Leon Turnbull Photography

This is another view of Iowa Hill Ditch Falls. It sure is a pretty thing, isn’t it. It does not look too hard to get up to the base of it from this angle. Ha, but it is killer steep!

It has been two years since I have been up on Ice House Rd. That year, I spent a lot of time up on Ice House, doing a lot of exploring. I love that area. Last year, I went up there zero times, however. Why? I think mostly because of the bad winter we had that year, there was not much in the way of waterfalls. Well what about this year, bonehead? We had an even worse winter. Why would you go up there this year? Hummm, I don’t know. I just felt like it. Maybe because it has been too long, and I missed being up there, exploring. The waterfalls *are* flowing up there right now. But they are past peak for sure, and they will not be flowing very much longer. Gotta get to ’em while you can, is what I say.

There is a lot of manzanita brush up on Ice House Rd. That is one thing I didn’t miss last year, but I was sure in the thick of it on this day. I was looking for a new waterfall on the South Fork Rubicon River, just below Loon Lake. It is only about a mile off the road, and from the looks of my maps, it did not look like it would be very difficult to get down to it. I could see the brush on Google Earth, but it looked open enough to be feasible to hike. Humm, well it was definitely crazy brush. Thick brush. Leg scratching brush. Man eating brush. Okay, okay, it was not really all that bad. I found a path through the stuff after all. I almost didn’t make it though. Actually I almost made it all the way to the waterfall and then had to turn back. I could see the waterfall below me. In between me and it was a mound of that crazy brush. And this part was the thickest yet and there was no path through it either. And the sun was coming. I thought I had only minutes to get down to it before the sun got there. I could not see how I going to make it through this brush. I backtracked a bit, and went over to the right, where it looked slightly easier. I still had to mangle my way through the thickest of the stuff, though. Finally I broke through. I was almost down to the river, but the last part was a steep dropoff. I got out my rope and climbed down this last section. Safe. I still had plenty of time too, before the sun got down onto the waterfall.

The river was flowing quite strongly as you can see. This will not last for long. The snow is pretty much all melted now. I was also a bit disappointed in the waterfall size. I was expecting a bigger waterfall and more of a vertical waterfall. Nonetheless, this one is certainly a very nice cascade, 37 ft. high. I kinda doubt I will ever be back here again, though. Just a bit too difficult for such a small waterfall. Despite the brush though, it really was a fantastic hike. I loved being back on Ice House, out in the wilderness alone, and exploring new places. It is my kind of thing.

I don’t know. This last hike I did on Saturday was only a half day, 8 mile hike, but it felt more like a full day, 16 mile hike. I was just as tired after this hike as I was after the Trinity Alps hike on Easter weekend, and it took me just as long to recover (ie. two days). Granted it was a tough 8 mile hike, with a lot of scrambling up and down mountain sides, so I’m sure this is the reason I was so tired. But I don’t know, it seems to me I shouldn’t have been so tired after it. Maybe my 45 year old body is finally catching up to me (or I guess I should say I am catching up to it). Maybe it won’t be much longer that I will be able to do tough hikes like this. The horrors, I am dreading that day. There are so many great places to hike around here, many I have not been to yet, and many of them have very difficult access. Especially the North Fork American River Canyon. It is such a beautiful and rugged and remote place. My favorite canyon. And the access is so darn difficult. That is a good thing, else it would not be so beautiful and rugged. I must keep going here though. I cannot stop going here. Ever.

Oh I guess I might mention I was also carrying a heavy pack all morning. I brought my big heavy lens along, thinking that I would be able to get a very good view across the canyon of Big Granite Creek Falls from the Iowa Hill Ditch. Unfortunately, this is not possible. You can only glimpse the uppermost part of that huge waterfall, and it is not possible to see the entire thing. I was disappointed about this, from what I had heard there was going to be a great view from the Ditch. You can, however, get a pretty good view of Big Valley Falls from the Ditch, but I did not take a picture because (1) that waterfall was not flowing super great, and (2) the sun was harshly shining on it. Perhaps another year and day will be better. So all in all, I took my big lens and did not even use it. I’m sure my back did not appreciate that too much. Nor my legs. Nor my entire 45 year old body.

Anyway, I am calling this waterfall Iowa Hill Ditch Falls. It is 93 ft. high. Good name, huh. I can’t think of a better name for it. It is an unnamed stream, in a remote spot and not near anything else of significance, but it needs a name because it is such a beautiful and large waterfall. It is located at the very end of the Iowa Hill Ditch, so the name does make sense. As much sense as anything else.

As I mentioned before, it is super hard to get up close to. The terrain is incredibly steep, and required much difficult scrambling to get up close to it. I did it, but it was not worth all the effort. Nonetheless, I do very much like this shot even though it is an in your face, straight on shot.

