Leon Turnbull Photography

“And the seventh lives in a narrow place, and is of power.” (from Ode to NFAR – by Leon Turnbull)

There is just one place I love to go backpacking early in the season. Into the belly of the beast: The North Fork American River. NFAR. The one and only. My all time favorite river.

This time I decided to go down into Palisade the hard way. I wanted a bit of a challenge. I am a glutton for punishment I guess. There was quite a bit of snow at the trailhead. Probably around 4-5 feet or so in most places. Snowshoes were required, especially as the snow got softer in the warm sun and you would be sinking in deep without them. It was tough going.

As I descended into Palisade Canyon I was in heaven. It is so incredibly beautiful in the spring with all the snow around you. All alone. How many people have ever seen how beautiful this place is in the spring? It is a popular trail in summer but only the madman goes down there in spring. The only others that venture down into Palisade are the bears. I saw quite a few bear tracks in the snow but I did not see any of the beautiful creatures (unfortunately).

Keeping on the trail is virtually impossible. I lost it many times. A couple times I intentionally went off trail, trying to avoid the problem areas. The first time worked out well. I was walking on open granite where all the snow had melted. The second time not so well. I got caught up in way too much brush: argh! The third time I was forced to go off trail because of dangerous sections. This is where I had to turn back in the spring of 2017 but this time I made it through. It was very difficult! As I descended lower in elevation, snowshoes became worthless. There are just big patchy sections of snow. It was better to just hike on it with boots. I left my snowshoes along the trail to pick up the next day. Carrying them down with me (and back up) would be way too much extra weight. Finally, I lost the snow completely. The last mile or so down to Upper Palisade was snowless. It was a big relief.

I made it down to my camp at Upper Palisade Creek Falls at around 2PM. It took 6 hours to hike the 7 or 8 miles. Going back up the next day would take even longer. I setup my camp and ate my dinner. Then I went for an evening hike.

It was not my intention on this trip to go all the way down to Palisade Falls on the river. However, I did go down to NFAR at Heath Falls (pictured here). Going to Heath Falls was not the main reason why I wanted to do this hike again. There was another reason. Actually, three other reasons. Meaning … three brand new waterfall discoveries. You will have to wait for my next couple of posts to see them. Heath Falls, though, was here! How could I not go down to my favorite river and one of my favorite waterfalls? The ever spectacular Heath Falls, 65 ft. high. It was a fantastic day on the NFAR.

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I was planning to go backpacking this weekend. However, when I arrived at the trailhead I found no place to park! I did this hike a couple years ago and I had no trouble parking overnight, but now there are no parking signs everywhere. So now no one can park here and hike. This is absolutely ridiculous and extremely upsetting, Placer County. This is a public road. There is no reason why we should not be allowed to park and hike here. Well, I will be back here later with a different plan. I am not going to be denied this hike. But for now, I had to retreat.  Strike one.

I drove up Foresthill Road in the afternoon. The satellite image seemed to show the road is now open to Tadpole, however, I was stopped before Ford Point. No go. There was not much snow but it was more than enough to stop me. Strike two.

I did not have time anymore to do my planned hike but I decided to just park and walk up the road to Tadpole. There is one waterfall there I have been wanting to check out and this seemed like as good a time as any to do it. It is a pleasant road walk but you do gain about 700 ft. in elevation. I dropped down into the canyon all the way to the creek. It was not “too hard” to get down but it was not easy either. I found this 33 ft. high cascade. Not a very big waterfall but not awful either.

It was in the sun so I had to wait. The problem is I did not research this beforehand so I had no idea when it would be in the shade. I waited an hour, watching the sun closely. While I waited I ate my dinner and then to entertain myself, I threw twigs in the water, trying to get them into a little whirlpool and then see how long it took for the twig to finally get over a mini waterfall. Yes, I am easily amused. Well, after an hour it became very clear that the waterfall would not be out of the sun until sunset. That was still two hours away. There is no way I was going to wait another two hours. It was just not worth it. I still had to climb out of the canyon followed by a long road walk back to my car. I just took some photos as best as I could and left. Strike three. It was an interesting day in Tahoe National Forest.

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So what is your favorite season? Mine is spring. That may surprise you. Maybe you thought I preferred winter? Well I do like winter, but in spring, the weather is warmer, the snow is melting, and the waterfalls in the high country are roaring. It is time to get out hiking and enjoy them! It will be a very short season this year, unfortunately. As of April 1, the snow pack is at 71% of normal (northern CA), 68% (central Sierra), 46% (southern Sierra). Rain is at 52% (north), 54% (central), 40% (south). It has been a dismal year. This is the second year in a row of drought. Are we heading back into a prolonged drought period again? I sure hope not. Please pray for much rain next year.

The snow is just starting to melt now so I wanted to head up into a higher elevation this week, above 4000 ft. Well, I ended up being a bit below 4000 and unfortunately that meant more poison oak. Sigh.

For this hike, I first saw this waterfall about 12 years ago. I climbed up on the opposite ridge and could only see an obscured long distance view of it. In retrospect, I have no idea why I even bothered to climb the ridge because I should have known it would not be a good view. Since that time I’ve been wondering how I could get close to it, if it was even possible. I had some ideas. The King Fire in 2014 put a delay into those plans, though as it turned out I should have tried to do this one a couple years ago. (keep reading and I will explain).

You won’t be finding this hike on AllTrails. I find it funny that people will only look on AllTrails and nowhere else for hikes. Not every hike is on it! I have so many hikes on waterfallswest.com that you will not find on any other site. This one is not easy, however. The hike is 6 miles one way with an elevation loss of about 1600 ft., so it is similar to the Upper Shirttail Creek Falls hike I did a couple weeks ago, yet this one was much much harder. The last part is a big drop of 500 ft. down to the creek (again, similar to Shirttail). It took a full hour to get down to the bottom. It was hard! The brush after the King Fire has now grown up immensely. It was very brushy, especially near the top of the ridge. At first, I thought I was done for. There is no way I was getting through all that brush, but I persevered and I found a path.  It was very steep and there were a lot of fallen trees from the fire. I had to be careful with that but the brush was still the biggest problem. The brush got better near the bottom but that is where the poison oak made a presence (in abundance). I really wanted to be done with the poison oak for this year. Sign. Maybe next week.

I finally made it down to the creek and the bottom of the main section of the waterfall, a magnificent 161 ft. drop. Onion Creek Falls is absolutely glorious! It was so awesome finally getting up close to this beauty and well worth the effort. But I still had to climb back up the mountain. It was 5PM and it took an hour to climb back up to the road. I was planning to eat my dinner back at the road but I should have eaten at the bottom. I almost bonked. The climb was so incredibly difficult. I rested when I got back up to the road and tried to eat. Now I still had 5 miles to hike and another 1100 ft. to get back to the car. It was well after dark when I finally got back (almost 9PM!), so it was much later than I had hoped and I almost bonked again as I finished the hike. This was a killer tough hike. Was it worth it? Heck yes. It was an awesome day in Eldorado National Forest.

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What is this on the horizon? A large cloud cover came in overhead blocking out the sun and it looked like it would stick around for awhile. Maybe I should try going to the bottom of Beatson Falls after all. Should I? I should indeed!

Getting down to the creek below Beatson Falls was much easier than expected. From there I was a mile or so below the waterfall and there was a good path going up the creek. I was feeling optimistic. However, I think perhaps it was just a cow path and before too long it disappeared. The poison oak came out in full force. I tried to continue up along the creek, avoiding the oak as best I could. This was not working. I was still more than half a mile away and the oak was now insurmountable. I have never seen this much poison oak. Seriously. There is no way in you-know-what that I was going to beat my way through all this oak for a half mile.

I decided to try something else. I would wade straight up through the middle of the creek to the falls. I was smart to bring my water shoes (I had considered not bringing them), so I put them on and left my hiking boots along the creekside. Hopefully the cows would not steal them.

There were obstacles galore. Fallen trees across the creek that I had to maneuver around (which meant going through the poison oak). Deep pools that I had to get around (again, via the oak). Rocks that I had to climb over. Wading through spots up to my waist. In some places the creek was rushing quite fast making it difficult to navigate upstream. Climbing across loose rocks on steep terrain. It took a long time. Now the sun was back out. I was still not to the waterfall yet. This is not worth it! That is what I was thinking pretty much the entire time. It is just not worth the effort to get to the bottom of Beatson Falls. Should I turn back? I continued on. I figured I should at least get to the end so I can say I’ve done it. I was sure I would not be back here ever again.

Finally, I could see the waterfall. Lo and behold, it was still in the shade. It is a miracle! I did not think it would still be in shade, especially the top part of it. The last part to get down to the bottom was steep and dangerous and for this I did use my rope for safety. I made it down. Now I had another problem.

It was so incredibly misty! Beatson Falls drops 100 ft. into a small amphitheater with towering cliffs on each side. It is a stunning place but there was absolutely no place out of the mist to photograph the waterfall on either side of the creek. It was incredible. The falling water created a strong wind that was blowing the mist everywhere. Essentially, it was raining on me the entire time and I was cold and shivering by the end. I tried to photograph the waterfall as best I could. At least I got something decent.

Now it was time to leave and get warmed up as I hiked back down the creek. Do I still think it was not worth the effort to go down to the bottom of Beatson? Hiking back down the creek seemed to be a lot easier now that I knew exactly where to go and I made it in pretty good time back to the spot where I had left my boots (the cows did not take them!). It was very tough but I would not say NO to going back there, however I think I would do it with less flow in the creek. It was only at a medium flow when I was here but I think a low flow would be a lot better.

There were quite a few people around when I got back to the Beatson Falls viewpoint. (again, I’ve never seen anyone at Beatson Falls before). However, when I got back to Hollow Falls, there were literally hundreds of people on this stretch from Hollow Falls back to the parking lot. The parking lot was completely packed and cars were parked all the way down the road. Table Mountain is at over capacity. This is really bad, actually. Firstly (and worst), with all the people going onto Table Mountain there is now a lot of litter. I had to pick up quite a bit. Secondly, people are trampling all over the wildflowers. That is not ok. If one or two do this it is not so bad, but if (literally) hundreds of people do it? Thirdly, I saw a lot of people going off into private property. This area is not all public land but these people do not care about going off into other people’s property and trampling all over it. Fourthly, there is a fee to go here. Did all these hundreds of people pay the fee? I doubt it. In my opinion, it would be a good thing if they had an attendant here (on the weekends) making sure everyone has paid their fee and to limit the amount of people. Otherwise they are going to be forced to close Table Mountain to everyone. (I can already see this happening – and this would be so incredibly upsetting).

Anyway, it was a very grand adventure to the bottom of Beatson Falls on Table Mountain in Oroville.

 

 

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One of my primary goals for this year was to get to the bottom of Beatson Falls. I only know of two others that have done it, and they both describe their horror stories: huge cliffs, horribly steep terrain, poison oak, whatever else you can think of. Well, I could not let these usurpers get the better of me. I am the only madman around here. I’m kidding of course. Both of them are good friends.

Anyway, this past weekend seemed like a good time to go. We have had very little rain this winter and I have not felt that it has been worth it to visit Table Mountain this year, but this past week we had a couple inches so the big waterfalls at least should be flowing quite decent. The flowers would be out. So would all the people. I figured I had to get up at 4AM to accomplish my goal of getting to the bottom of Beatson Falls on time. I did not think I’d be able to do this, but I did. I arrived at the trailhead at 6AM. There were already people here!!! I have literally never seen this before. I knew there would be a lot of people on this Saturday but not like this (and it was much worse later). I have been to Table Mountain before sunrise many times before and I’ve never seen a single soul. Only the killer cows are out this early (and they don’t like being disturbed before sunrise – believe me).

It is difficult hiking on Table Mountain in the dark. There is no trail, or so I thought. A lot has changed on Table Mountain since I was last here two years ago. My route to Beatson takes me to the bottom of Hollow Falls. I’ve always gone down to Hollow Falls on the west side of the creek and so that is what I did this time of course. I found out later there is now a very good trail down to the bottom of the east side of the creek. It would have been much faster. Well, it took quite awhile to get down to Hollow Falls on the west side in the dark, much longer than I expected. From there the new trail continues all the way to Beatson Falls. I did pick up this trail easily in the dark but by now it wasn’t so dark. I arrived at the Beatson Falls viewpoint at 7:30AM, thirty minutes late and past sunrise. When I arrived there were no people around but there were two killer cows standing at almost the exact place where I needed to take my photos of Beatson Falls. I could not get by them and I did not want them to charge at me right off the cliff (or vice versa). I gently coaxed them to move away and up the mountain. Thankfully, they listened to me. Just call me the cow whisperer.

I took my photos of Beatson Falls from the viewpoint. Now what should I do? There was certainly no possible way to get to the bottom of Beatson in less than 30 minutes (which is what I needed to do in order to beat the sun). It would be pointless to go down there now. I decided I should just cut my losses and head on back to the trailhead. At least I got a photo from the viewpoint.

But wait! What is this coming on the horizon?

Part II is coming soon …

 

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