Leon Turnbull Photography

After taking a couple weeks off, my ankle finally feels better. Not 100 percent yet for sure, but more than enough that I feel I can do some serious hiking again. Off trail hiking. To remote, tough to get to waterfalls. Down in the LA area, I went to a couple easy ones. Not a problem for my healing ankle. Walking around Disneyland for four days I survived. The worst part of that was just the fact that you are walking around on pavement all day. Walking on pavement is many times worse than walking on dirt trails. My feet were in agony by the end of that. But my ankle was fine. Last weekend, I wanted to get out hiking, but instead took the weekend off. This weekend, though, I definitely wanted to get back on the hiking grid. And I did.

The destination was to be a new waterfall for me: Upper Marble Creek Falls. I was not sure about access to this waterfall, and I had heard it was difficult, cliffy, and with abundant poison oak. I also expected to find many ticks, as this year is supposedly the worst in ages (and the last two years have been incredibly awful for ticks). I decided to take my dog along on this hike. Normally on a hike like this I would not take her, because I do not know the terrain, and I could easily get to a place where she would not be able to go any further. But she is getting older, and probably does not have too many hiking years left in her, and I was feeling like she needs to have as much fun now as she possibly can. So I took her along. And of course, that made her very happy.

If there were a lot of ticks though, the hike would not last long for either of us. I was watching very closely but I saw none of the little buggers all day long. I’m not sure why, but I suspect it may have been much too cold for them. Poison oak though was a different matter. There was plenty of that and more. Doh.

My initial thought on this waterfall was to approach it from above. Looking at a map that seems to be the quickest route. Unfortunately it is all private property above the falls, and I did not see any way to get to it without crossing through anyone’s backyard. Not wanting to give up, I looked at my map again, and saw a possible route from below. A longer route but maybe that would not be private, and as I found out it was not. Yeah. We parked the car and walked across a wide open field over to the creek drainage. From there, we started up towards the falls, and that is where we encountered all the oak, but the going was not too bad otherwise. As we got closer to the falls, the terrain got a bit rougher and steeper, but again, not too bad. I just had to be careful with my ankle is all. I could hear the waterfall as we approached, but I could not see any water in the creek downstream. Weird, I thought. When we arrived at the falls I found out why. At the base of the falls, the water disappeared underground. It must  re-emerge somewhere, but I’m not sure where. If there was more water flowing, it obviously would not all go underground, but there was not a lot of water flowing right now. It should be spectacular right now, of course, but our very dry winter has taken that away. It was still a very lovely waterfall though, even at low water flows, dropping an amazing 77 ft. into a tight narrow gorge. At high flows it would be an amazing spot to be, but also likely very difficult to photograph if there was a lot of spray. I’m quite certain I will return here when the waterfall is flowing greater. It was not difficult to get to, the only tough part was all the poison oak.

On the way back across the fields, I noticed from a long way off a couple dogs on the other side of the field. No owners. No houses nearby. They saw us coming, and just waited beside my car for us to come. They knew we were coming back that way. They were just puppies, and incredibly friendly little guys, jumping all over us when we got there. We eventually managed to escape them, and got back in the car, at which time they continued to play with each other, rolling around in the grass. Fun stuff.

After this hike, we went on a second hike in the area, looking for a second waterfall. I found it, a very big one, but it was surrounded by huge cliffs on each side of it, and the waterfall offered up no views of itself. I searched for one in vain. There must be a way to see this one. I will definitely be looking for a way to get back to this one.

I love studying topo maps to try to find new waterfalls. I suspected there might be other waterfalls on Brandy Creek and my goal on Thanksgiving Day was to find them.

I cut down off the main trail and descended the steep terrain to creek level to the spot on my map where I figured there should be a waterfall. Nothing. But not giving up yet, I then traversed downstream. I found something. Two somethings. Unfortunately though, they were small somethings. The upper and prettier something shown here is about 11 ft high. I could not get any closer to the falls than this as that pool is quite deep. The lower falls is about 15 ft high though from certain angles above it looks much higher. It was very cliffy and too difficult to get down to it. If it was bigger I would have attempted it but instead I just took photos of the upper and more photogenic falls. I was bummed these falls were not bigger as I do not think they warrant inclusion on my website. Oh well. I ran out of time to explore as I needed to get to Redding.

On the way back down I passed another group of hikers and then saw more as I drove back down the road. I was surprised. I did not think I’d see anyone out and about on this day. I guess they had the same idea as I did to get a good hike in before eating their big meals.

Thanksgiving Day. Time: 3:30AM. Event: Alarm Rings. Action: Wake Up. Make coffee. Drive north to meet family for Thanksgiving Day. First stop off at Brandy Creek for a quick morning hike and exploration.

This was how my day shaped up for me. Getting a good solid hike in before eating a big meal is always a good thing. My first stop along Brandy Creek was Lower Brandy Creek Falls (Rich Gulch Falls), which I have not stopped at in a very long time. Though I have called it Lower Brandy Creek Falls in the past, the waterfall is not actually on Brandy Creek but on Rich Gulch. The small 10 ft falls on the right is Brandy Creek. The larger one on the left (which I measured as being 18 ft high) is Rich Gulch.

It is a steep descent from the trail down to creek level but is not really too difficult. I quickly decided the best viewpoint was from the other side of the creek and since the creek was flowing higher due to recent rain, that meant getting wet. I donned my water shoes and crossed the creek. It was cold. Fortunately, there was a nice large rock on the other side to stand on so I did not have to shoot from in the creek.

After spending quite a lot of time here shooting this lower falls I continued on up the trail as I still had some time before Thanksgiving lunch with family in Redding. Not to the upper falls though. I was in an exploring mood for searching out new waterfalls on Brandy Creek. Did I find any? Stay tuned.

I needed to get out this weekend. And I did.

My wife Tara was being promoted to second degree black belt in Kenpo Karate. She had asked me a long time ago to go up there to see the promotion. At the time I said yes, of course I would. But things got a little too crazy at work, and with a deadline approaching this Tuesday, I was pretty sure I would be working all weekend. Well, as of Friday morning, I figured I was caught up enough at work that I would not have to stay home and work all weekend, so I hopped in the car and boogied on up I-5 to Red Bluff Friday evening. Actually, I did end up working a bit on the weekend, but fortunately I could do that up in Red Bluff.

One thing I wanted to do while up north was take my son Jadon out hiking in the Whiskeytown area. I decided on Brandy Creek Falls, which Jadon had not been to before. I woke him up super early. Knowing that the light hits the falls pretty early, I wanted to be up at the waterfall by sunrise or shortly afterward. Well, the hike is a tough one, even though it is only about a mile and a half. Jadon was struggling, and I was worried we would be too late to the waterfall, but as it turned out, we arrived in plenty of time. The creek was flowing a bit less than I was hoping for, but it is about normal for this time of year. I took my photos while Jadon waited around semi-impatiently. On this particular image, I was having Jadon hold back some branches in the way, while I set up my tripod at the edge of the creek. Well, the rocks were wet and slippery, and indeed I did slip, my feet sliding into the creek and into my tripod. My first instinct, of course, was a good one. Save the camera at all costs. And I did save it. My feet got a bit wet, but that was all. I tried to make it into a teachable lesson for Jadon. Be careful around creeks and waterfalls! It can be very treacherous. I’m not sure how well he got the point, however, as he scampered back along the rocks, splashing through the creek to cross to the other side. Sigh.