Leon Turnbull Photography

I love it when my birthday is on a Saturday. Saturday is my usual hiking day, so when my birthday is on a Saturday, I can hike all day and do what I love. Find waterfalls!

I headed back to Oroville. This time I left very early, and beat the construction traffic on Hwy 70. They were getting ready to start at 7AM when I drove through, but there were no delays. My plan was to head back to Murphy Creek Falls and try to get to that elusive upper falls. However … the creek was at about twice the flow it was last time I was here. I would have to cross that creek. I suspected this would be the case as I have been monitoring creek levels all week. It did not go down as much during the week as much as I had hoped, but I decided to try it anyhow. The creek actually looked crossable when I arrived at the trailhead. This might be good after all. I started up the trail, but then got to the small seasonal creek just before the lower falls. This little creek was flowing at least twice as high perhaps more. It was extremely dangerous, and I could not cross it safely.  I did not want to die, so I retreated back to the car. That is when I found a yellow sticker on my car from the highway patrol (not a ticket). I was parked legally, well off the highway, and gone for less than 30 minutes. Yet the officer apparently thought I had abandoned my car! Geepers!

Anyhow, Murphy was a bust. It was on to plan B.

Plan B was to go up to Chambers Creek Falls. I have not been to these falls in 12 years. It was time to return and get better photos of these waterfalls, and maybe see some parts I have seen before. I started the hike at 11:30am. So what was I doing from 8AM or so until 11:30? Going to see other waterfalls of course. All in all, I saw 7 waterfalls on my birthday, 3 of them were new ones. More on this later.

The hike up to Chambers Creek Falls is a huffer, gaining 1700 ft. in elevation in a couple miles. There were a ton of ticks along the trail. Crappers. Fortunately, the trail is wide, so it is easy to avoid them. As I thought about this, however, the trail suddenly becomes much narrower on the top half of the trail. Not so easy to avoid them now. But anyhow, I avoided getting any of the little bugger machines on myself. I find it interesting how they know to climb up on the grasses overhanging onto the trail? They do not climb up on the grasses off in the bushes. You need to do a lot of off trail scrambling to see all the waterfalls up here, and I did not see any ticks (or very few) when I was doing all that.

I finally arrived at the bridge over Chambers Creek. There are four waterfalls here. Only Fall #2 is easy to get to. The other three are killer. I ate my lunch at the bridge, and took photos of #2 (35 ft. high). As I was finishing up my lunch, a family came up the trail. The only other people I saw all day long. I don’t imagine they were planning to see the other waterfalls (which is good because they had two little kids and a dog and that would have been very dangerous for them – but those kids did really good climbing up this trail, it is not an easy hike). Anyway, I climbed up above the second falls, and then down to Fall #1 (105 ft. high). After this, I climbed back up and down to the trail, and made the very steep descent down to Fall #3 pictured here (94 ft. high). I was standing on a freaky ledge at the edge of the cliff to get this photo. I sure hoped the rock was secure on the cliff. But Fall #4 was scarier. I have not been down to Fall #4 before, and I did not think it would be possible. Yet I was able to continue climbing down the mountain, and I came down to a point where I could see Fall #4. Sort of. It was almost but not quite the most spectacular thing I have ever seen. You can get a glimpse of the 2 tiers of Fall #4, with #3 above. What a sight. But it is only a glimpse. There is no clear view of the thing. As it was, I had to stand in a very sketchy spot, just to get a photo of Fall #4. After this, it was back up up up to the bridge, and then back down the trail to the car. I got back to the car right at sunset. Then I drove to Chicago Fire in Roseville to meet my family for my birthday dinner. It was an awesome birthday.

After going to see four waterfalls in Novato in the morning, I drove to Fairfax, and stopped for lunch at Round Table pizza. What should I do after lunch? I wanted to go on at least one more hike in the afternoon.

I drove to Lake Lagunitas for the next hike. This is a very busy place. There were tons of people out biking, hiking, running, and walking. I wondered if any of these people would be going to see this waterfall. The answer: NO ONE. Only the waterfall madman is out to see the waterfalls. Of course, 99% or more of the people there had no idea there was even a waterfall at Lake Lagunitas. Did you? Thanks to waterfallswest friend Mike, I knew there was a waterfall here and I wanted to go see it. Perhaps another reason no one was at the waterfall is because it is a killer hike! I was anticipating a short and quick hike up to the falls, but no sir. This hike was crazy, and it took a very long time. However, if I had gone the right way in the first place, perhaps it would have been short and quick. I always tend to make things harder than they need be.

