Leon Turnbull Photography

This is Blue Hole Falls, where I camped for the night.

It was supposed to be down to below freezing in the night. I wore an extra layer because I expected it to be much colder than the first night. It was not even cold at all! It was very pleasant in the morning, and I took my time packing up, eating breakfast, and enjoying the beautiful morning that God provided.

I had 6 miles to hike back to the trailhead. It felt like a very long 6 miles. I have hiked this trail along the Salt Springs Reservoir 3 times, and every time, it felt agonizingly long. It is not difficult, it is just long, most likely because I am always tired before I even start the hike back.

There were ticks on the trail, but not too many. There was poison oak. Somehow, I touched it, but I do not know how. I certainly don’t remember touching any. The worst thing, however, as I already mentioned, were the gnats. They were just so incredibly annoying. Ugh.

Anyway, I arrived at the trailhead about noon. I saw no one the entire weekend. I ate my lunch, and made the long drive home. It was an epic weekend in the Mokelumne Wilderness.

I decided in the morning that I would try one last time to get to Fantasy Falls, this time by yet a different route. If I made it, I would camp at Fantasy Falls that night, and if not, I would hike all the way back to the trailhead and drive home. I would probably never come back after this to try again. If I failed, I was resolved there was indeed no way to get to Fantasy Falls. It was all or bust.

I’m not going to say the route I chose. Suffice to say, I did not go down the cliff on the other side (because that would be suicide). The route I did choose had many sketchy sections, and one extremely sketchy section. It was one of the more dangerous hikes I have ever done. If my wife is reading this, it was really not dangerous at all, I’m just saying this for effect. Okay? (and everyone else is thinking, huh?) It took two and a half hours to hike the one mile or so from Island Slide Falls to Fantasy Falls (and the same back). But guess what? I made it!

I was absolutely ecstatic that after four hard tries, I finally made it to Fantasy Falls. Previously ONLY accessible by extreme kayakers. Now accessible by waterfall madmen as well.

Interestingly enough, I did see rock cairns along the river leading up to Fantasy Falls. What does this mean? Obviously hikers have been here before. But how? I am absolutely certain no one has ever gone there via my route before. It is too crazy. I am equally certain they did not go down the cliffs (unless they were canyoneers and rapelled). I suppose that canyoneering is possible, but if not that, then how? Well, I do have an idea how one could hike here and without too much difficulty. Hint: It was not in February. Whoever it was, never documented the journey. As far as I know, I am the only one who has ever done this trip on foot.

As you look at the photo, you may be thinking it is just a very small waterfall, and not very exciting. You would be wrong about that. Actually, this section shown here is at least 25 feet high. There is a lower tier as well, about 10-15 ft. high, so the total height of Fantasy Falls is about 40 ft. high. It is difficult to get both tiers in a good photo, but I took many pics and spent over 1.5 hours at the falls.

As I was taking photos and fiddling with my camera to get it set up as I wanted, I noticed out of the corner of my eye a large animal coming down the rock beside the waterfall. I looked up and I saw it run down the rock right beside the falls, and dive into the water. It was a river otter! It all happened too fast for me to get a photo, of course. I waited for it to surface in the pool below the falls (with my camera ready this time), but it never did. I saw it splash once, but then nothing. Where did it go? The only thing I can think of is it went over the lower falls and down the river. So that was a cool experience.

In the end I decided NOT to camp at Fantasy Falls after all. It was a very tough hike to get here, and if I had to hike this very difficult section in the morning, and then continue all the way back to the trailhead and drive home, and then go to work the next day, well needless to say, that would be just plain crazy. It was 12:30pm when I was finally ready to leave Fantasy Falls, and I made it back across the multiple of sketchy sections (which was easier than I thought it would be going back), and then back down to the river at Island Slide Falls, and continued hiking back to Blue Hole, arriving there at 4PM. It would be just a short 6 mile hike from here back to the trailhead the next day. It was a tiring but very rewarding day. Would I ever come back to Fantasy Falls? Yes, I think I definitely would go back here now that I know how to do it. The Mokelumne Wilderness is an absolutely amazing place.

It was a long weekend. The weather was good. So I went backpacking. I wish it was raining. We have had a horribly dry February, and I’m not confident anymore that we will have a miracle March this year. I will take what I can get. If the weather is good on a long weekend in February then I will go backpacking to waterfalls that I know are flowing well. So off I went into the Mokelumne Wilderness.

When I picked up my permit on Saturday morning, I saw there was one other envelope for someone else backpacking this weekend. The ranger had written on the other person’s envelope: Have an awesome adventure! On my envelope she just wrote: Remember to sign your permit. I was very upset about this. Just kidding. But seriously, I am 100 percent certain that my adventure was way more awesome then this other person’s adventure, wherever he or she was going. So where was I going, anyway?

Salt Springs Reservoir: My goal was to hike to Fantasy Falls. The very remote and very mysterious Fantasy Falls. I have tried twice before (day hiking), and failed. We will talk about this more a bit later.

I started hiking at about 8:30am. There was no one around at the reservoir, and I saw no one the entire weekend. Not surprising, really. It is winter. Who wants to go backpacking in winter? But still, one might see fishermen there. It is a long weekend after all. But nope. The reservoir was very low. Extremely low. It should be much fuller by mid February, but we have had a horrible winter thus far. We really need that miracle March again. Please let it rain, Lord.

It is about a 6 mile hike to the end of the reservoir (though the end of it was empty). There were ticks, poison oak, and gnats. I expected the ticks and oak, as I have been here before. But the gnats!?!? They were bad. Not nearly as horrendous as at Tehipite Valley, not even close, however they were very annoying. Why are there gnats in February? There should not be any gnats in February! I can deal with ticks. I can deal with oak. I can deal with gnats (except at Tehipite). I cannot deal with all three at the same time. Anyway, I had no choice but to deal with all three of them. I managed to avoid getting any ticks on me, and I had thought I had completely avoided the oak, but apparently not. I do have a rash.

When you get to Island Slide Falls you come to a dead end. There is no way to continue up the river to Fantasy Falls. The cliff comes straight down into the river bed. I could not cross the river. It was flowing at about 250 cfs and was not crossable. The only way is to go up and over the cliff. Getting up is not a problem, but getting down the other side is a problem. Actually, it was a huge problem because the other side is one immense and entire cliff. There is absolutely no way down. I scoured the entire length of the cliff and I found zero possible ways down. Now it was almost sunset. I had no choice but to retreat and go back down to Island Slide Falls, and camp there for the night. This was strike three for me. The first two tries were day hikes: the first time I ran out of daylight and did not even attempt getting over the cliffs. The second time I went the wrong way and again had to retreat. This time, I really thought I had a great route and was very confident I would make it all the way. I was not counting on that huge cliff and there being no possible way to get down it.

Well, I found a nice little spot close to Island Slide Falls. I barely had enough time to setup camp, eat my dinner, and take photos of the falls before dark. It was a very tiring day, but it was beautiful beside the waterfall and the North Fork Mokelumne River, and the sunset on the river was spectacular. It was a long weekend and I still had a couple more days. What could I possibly do the next day?

This is Far Upper Chambers Creek Falls, 81 ft. high. This was my second discovery of the day. And in case, you are wondering, it was just as brushy getting a viewpoint of this one.

This weekend I went all in to discover two brand new waterfalls in the very upper reaches of Chambers Creek. It was an epic adventure. It was a killer hard adventure. It was a madman adventure.

I started my hike at 9:30am. Not too early. Not too late. I was not in a hurry, and I took much video as I climbed up the mountain. Most people think it is a very difficult hike just to the main waterfalls on Chambers Creek. That was just my half way point on this day. It is a 1700 ft. climb to the main waterfalls. I felt good, and I was not tired as I arrived at the bridge. From here, I had another 1600 ft. to climb up the trail.

This section started out well, but in the the last half of it, the trail became very brushy and overgrown. It is still easy enough to follow, but it was just very annoying. The last time I was up here was about 19 years ago. The trail was not overgrown then. I wonder how many more years, and it will become in-navigable. There was no poison oak, but there were ticks. I got a few on me, but I plucked them off before they did any damage.

As the view opened up, I could see the waterfall in the distance. Well, just part of it. Most of it was hidden. How would I get down to it? To be honest, I thought it unlikely I would make it. The terrain (like most of Chambers Creek) is steep and cliffy. At 5300 ft., I hit the snow line. I expected there to be some snow (as I saw on the satellite images), so I had brought my spikes, but I did not need them. The problem was postholing through the snow and breaking my leg. I took it slow, and soon left the snow behind as I descended down to the waterfall, 500 ft. down. If you are adding up the numbers, that makes a total of 3800 ft. elevation gain for the day. Yikes!  I was tired but I still felt really good before I started the descent down to the creek. This section, though, was killer. I encountered the crazy brush. The brush just got worser and worser as I descended closer to the falls (is worser a word? it should be a word). It was very difficult to battle through it, but battle through it I must. I was too close to turn back now. After a great deal of effort, I finally saw the ridge I wanted to get to. Until this point, I could not even see it because of all the brush, and yet, there was still a huge mound of the stuff to get through before I could get there. Finally, I reached the ridge overlooking the waterfall. I could not see the waterfall. Well, I could see it but it was obscured because of trees in the way. Well this sucks.  I had to descend more, down the cliff. I used my rope to get down, and shortly arrived at a much better viewpoint, with a clear view of the falls.

Upper Chambers Creek Falls is a real beauty, 145 ft. high in two large tiers. I took photos and ate my lunch, and examined my injuries. My legs were completely scratched up and in pain from scrambling through all that brush. (you say I should have worn long pants – well that would have been actually smart). I definitely paid the price on this hike, and it was much tougher going back up. I also made another stop at a second waterfall along the way (pic coming soon). When I finally got back to the trail, it was 4PM. Now I was spent. I still had 4 miles to hike and 3300 ft. to descend. At least it was all downhill. I arrived back at the car a bit before 6PM, just as it was getting dark. It was an awesome day in Plumas National Forest, but I will not ever be back to see this one again.