Leon Turnbull Photography

The rain-ocalypse returns for an encore. And a much needed one at that. After one and a half months of zero rain, we finally got our rain back. The forecast was for about 8 inches of rain in the Northern Sierra foothills over this weekend. We got four inches on Friday night, and there is another system coming in Sunday night. I am not sure if it will end up being quite 8 inches overall, nonetheless, it is a very welcome relief.

And it is a direct answer to all our prayers. It is interesting to note that the first blip of this storm on the radar came precisely on the day of our church’s fasting/prayer day. Co-incidence? At first I did not think very much of it because it was only about an inch of rain. Of course that is much better than zero the day before, but still, an inch is really nothing considering that we need so much. Then about four or five days afterwards, the forecast became clearer. It looked like we were going to get hit with a Pineapple Express big time. As the week progressed, the forecast kept getting better: 5 inches, 6 inches, 7 inches, 8 inches. Try not to get too excited, Leon. I know it has nothing to do specifically with our church, we are certainly not the only ones in California praying. Thousands of people have been praying in California, and we need to be, and I know it makes a difference. I suppose the atheist would say it is just a co-incidence, but the rest of us know better. Still though, this one storm is just a drop in the bucket of what we need in California, we are so deep in the hole, you might wonder if we will ever get out of it. I will do a more complete analysis of Rain-Ocalypse Part II when it is all over and have a post later in the week.

So where should I go hiking on Saturday, I pondered? It seemed that it would be a very rainy and wet day, and I did not feel like doing anything very hard or long, yet I also wanted to go somewhere new. Well that pretty much eliminates everything because I have already been to everything easy in the area. I thought about going back to Canyon Creek, thinking that it might be in monster mode but when I woke up on Saturday morning, the North Fork American was only at 500 cfs. It seemed that the rain had not picked up the river flow much at all. I should have gone however because only two or three hours later the river was at almost 6000 cfs. It would have been pretty awesome there. Hmmmm … I wonder …

Well I decided on an easy hike: Mile Hill Creek. I knew there was a waterfall on this creek because you can see it on Google Earth, but would it be flowing well enough? It did not seem so. The creek flows right beside the trailhead, and it looked pretty meager there. In fact, it was about the same flow when I was here a few weeks ago (on a different hike). This area did not get much rain, apparently. I was expecting the creek to have about twice this amount of water in it, and I was disappointed. Well, at least it was flowing. I figured since I was here, I would just do the hike anyway. Down at the bottom of the canyon, the creek would have a bit more water in it, and I still did not feel like driving up into the mountains today, though I am sure it would have been much better.

It is not a difficult hike down to Mile Hill Creek Falls. It is all on the road or trail, and the trail comes right to the base of the falls. It is really a beauty. I was expecting it to be more of a cascade and much smaller, but instead it is a gorgeous 91 ft. tiered vertical drop. How did I not ever come here before? Even though the trail comes right to the bottom of it, the angle is too severe there for taking photographs. I had to climb up on the side of the mountain. That was darn tricky. I may or may not have had one foot off the edge of a cliff and the other on a narrow crumbly ledge while I took this photo.

On the way back I came across a couple that were hiking along the trail. Actually, they were not hiking but examining my footprints in excruciating detail, apparently trying to determine from my prints if I was male or female. “Well, speak of the devil”, they said as I came up to them. “How far did you go?”, they asked. Just up to the waterfall, I said, thinking that they would have no idea in the world what waterfall I was talking about. But they surprised me: “Which waterfall? There is more than one”. For a couple seconds, my brain was going at 100 miles per hour, trying to determine if they knew of some waterfall that I did not know about. Then it dawned on me: No, I am talking about that big one, the 91 ft falls, not the piddly little 10 ft. cascade just up ahead. The other one I would not even consider to be a waterfall (which I definitely wouldn’t, though I admit it was somewhat interesting). “Ah, well did you see the bear poop just a bit back there?”, they said. Ummm, that is horse poop ma’am, not bear poop. I do know the difference between those two types of poopage. “Okay then, well enjoy your day”. Thank you, and you enjoy your little 10 ft. waterfall, and also try not to fall off the cliff while photographing that other one.

Well, that is sort of how the conversation went (in my head, at least).

I did see a bear coming down the road on the way back, however. Or it might have been a big dog. Whatever it was, it did not attack me and it seemed quite friendly.

And that was the beautiful morning I had in the midst of Rain-Ocalypse Part II.

So some of you may wonder why I almost always hike alone. Well there are many reasons but here is one … Often I strike out on my hikes and do not find any waterfalls. It happens fairly often because I am usually hiking in places where people rarely (if ever) hike, and trying to find new waterfalls that very few people (if any) have ever been to before. I run into countless obstacles: confounding brush, raging rivers, impassable snow, death defying cliffs, crazy sasquatches, you name it. I would hate taking anyone on a hike and end up not getting to any waterfall for whatever reason. If they told me they didn’t mind I wouldn’t believe them. Even if I knew them and that they really didn’t mind I still would feel bad dragging someone out on a difficult hike and not finding any falls (and that has happened more than once). It’s better if I go by myself and do all the dirty work for you.

