhile now and it finally seemed like the time to do it. It is partly off trail but I did not think it would be too hard or steep for Journey.
I had loaded the route and map into my GPS but for some reason it did not load properly. Thankfully there was cell service here so I downloaded the map into my phone. If there was no service I’m not sure if I would have been able to find the waterfall. It’s always good to check your map before you leave the house (obviously I did not do that!).
This area is all part of the massive Caldor Fire of 2021. All the trees were scorched. We found a parking spot and started hiking down the logging road. There were already mosquitoes out. I had heard this from another person recently as well. This is crazy to me. It is only April. At least they were not biting yet. Anyhow, I think that Journey did not really want to hike today. She was going slow and stopping and I felt she wanted to go back to the car. She had been playing hard with mom all day long so she was probably quite tired to begin with. Nonetheless, I encouraged her to continue on. When we came to the large snow patches on the road, she perked up notably. She wanted to run in the snow! She was so excited. She loves the snow!
Eventually we came to the off trail section where we would go down to the river. It was not difficult. The last part was a bit steep but Journey did fine. We came to the waterfall. I was quite disappointed. I really thought this one would be a lot nicer and a lot cleaner. I have a feeling it was a lot nicer before the fire. It is a 30 ft. cascade, but not very interesting and hardly worth taking a photo. I did take a photo of it though. What do you think?
Journey ate a snack and then we hiked back up the mountain. It was a bit tough and we were both tired when we got back to the road. At least I was tired. I think Journey had gotten her second wind and was happy hiking back down the road. She knew we were on our way back. We arrived at the car just after dark and drove home. It was a lovely evening in the scorched Eldorado National Forest.
This is not a recent image. This is from March 2009. This past weekend I went back to Rock Creek Falls with Journey, thinking that she would have no trouble getting down to the waterfall. I forgot one important thing about the hike, however.
We arrived at the trailhead and started the hike down to the creek on the One Eye Trail. It is so named because back in the old days a mountain lion attacked a miner on this trail and he lost an eye. I love these old names from history. We did not see any mountain lion but we did see quite a few deer. Journey was quite interested in the deer but they did not let us get very close to them.
The trail starts out as a nice wide road but soon becomes a single track. There is poison oak and there are ticks. It was impossible to keep Journey out of the poison oak. My primary concern was keeping the ticks off of her (and me). I went first on this section and swatted them off the bushes with my hiking pole as we went along. I did not see very many of them on the hike (less than 5). However, when we got back up to the road later I had to pluck about 6 or 7 of them off of Journey. How did she get so many ticks on her? I don’t understand, there should not have been any on her at all. I hoped I got them all off her. When I got home I found more on her and those ones were embedded and more difficult to remove. In retrospect, I should not have taken her on this hike, however, I did not think the ticks would be so bad because of the rain and cold weather. My mistake.
Anyway, we arrived down at Rock Creek. There was a lot of water flowing as I expected, but it was not in flood stage (as it was in March 2009). From here you need to rock scramble downstream. This is difficult. Journey did very well and we made it down almost to the brink of the waterfall, however at this point she could not continue any further. The water was too deep and it was too difficult or dangerous for her. At lower flows I think she could have made it but there was just too much water today. We retreated back upstream, had our lunch by the creek, and then climbed out of the canyon and back to the car. Even though we did not make it to the destination, it was still a great hike for Journey in Eldorado National Forest.
