Leon Turnbull Photography

It was only about 33° at night and not very cold at all. I woke up in the morning after having a pretty decent sleep. I packed up, had my breakfast (without coffee), then I started the big hike back up the hill. I was still incredibly tired. I really had quite overdone it the previous day. Would I have enough energy to get home? Without coffee?

The photo is from Kings Creek Cascades. As you can see, it was mostly frozen also. If you look closely, you can see animal tracks going down to the creek where the water is flowing. It is one of the very few places one could get down to get some water. I have no idea what kind of animal, but I saw a few tracks similar to this along the creek. Perhaps deer, but I did not see a distinctive hoof print in the deep snow.

It is a big ascent from Kings Creek Falls back to the road and I had just enough water to make it. I filled up with water, going down the same steep and sketchy section to the creek. Now I would have enough for the rest of the hike. After this first ascent, most of the hike back to Mill Creek Falls was downhill. From Mill Creek Falls, however, it’s another two and a half miles with a lot of up and down hiking. When you are very tired, it’s a very hard hike. You feel every little up. In painful agony. It took quite a bit of time. But at least now, the trail was very well trodden. A lot of people had been here in just one day.

I saw a quite a few hikers on the trail. None of them seemed too friendly and did not say much to me, even when I tried to say anything to them. Is it because of COVID? Well, at least all the tracks in the snow made the hiking a bit easier. I finally arrived back at the parking lot at 3PM. The parking lot was completely full. I couldn’t believe how many people had come up for the day to Lassen. Every one was hanging out (too) close together in the parking lot, and not wearing masks. Compare that to the people I passed on the trail. They were wearing masks and freaking out when I passed them (so it seemed). Shouldn’t it be opposite? It was an interesting and difficult backpacking trip in magnificent Lassen Volcanic National Park.

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Kings Creek Falls in the winter? Impossible, you say. You would have to walk 20 miles one way in the snow. But if anyone can do it, the madman can do it. Right?

Going to Kings Creek Falls in the winter has been in my dreams for a few years now. But how to do it? Well, I found a route that would be about 7 miles one way. That is not doable as a day hike but it would work for a backpacking trip. But it is so cold in the winter! Normal temperatures at night are in the low 20’s or below. Enter this last week: unusually high temperatures for January. MLK long weekend in January. It would only be 33° at night. This might actually be a very good time to do this trip. Unfortunately, my dream did not happen as I envisioned it, but yes, I did make it there. (and back)

It was hard!

My route took me past Mill Creek Falls again. This time, there was only one other set of tracks on the trail. (unlike at Christmas, when the trail was very well trodden). Mill Creek Falls was flowing well, even better than before. This was due to the snow melting from all the warm weather we have had. Kings Creek Falls should be fantastic … so I thought.

I was following the other snow-shoer past Mill Creek, all the way to Cold Boiling Lake. I was surprised he went that far. Or she. It seemed like he (she) camped at Cold Boiling Lake and after that, I was all on my own. The snow was heavy. Slushy. Deep. Very hard going. It took a lot of effort. I was beaten down tired well before I reached my destination. Yet, I continued on. I was past the point of no return, so I must continue on all the way. Or die.

There is literally no water from the trailhead until you get to Kings Creek. Obviously you cannot drink from Mill Creek, which has a lot of sulfur in it. That would taste super great. Not! I hoped to fill up at Kings Creek. However, when I got there I discovered a huge and unexpected problem. There was no way to get down to the creek! The snowbanks on each side of the creek were 5 feet high at least. It was impossible to get down to it. If I went down, I would not be getting back up until spring. At least I’d have water to drink until the snow all melted. Ha. Well, what could I do? I searched around and I finally found one spot that was doable. It was steep and sketchy but I made it down and got some water. More importantly, I got back up.

At the road, Kings Creek had pretty good flow. I was feeling very optimistic. From here, it is a 1 mile hike down to the falls and about a 600 foot descent. There should be even more water in the creek down at the falls. Humph. There was a lot more snow in Kings Creek Canyon. It was very deep and very tough going.

Worst of all, there was no water flowing down at the falls. The creek was all snowed over and iced over. Where did all that water go from up on the road? Kings Creek Falls itself was completely frozen. How disappointing. I was really expecting it to have a good decent flow considering how well Mill Creek Falls was. Yes, I know it is higher elevation but with the warm weather there should have been a lot of snow melting into the creek. The more I think about it, the more I think it should have been a lot better.

Oh well, what can you do? It was still very interesting to see and I did take photos of it. I was so tired. I still had to set up camp. In the snow. And there was no water. I could not get any water from the creek anywhere, so I had to melt snow for my drinking water. This took a long time and used up all my gas. That meant that I would not be able to have coffee in the morning. Well, what is more important, drinking water or coffee? Drinking water, I guess. Sigh.