Last June I made it down to Tadpole Canyon Creek on the strangest of days. It was foggy (which is very odd for June), and indeed it was so foggy that I literally could not even see the waterfall. The fog slightly lifted for about 10 seconds and I was able to glimpse this majestic waterfall (and also take a picture). It was so nice of God to do this for me. But I vowed to return to the location this year, with no fog, and also when the waterfall would be flowing better. I did both things, but with the awful snow pack this year and all the snow melted already, the waterfall was only flowing marginally better, yes it was flowing decent, but it was not going bonkers (like it should be doing at this time of year). I guess I may need to make another trip back next year (which sure as heck BETTER be a good year).

I started the hike early from Beacroft trailhead. I had a bit of difficulty getting in there from Foresthill Rd with my little Honda. It seems that the road has gotten worse there since last year. How did that happen? The trail follows the old Iowa Hill Ditch over to Tadpole Canyon Creek. This old canal was built in 1882 but never finished. It is now quite overgrown, but you can still hike along it. There are some difficult spots including one rock slide which requires going up and around, through the middle of the burned area from the 2008 fire. I may be imagining things, but it seems the route up through here is more defined now. Have many of my followers been up that way in the past year? At the top of the ridge though, the trail becomes very indistinct again over to the creek. It seemed to me that the creek had about as much or less flow than when I was here last June. In fact, I could have sworn that I needed to get my feet wet to cross the creek last year, but this year it was an easy rock hop. This would mean bad things for the waterfall, but it seems I just had a bad memory (no surprise there). I made my way across the creek, then up the ridge on the other side, meander through manzanita brush, and finally down to the waterfall viewpoint. Now I could finally see the waterfall was flowing better. Not a lot better, but better nonetheless. And it was not foggy! I also was able to finally measure the graceful beast (186 ft. high if you care). I took my photos and packed it back up the mountain. I would have liked to explore further here, but I had things to do, places to be. My intent was to go find a second waterfall further along the Iowa Hill Ditch. I was not sure but I thought that maybe I might be able to get to it before the sun got on it. It was going to be close, so I needed to get with it and not dilly dally at Tadpole Canyon.

I climbed back up to the Ditch and started hiking east. It was overgrown with brush, but it was manageable. The late Russell Towle had mentioned an impassable Big Brush along here somewhere, but I never saw this. I’m not sure where he was thinking this was, but I never encountered anything that was remotely impassable. I did encounter another cliffy section, which required me to descend off trail to the bottom of the cliff, across unstable rocks, then back up to the Ditch. And continue along the Ditch. The Ditch ends at the creek. Actually it ends slightly before the creek. It looked a bit sketchy to continue from there, so I descended downhill until I could get a look at the waterfall. It was not a waterfall. I was really hoping this was a straight plunge off the cliffs, but instead it was just a series of small cascades on an unnamed creek that was not flowing very well. Certainly not worthy of mention on waterfallswest.com. But I could not see the top of it, it was hidden behind the rocks above me. I climbed back up the hill to the trail, then examined the sketchy traverse. One step was going to be a doozy, but I thought I could manage it. I came all this way, I had to at least see what the top part of this creek looked like. Hold breath. Take step. Made it across. Now I was able to make it down to the creekside easily. I still could not see behind those rocks. I crossed the creek. Looked up. Voila. Amazing waterfall found! It was a straight drop off the cliffs after all, 93 ft. high, and very very pretty. It was still in shade also, thank the Lord. Photographing this beauty, however, was going to be a big problem. It is a very steep bank on the other side of the creek, and I had to scramble up this steep bank to get a good look at the falls. There was a ledge not far up, and I shot the falls from a distance here. After this, I wondered if I could get right up to the base of the falls. I decided to try. It was crazy. Straight up the side of the mountain, very steep, slipping and sliding, and scrambling on all fours. I finally made it up to the base of the cliff and walked along it over to the waterfall and was able to get down right at the base of the falls. It was beautiful, but it was not worth all that effort! I think also the angle was too severe to photograph, but I did take some shots, and I will be posting them here very soon. Alrighty then, time to go back down the mountain. One look from the top and I said “HOLY SHUBUMBA!!!” (or something like that). I am going to die! You don’t really realize how steep something is until you look down on it from above. I carefully and slowly made my way back down the mountain, crossed the creek, over the sketchy section, and finally had my feet planted firmly back on the Iowa Hill Ditch. Whew. Now I still had to hike back to Beacroft trailhead, and I was already completely spent. I only hiked 8 miles this day, but all the scrambling up and down mountain sides totally wiped me out, especially that last one up to the base of the waterfall. Well, I had to go back though if I wanted to avoid becoming bear food. I took my time on the hike back, taking it as easy as I could. Finally got back to the car, and was starving. I did not bring my lunch because I thought this was going to be a much quicker and easier hike. I managed to hold myself together until I got back to Foresthill where I stopped to refuel (my body). Then on the drive back from Foresthill to Auburn, in one second my great morning was practically ruined, when I saw a dead bear on the side of the road. Ugh! I hate seeing dead animals, but especially bears, which are my favorite animal. There are so few of them in California too, and this seems so pointless. The dufus that hit him was most likely speeding and it is an accident easily avoided (I don’t know that but it is probably true). Argh, argh argh! Anyway, other than that one last incident I did really have a great day in the American River Canyon.