Take this past weekend as a good example: my initial plan was to go on a new hike somewhere up Foresthill Rd. The Tahoe NF website does not keep up with their road condition status very well at all but I thought maybe I’d be able to drive up there since there has not been all that much snow yet. I did not even make it to Mumford Bar before I encountered too much snow to continue. The big problem was that the road was completely ice, the temperature was about 20 degrees. There was no chance I’d get anywhere near I hoped to. Plan B was to try hiking down into Humbug Canyon where I thought there might be a waterfall. I was not certain but I figured there’d be at least a small one. I actually did not think I’d get even anywhere close to the creek. It just looked far too brushy on Google Earth. Worth a try though. As it turned out getting down to the creek was easy (well, as easy as a 1500 ft descent can be). I found a very old trail which pretty much went all the way down to the bottom. Was it an old mining trail? I think it must’ve been. At the bottom, however, all I found was a big cliff dropoff  and no waterfall. Not even a small one. There was perhaps a ten footer and a couple smaller cascades. That’s it. No way to get down all the way to the creek either without killing myself. No photos taken. It was definitely not worth killing oneself for a 10 foot waterfall.

Here is another shot of Canyon Creek Falls from last month. She’s a beauty.

Here is some perspective for you of 144 ft. high Canyon Creek Falls. The North Fork American River is below right. You can see Bogus Point straight ahead and Lovers Leap peaking out behind it with a nice bit of fresh snow on it and the surrounding mountains. I have never seen the waterfalls on unmarked streams flowing off the distant mountains before.

This photo is just for my sister in law. She’s always asking me why I never show any sky in my waterfall photos. Well it’s not like I hate the sky. What she doesn’t understand is that sky normally does not work in waterfall images. It is usually detrimental to the image and intrusive. Plain blue sky is boring and overcast sky is ugly. Either one or other of these are almost always present when I go hiking, or else more likely the sky is non existent deep inside the canyon where the waterfall is. It is better to focus on the waterfall itself and usually it is the only option. But sometimes sky works very well and this was such a case. The light clouds and fog added a lot of interest in this scene to the surrounding mountains, and a superb sense of scale for the waterfall. It is an amazing spot.

Small but pretty. That is my assessment of this waterfall in the upper reaches of American Canyon Creek. I was hoping and expecting to find a bigger waterfall here, twice the height of what I found, which was this little 14 ft. falls, so I was certainly disappointed but it is still quite a purdy thing. Getting to it, however, was incredibly difficult, but fun.

The hike started off very well. I found a trail that I did not know even existed. It followed along the creek leading almost all the way to the falls. Almost but not quite. It certainly would have been impossible to get even close to this waterfall if not for this unknown trail, which apparently horse riders know all about but not hikers. There was a lot of horse poop I had to carefully tread through. However, about a half mile downstream of the falls, the trail came to a creek crossing and then continued up and away from the creek into a private farm. There was no path continuing up the creek. I tried both sides of the creek, to no avail. It was just too brushy, and all I got was soaking wet and tired. There was only one way to go: Wade straight up the creek bed.

On went my water shoes. It started off deep, a little pool I had to wade through in which the water went up to my thighs. Not a good sign, but after this pool, there was no more really deep stuff. But there was prickly brush along the creek bed, and a few little cascades I had to climb over. Not too bad, though it would have been impossible if the creek flow was high. I felt like I was wading up the creek in the middle of the jungle, and wondering if any crocs, huge snakes, or big cats were lurking in the shadows waiting to pounce on me. In particular, I was freaked out about the latter of those three things. I made decent progress, however, until I got to the end of the road. The prickly brush all of a sudden got incredibly thick along the creek bed with no way to get through it. I could glimpse the waterfall through all that brush just ahead. If this was the beginning of the hike, I would not have even attempted this, but it was right at the end, and I could see the falls. I just “had” to trounce through this brush. My scratched up legs did not thank me later. I had to get over some prickly brush, crawl up on a big rock, then down, then up a little mini waterfall, then through more awful prickly brush, then over a very slippery log, then through more prickly brush, and finally I was in a small pool at the base of the waterfall. Whew! There was barely enough room in this little alcove to take a photo of the falls. It was a pretty little spot indeed. Just too bad the waterfall was not bit bigger. But it was fun.

Here is yet another shot of Devil’s Falls, from a couple weeks ago when it was flowing well. Since then we had a couple weeks of ugly dry weather. The spring people may have liked it, but certainly not I, especially this year when we are in such dire straights for snow and rain. Thankfully, it is back to winter this weekend, and we have another storm which will hopefully bring a few feet of snow into the mountains. March normally brings the end of our wet weather, but I am praying it will continue well into April this year.

This year I have been trying not to watch the long range weather forecasts. I hate getting my hopes up and then being so disappointed. On Monday two of the three weather forecast models were predicting we would be getting 12 inches of rain through the end of this weekend. That got my hopes very high. Then the very next day, it was cut back to 4-5 inches. Argh, I hate that so much. This is precisely why I have been trying to keep from watching the forecasts this year. Just trust that the rain will come. God will provide all we need. Yes, the rain is coming.

On Monday I saw another very long range forecast which also got my hopes up. There is a very strong El Nino forming in the Pacific Ocean. It is much too early, and this is exactly why I don’t want to get my hopes too high, but if this comes to fruition, it will indeed be the answer to all our prayers, and finally spell the end of this incredibly nasty drought in California next winter. Keep praying people!

Please enjoy the next installment of Waterfall Madman: Episode 8 – Table Mountain waterfalls. Please watch in HD: