Leon Turnbull Photography

I hate it when people complain about the rain and call for it to stop when we are still in the middle of winter. There are still 2.5 months of winter left! News flash: If the rain stops now then we will still be in a drought at the end of this winter and we will still end up below average for the year. Although with all these recent storms some areas are very close to the Apr 1 average already but other areas are not (especially the north). Also, we need much more than just an average year for the drought to end. Do you want to continue in drought and continue to have more fires than normal next summer? I sure don’t. California needs more rain not less. Stop complaining. But these people are going to get their wish. The rain is going to be stopping next week. Okay, end rant.

Anyway, I wanted to go hiking this past weekend but I did not want to drive too far. I decided to return to Paradise Canyon Falls on the Middle Fork American River. It had been a long time since I’ve been here and I did not have a good photo of it. With all the recent rain I figured it should be flowing quite well, much better than I’ve ever seen it before. Or would it?

I arrived at the trailhead and found that there is now a $10 parking fee. Ugh! What a ridiculous amount of money to pay for day parking at a state park. What choice did I have? I was going to be on a long hike. There was no way around it. I thought I could park back on the main road and walk in but you had to pay for parking there as well.

There was not very much water flowing in Mile Hill Creek at the trailhead. That was not where I was going but it was not a good sign. Then I came to the first creek crossing down at the river. There was so much water flowing in this creek it was almost uncross-able. Now that was a good sign. Paradise Canyon Creek also had a lot of water flowing in it. In fact, it was pretty much perfect. This waterfall is one of those that needs a lot of water to look nice. It certainly would have been much better a week earlier but then I would not have been able to photograph it. In order to photograph it you need to cross the creek right at the bottom of the falls. It was not an easy task and the water was deep. In higher water it would have been impossible. Even if I could have crossed a week earlier there would have been far too much mist. So Paradise Canyon Falls was about perfect on this day. Paradise Regained.

I continued on the trail along the river in search of other waterfalls. I did find a small one though it wasn’t really all that special. I ate my lunch and then hiked back. It was a perfect day in Auburn State Recreation Area.

On Friday night I checked the weather forecast for Saturday morning. One app tells me it was going to be raining all Saturday morning. The other app says partially sunny. What the heck? This is a very big difference. It is less than 12 hours beforehand and they cannot figure out what the weather is going to be like? That is unbelievable to me. It is the difference between the GFS and the European weather models I guess but this close to the actual time they should be in alignment. So which one would be right? Usually the European model is more correct but this time it was GFS. So that meant it was raining on Saturday morning. That is what I woke up to. It was not raining too much in the morning though, just very light off and on. So I guess they were both wrong. Nothing surprising then.

My Plan A hike was going to be a very short, easy hike, close to home. I was pretty confident I could do this hike …until I ran into a big huge fence in which it would be a major crime to cross over it. No trespassing here. I was not expecting that at all. I was bummed. I wasn’t confident at all for my Plan B hike but decided to drive over to check it out. No trespassing again. Strike two. I needed something that would be a sure thing. My Plan C hike would be just that, one that I have done before. Many times before, in fact. American Canyon Creek Falls. Old Faithful.

It was lightly raining as I hiked down the trail. I anticipated it getting worse now as it was much later in the morning. Maybe I should just go back to bed. I continued on, however. I have a new Gopro camera for an early Christmas gift and I really wanted to try it out today. (thanks Tara and Meredy, by the way!) Last time I was here, the poison oak was growing tremendously over the trail. It was unavoidable. At this time of year, however, no poison oak. No ticks either. By the time I reached the falls the rain had stopped. Just long enough to take photos. Sweet perfect timing, Lord.

It was raining harder as I hiked back up the trail but I did not mind. I was happy. It was a lovely morning hike to my favorite little waterfall in Auburn State Recreation Area.

It is my son’s birthday today. Of course I would not want to miss that (or my wife would not want me to miss it to be more precise – kidding!), but I still wanted to go for a hike. Well, that is not a problem. Jadon would be sleeping in until noon anyway, so I could easily go for a hike in the morning. I did invite him to hike with me, but he said that would be the exact opposite of what he wants to do on his birthday (namely, relax and take it easy). Ah well, I tried.

So where should I go? I did consider going up to Oroville, but then I’d have to get up at 4AM. Umm, I don’t think so. I decided to go back to Rock Creek Falls.

I have been to Rock Creek Falls twice before. It is not a big waterfall (17 ft. high), but it is spectacular, one of the best in the Sierra foothills in my opinion. The first time I went the creek was in flood. The waterfall was absolutely incredible. The second time it was not in flood, but it was still amazing. I was thinking it would be flowing similar to that second time. Rock Creek is a very large creek. Well ….

I was the only one on the trail all day. Everyone else was at Table Mountain in Oroville (I’m not really kidding about that – it has been very busy there lately because of social media). The ticks were out and about. This is the first time I’ve seen them this year. I’m sure it won’t be the last. The poison oak was also out and about. Hopefully, I would avoid getting too close to it.

Once you get down to the creek, you have to go a short distance downstream to the waterfall. It is a bit tricky to get down to it, but it’s not too bad. The worst part is going through the poison oak. (in other words, I could not avoid getting too close to it). I was curious recently about someone who said they hiked this trail. They went all the way down to the bottom but did not go see the waterfall. They had no idea there was even a waterfall here. Really, people! Go to http://www.waterfallswest.com! How horrible to be so close to a beautiful waterfall and not even know it is there. I don’t know why you would even want to hike this trail if you are not going to the waterfall. As I said, this is one of the best in the foothills.

Well … Rock Creek Falls was not flowing quite as well as the last time I was here in 2011. It is still incredibly beautiful, no doubt about it, but I was definitely disappointed in the flow. We just have not had enough rain this year! Even though we had some recently, it just has not been enough. We are so far behind for this season, and the rest of February and into March is not looking very promising at the moment. More rain please. Much more rain please.

Recently, it seems, people are becoming more and more rude. Do you see this as well? Someone recently posted a photo of a waterfall and called it by an incorrect name, so I politely (very politely) corrected him, and he went ballistic on me. What the heck? Why would you be so angry about this? Remember the Bassi Falls winter photo? I posted it in a Facebook group, and I was called out by someone saying I should not post it because it is dangerous to go there in the winter! What? First of all, it’s not dangerous to go there. Secondly, who cares! Basically this person was saying no one can ever post any winter photos of any place ever!

Are you feeling too much fear because of the virus? You do not need to live in fear. God is in control of this. But even so, that is still absolutely no excuse to be so rude to other people. You may not be able to or you may not want to go hiking right now. That is your choice, but hiking is an essential activity, and if other people want to hike right now, that is their choice. There is nothing wrong with that, and it is not against any rules or orders. Do not be rude towards them, or show hate towards them. Please. Love, not hate.

This is Canyon Creek Falls #1, 42 ft. high.

I really wanted to go out for a hike this weekend, but I did not want to go far or do anything hard. My daughter Nekoda also wanted to come with me, and she also just wanted a very easy hike. So, I decided to go back to Iowa Canyon Falls, a very easy one that I have been to multiple times before. But in typical madman fashion, it did not turn out to be quite so easy.

The road was gated due to construction. This would add 3 miles round trip to the hike, and a steep uphill climb walking back up the road from the river. It was late in the day, so we might even have to walk back in the dark. Well, I was okay with this. Was Nekoda okay with it? Yes, she said let’s go for it. So we did.

It was a very pleasant walk going “down” to the river. Much of the road follows the creek, and there were quite a few spring wildflowers along the road as well. Once down at the river, we saw a lot of construction going on. What the heck are they doing down here? It was a big mess, and it seemed like a major construction effort. I have no clue. It is almost as if they are building a powerhouse down here or something. Indeed, I just looked it up (being curious) and it seems they *are* building a powerhouse here. Ugh.

It is a short jaunt from here to walk up the creek to the falls. There were ticks and poison oak, a plenty! But we made it up the waterfall overlook, and Nekoda sat on the rocks while I took my photos. I also really wanted to go to the upper falls (which I think is a lot nicer than the lower falls), however … the poison oak was absolutely ridiculous along the short trail to the upper falls. It was horrific! Nekoda did not want to trounce through the oak to the falls, and I did not want to either, so we turned around and hiked back up the road to the car. The climb back up the road was not really so bad, and we arrived back at the car well before dark. It was a quick and short hike to a pretty little waterfall.