Leon Turnbull Photography

December was a great month for California. As of Jan 1, we are now at 158% of normal for rain in northern CA, 156% (central Sierra) and 145% (southern Sierra). Even better is the snow pack: 135% (north), 148% (central), 160% (south). All this came from just two big storms in December including the last storm that dumped about 10 feet of snow in Tahoe! We went from 10% of normal to over 135%. A lot of people are saying that this is too much! But you are wrong if you are thinking that. The overall snow pack (for the year) is only at 50%. If it does not snow for the rest of the winter then we will still be in a bad drought situation and after a huge December it looks like January is going to be dry (at least the first half). We still have 3 more months of winter though so hopefully we will get a lot more snow and end this mini drought for good.

Anyhow, we arrived home from Canada on Sunday. Since I had Monday off work I decided to go hiking. I was tired from the long drive but the conditions seemed perfect and irresistible: a cloudy day with lots of recent rain. Table Mountain in Oroville should be fantastic. Right?

I arrived at the trailhead at 7:30AM. I was the only one there. I only saw one other couple on Table Mountain the entire day. It is funny. In the spring the parking lot is completely overflowing every day of the week but in the winter? No one! The cows are a different beast, however. They were in angry mode today. They were all standing in the middle of the trail defiantly blocking my path and peering furiously at me the entire time. I had to go way off trail to get around them, through the mud in some cases. I probably walked an extra mile to get around them. As I walked by they would start trotting towards me. I thought one of them was going to charge me. Seriously. Crazy killer cows. In the words of George Castanza: The cows were angry that day, my friends. My wife laughs at me. She says why are you afraid of cows and not afraid of bears? Well … I’m not totally afraid of the cows, only slightly afraid of them. Ha ha.

I stopped at Hollow Falls first. I have to admit I was quite disappointed in the water flows on Table Mountain. It was only about 7 days since the big storm and the flows are already down significantly. I was expecting a lot more. This is going to make me re-think my hiking plans for the next couple weekends. I was even more upset about another thing: some idiot left their poop (from their dog?) in a plastic bag under a rock right at the base of the waterfall right in the middle of the foot path, in the perfect place for everyone to see and have to step over as they visit the falls. Argh … who does this????? It is so annoying. Almost as bad is that no one else bothered to pick it up. It was obviously there for a long time and you literally could not miss seeing it if you went to Hollow Falls. Well don’t worry, it is not there anymore.

After visiting Hollow Falls I continued on my hike to see more waterfalls. Where would I go next? Phantom? Beatson? Something else? Stay tuned to find out …

This was the first Christmas in two years we were able to go to Canada to visit my family. It was only this summer that Canada finally opened their border again. (we thought they might close it again after Omicron started but thankfully that did not happen). We had no issues crossing the border but the trickiest part was getting all out test results within 72 hours of crossing. (especially since it takes two days for us to drive up there). It was wonderful seeing my family again and we had a great time.

It was cold! We only went for one day skiing on the 26th. After this day a major freeze came on through and it was too cold to ski. The coldest day we had was -11 degrees Fahrenheit (-24 Celsius). I have skied in such cold temperatures before but it is just not fun. In my youth I surely would ski in this weather but in my older years I am much wiser. ha ha. Instead of skiing we went hiking and snowshoeing. One day we snowshoed across a frozen Nancy Greene Lake and one day though a beautiful old growth forest.

On another day we went to Castlegar to hike (it was only -6 degrees there – so balmy!). We snowshoed over to Norns Creek Falls, a waterfall I had not been to before. I got a picture from the top of it but unfortunately it was impossible to get down to the bottom. There was (surprisingly) a lot of snow and it was very steep and incredibly dangerous with avalanche prone conditions. Just a short drive from there we returned to Tulip Creek Falls, a local favorite of mine. At Tulip Creek there was very little snow and the creek was not flowing nearly as well as Norns Creek. How is this possible since they are so close to each other?

It is a short hike up to the falls and we found it completely frozen, not the first time I have seen it like this. Tulip Creek is so interesting when it is frozen over. Beautiful. We had a lovely and cold time in British Columbia.

We were headed up to northern California for the weekend to celebrate Christmas with my wife’s family. She went up early so I had to bring the kids with me on Saturday morning. The thing is, I wanted to stop for a hike on the way up north. The problem is, the kids did not want to hike with me.