I did it. I dragged myself out of the house on Sunday afternoon to go hiking. And I am glad.

I was initially intending to hike back to New York Canyon Falls (which of course, is my favorite CA waterfall). However, I could not drive as far on Foresthill Rd as I wanted. I could only drive as far as the bottom of Canada Hill, at which point I was stopped by intimidating snow mounds on the road that were stubbornly refusing to melt. I could have hiked from there and I would have made it to NYC for sure, but it would have made for a 10 mile round trip hike (which is more than I wanted to do), plus I would have been hiking back in the dark for sure (which I also didn’t really want to do). I could have done it though. Getting into NYC in mid-April would have been pretty sweet. How well would it have been flowing, though?

So anyway … I decided to go to a different spot. West New York Canyon. In particular, Upper West New York Canyon. You can see this waterfall in the distance from Canada Hill Ridge (this is the ridge that you go down from the top of Canada Hill to get to Upper New York Canyon Falls). From there it looks like a pretty tough waterfall to get to. Indeed, looking at the topo maps, it seems there are cliffs all around the waterfall, with sheer dropoffs of thousands of feet (kidding). I did not think it would be possible to get there, but I decided to go for it anyway. It is a much shorter hike, so I thought I would have plenty of time before dark.

I started hiking on an old dirt road from near Tadpole campground. This campground was wiped out in the forest fire a couple years ago. Indeed I often used the outhouse here before it got burned down (that is probably Too Much Information for you, I suspect). As you walk along this road, you are walking right through the middle of the devastation. It is intense, the devastation. Yet even so, the brush is already growing back. I noticed this clearly as I exited the road and descended down into West New York Canyon. My legs were pretty scratched up by the end of it. They complained loudly in the shower later that night. It is a 1200 ft. descent to the falls. I tried to take a more traversing type of route down, to avoid what I thought would be steep cliffs closer to the falls. It took quite a while to make the descent. I thought I was making a big mistake, it was taking much too long to get down. Far too long. I would be hiking back in the dark for sure. I kept going though, and eventually I traversed my way over to where the waterfall was, wondering if I would be able to get any view of the thing at all. To my delight and surprise, I saw that I could indeed make my way down to a grand viewpoint just below the waterfall. Awesome. It didn’t even require any dangerous cliff scaling. Well, maybe just a tad. The waterfall is 150 ft. high, an amazing sight as it drops and slides its way down the canyon. From here the view is astounding. I could not see the lower waterfalls on the creek, but I could see where they would be. You can see the Chert Knoll far below. This is the location where you can view New York Canyon Falls from up close. I do not think you can see this waterfall from down there, however. The angle must be slightly off. Or something. Of course you can see the Canada Hill Ridge beside you. I could not see Macklin Ridge on the other side of it. For those of you who may not know, Macklin Ridge is the previously unnamed ridge which I named after my good friend Rob Macklin, who was the one who initially suggested we hike along the ridge in order to get to New York Canyon Falls, and it turned out to be the absolute best route to that waterfall. He is such a genius.

The creek in West New York Canyon was not flowing all that impressively. In mid-April it should be gushing with snow melt. There is not much snow left up here, just a little bit left, and the creeks are well past peak flow already. I calculated this year that peak snow melt happened on around April 1 (no fooling). This is the first year I have calculated this so I’m not sure what it was last year, but certainly it is normally much later. When I was here in late April years ago with my brother-in-law, New York Canyon Falls was thundering. This year, right now, based on what I saw in West New York Canyon, I think it is far past its thundering state. Maybe it never even reached thundering state this year.

It is a big ascent back up the canyon. I decided to take a more direct route, i.e. straight up, thinking it would be quicker and shorter than the long traverse I made on the descent. It was indeed quicker and shorter, and perhaps a bit tougher. I wished I had come down this way though, but now I know for next time. Nonetheless, it was a huffer to ascend that 1200 ft. I arrived back at the car well before sunset. I think I would definitely like to return here when the creek is gushing. Maybe next year will be a better one.