I watched a movie, and went to bed …

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I was surprised there was no snow (or not much) at the trailhead at 5500 ft. elevation. I did not think I’d be able to drive up there, but when I looked at the satellite, I did not see much snow. Maybe this hike to Spruce Creek Falls would be a good one to do right now.

There was maybe just a couple inches of snow so it was easy to drive to the trailhead. It was icy, however. I had fun sliding along the ice as I hiked down the road. Coming back up later would be a bit more difficult. The road crosses Spruce Creek a few minutes into the hike. It was just barely flowing. I really considered just turning back now. But I drove all the way up here. I figured I should at least do a hike down to where I need to get off the road and scramble down to the falls (3 miles of road walking). If the creek is just a trickle down there, then I would not do the off trail (very difficult) part of the hike.

It is about a 1400 ft. descent down to the falls (900 on the road). When I got down to the end of the road, I could hear the creek flowing much better (I could not see it from the road). Ok then, maybe I will continue as planned. I have tried this hike once before, but I found it too steep and cliffy. I returned this time with rope and with a better planned route. (so I thought). The cliffs get really crazy near the top of the waterfall. Cliff cliff, everywhere a cliff. There is no way down. But there is! I found a path leading down to the bottom of the lower tier of the falls. The last section was very steep and indeed I needed to use my rope for safety. I made it down successfully.

This lower tier of Spruce Creek Falls is 39 ft. high. It is quite nice, and you can see the upper tier in my photo. It is much bigger. Unfortunately, I could not find a way up to it. It is extremely sketchy and I did not have any more rope. I was also out of time. I will return in the spring with more rope and more time and more determination.

It was dark when I got back to my car at 5:30PM. It was a cliffy day in Tahoe National Forest.

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Hike number five of my Christmas vacation. And the last.

Mill Creek Falls is definitely my favorite snowshoe hike. It is perfect. You can drive right to the trailhead (the road is plowed). There is always a lot of snow there (five feet or so when I went). It is a good distance hike but not hard (2.5 miles one way) … And, most importantly, there’s a beautiful waterfall at the end!

This is the second time I’ve snowshoed here. I went a couple years ago with my wife, but this time I was all alone and I had brand new snowshoes to try out (a Christmas gift, half of which was from Tara – thanks hun!). Last time no one had been on the trail and we were making our own path through the snow. This time there was a well trodden path the whole way. Technically, I did not even need snowshoes but I wore them anyway cuz I did not want to carry them. I made very good time to the waterfall. It was absolutely gorgeous.

After taking photographs, I continued on the trail past Mill Creek Falls. There were zero tracks after the waterfall. I was making my own way through the virgin powder. The snowshoes handled awesomely in the deep soft snow. It was so incredibly beautiful. I went all the way to Crumbaugh Lake which was completely snowed and frozen over. It was amazing. I wanted to go further but it was tough going. It took two hours to hike the two mikes from the waterfall to the lake. I was out of time so I turned back. That was probably a good thing because it started snowing just when I got back to the car.

Even though the trail to Mill Creek Falls was so well trodden, I did not see anyone for the entire hike. I was a bit surprised about that. Interestingly however, I did see some ski tracks that came up the mountain after me (on the other side of the falls),but they turned off a different way and I never saw them. It was an incredibly beautiful and awesome snow day in Lassen Volcanic National Park.

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So I made a deal with my kids. They had to go on at least one hike with me over the Holidays. Normally they would both rather stay home and play their video games or what not. They could choose which of the six hikes or so that I had planned. What would they choose? Easy or hard? Easy of course. They chose Whiskeytown Falls. Jadon has done this hike once before when he was three years old. That was some fifteen years ago. Nekoda hadn’t done it before. But somehow she remembered going to this waterfall before. How is that possible? Strange. Maybe she remembers it from her mother’s womb. I don’t know.

It was a Monday afternoon after Christmas. There were a lot of people out on the trail! I was not expecting so many people on a week day but I guess it’s still holidays for most people (like myself). The kids wanted to wear masks for the entire hike even when there was no one around us. When I’m out in the wilderness I refuse to wear a mask. Anyway, whatever. I’m just glad they came out with me.

It’s not exactly an “easy” hike. It is a moderate hike. It’s uphill the entire way. The kids were taking their sweet time. I was taking video. We were going slow. There was a family with small kids going faster than us. Eventually we passed them. I did not think they were going to make it. Their kids were whining and complaining very loudly. It was a tough uphill for them. (they did make it, however).

We got to the waterfall. All the other hikers including the family with kids came and left. It was chilly at the falls. We were alone. The kids waited patiently in the cold while I took all my photos. Finally I was done and we hiked back down the mountain quickly but we stopped off at Crystal Creek Falls first. (that *is* an easy hike). It was a very lovely Christmas hike with my kids at Whiskeytown Natl Recreation Area.

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