My son Jadon would literally rather sit in the cold car for three hours than go on a hike. I have failed him miserably. It is very disappointing to me and I don’t understand it. At least Nekoda has a good excuse: she is injured from dancing. She probably would have come hiking otherwise but the problem is that she is ALWAYS injured from dancing. I guess that is just the normal life of a dancer.

So … I was still going to hike. They can sit in the cold car if that is what they want to do. I decided a good hike to do would be Lovejoy Falls in Chico. I just found out about this waterfall last year. It is shocking that I never knew about this waterfall before. It is well marked along a popular trail in a popular park. How could I not know about this one? It is strange. It is on a very small drainage but with all the recent rain I figured that it should be flowing well.

The hike begins with a big 600 ft. descent down into the canyon which I would have to go back up later. Maybe it’s a good thing the kids stayed in the car. They would not have liked hiking back up this! For me though it was no issue and I looked forward to the climb at the end (seriously – but I am a bit strange).  Once down at the bottom the trail meanders along the ridge through a beautiful lush forested area to the top of Lovejoy Falls, and then continues down to the bottom of the falls. It was a very peaceful hike. No one else was on the trail. It was a gorgeous day.

Lovejoy Falls is 51 ft. high dropping off a big cliff into a very small pool. There is a big rock wall you climb up on right in front of the falls which is quite interesting. I thought it would have a lot more flow than it did but nonetheless the waterfall is very pretty. A couple other hikers came up to the falls just as I was leaving but otherwise I saw absolutely no one for the entire hike. It was a beautiful day in Chico and a beautiful hike to Lovejoy Falls.

So it begins. This week we are finally receiving our first big snow storm of the season. Over six feet of snow on the mountains in just a single storm. Wham! This will help our snow pack tremendously though we will still be well below average after this week. Let’s bring it on for the rest of this season. Please!

Speaking of beginnings, we bought a white Jeep Grand Cherokee this week. We named her Yeti. I’m not really sure the name will stick like the Gator but anyway it’s a nice car. I like it. Where should I take her on her first adventure? Foresthill of course! It is my favorite place, it would be a great choice for Yeti’s first time in the mountains. That is not the main reason I went back to Foresthill, however.

I wanted to return to this waterfall because of a couple reasons: I thought it would be flowing really well and I wanted to explore further downstream. Also, after this week the area will be inaccessible until spring. It snowed four inches earlier this last week. The snow levels were very low elevation. The road was very icy and snowy. Yeti’s first time in the snow. She handled it well. I drove up to Tadpole and parked there. Interestingly, the only other car up there that early was a dark green Ford Expedition. Wait, is that the Gator??? No it was not. That car continued up the road to the top of Canada Hill. My plan was to go to West New York Canyon.

I was walking through 4 inches of snow for the entire hike down to the waterfall viewpoint. There was snow all the way, 1500 ft. below where I started the hike. A couple stupid things: I should have worn my big hiking boots instead of my hiking shoes. My feet were frozen for the whole hike. Secondly, I should have brought my spikes. I did not really need them (fortunately) but it would have been good to have them in case. I was not expecting any snow at all down at the waterfall.

The very last part down to the viewpoint is steep and I had to be careful but it wasn’t too bad. I was not able to explore further. It was far too dangerous to continue because of the snow. Perhaps if there was no snow I could have gotten down. I don’t know but I’m sure I will be back to try sometime in the future. There is definitely another waterfall down there.

The flow in the creek was low and not as nice as I hoped. I think that is because all the precipitation from the last storm fell as snow not rain and the snow is not melting. Still, it was very pretty. The snow around the waterfall was gorgeous. It was a great day in Tahoe National Forest and Yeti agrees.

I am calling this one Far Upper Wabena Creek Falls. It is a pretty little thing, 32 ft. high. A little cutie pie. It was surprisingly easy (or not difficult) to get down to this one (and the big waterfall as well). I was expecting a lot of cliffs. There were not any cliffs at all. (if you go the right way – which I did). I was also happy to see the creek still flowing decent. My backup plan was to go down to the river at Palisade Falls, which I really did not want to do. That would have been a hard hike.