There was a nice trail to begin with, but before too long I lost it. So I just went straight up the creek bed, which is the way I thought I should go and the way that made the most sense. There were multiple creek crossings. There were many fallen logs to crawl over and under. There was a lot of brush to trounce through. There was much steep terrain to climb up and down. It took a long time! It took forever! It was the never ending bush whack!

Finally I got up to the top where I could see the waterfall. A couple more creek crossings, another steep hill to clamber up, and I finally made it to the falls. That is when I noticed an actual trail that went right up beside the waterfall. Ugh.

So I took photos of the waterfall, which is a pretty nice drop (32 ft. high), but would have been much better at higher flows. Then I wondered about that trail. I did not know where it went, but I did not really want to go back down the same way. That would have taken forever. The trail was perfect! It went all the way down to the bottom, pretty nice and mostly very easy to follow, all the way down to where I had initially lost it on the way up. Oh that would have been so much easier to take this trail UP to the falls. Now I know. But will I ever be back here to do this hike again? Perhaps, if the creek is at a high flow (for certain, a high flow).

Whenever I go over to the Bay Area, I am always disappointed by the flow in the creeks. Not always, but probably over 90% of the time I go there. I thought for sure today would be different. It was less than 48 hours since the major storm, the biggest storm of the year so far. Surely the creeks would still be in flood, definitely they would all have very high flows. Indeed, I was thinking I would not be able to cross some of them.

This is why I chose to go first back to Pacheco Creek Falls, which I have been to before. I figured the Little Pacheco Falls would be flowing, and I have not been to that one (when it was flowing). Now would be a great day to do it. Well, I arrived at the trailhead at sunrise, thinking that I would need to wear my water shoes for the hike, since you need to cross the creek a number of times. However, the creek was not in flood. The creek was not high. The creek was actually very low. In fact, the creek was lower today then when I was here the first time. How disappointing! What happened to all that rain that came down??? It would be an easy rock hop across at all points, so I put on my hiking boots instead and headed up the trail.

The Little Pacheco Creek was basically a trickle (again). I did go up to this falls (again), and this time I did take a photo, but I was really bummed. I really wanted to see that one flowing well.

I headed up the creek to the main Pacheco Creek Falls, crossing a number of times (easily). I came to the lower falls and took photos of it, then you need to climb up the cliffs to see the upper falls (pictured here). I was worried about this section. There are huge dropoffs as you climb up the trail, and with the ground still wet (from the rain that came?), it was very unstable. I was right to be worried, because the main section of trail was too dangerous to traverse. Thankfully, I was able to climb up and around it, and then able to get up to the waterfall. I compared my photo from last time I was here, and I think there was more water the first time. They got over 4 inches of rain here this past week. Darn it all.

I had planned to spend the entire day in the Bay area, and see about 8 or so waterfalls. However, because the flow was not high, and because it took a lot longer to do some of the hikes than I anticipated, I cut my day short. I did see 5 waterfalls, however, including 4 new ones (including Little Pacheco), so stick around and you will see some more photos coming very soon.

I have lost faith. Not in God. He has always been faithful. I have lost faith in humanity. Although, to be honest, I think I lost faith in humanity years ago.

I have been horribly upset with what has happened during the government shutdown in the national parks. They have kept the parks open during this shutdown, which I really liked at first. Last time, they were completely closed, which greatly upset me. I expected there not to be any problems (silly me). I mean, come on! The national forests are not patrolled by rangers, and there are no problems with them. Yes, people do litter and such. However, mostly, it is not too bad. But with the national parks? It is like people have literally lost their brains: Litter left everywhere (where wild animals can get into), pooping on the side of roads, driving snowmobiles illegally to the top of Lassen Peak, vandalism, cutting down rare trees, blazing roads where there should not be any roads. You can’t take out your trash? You have a car! You can’t bury your poop? You should have known before you even entered the park the restrooms were not being maintained and you should have been prepared for that! You have to vandalize precious places just because the government is shutdown and you think you won’t get caught? I can’t even comprehend that! I would like to think that 100% of my readers would never do any of these things, but if there is someone out there reading this that is guilty … why would you do this??? Please let us all take responsibility for our actions.

Well enough of that crap (literally), now let’s get to the topic of the Camp Fire … I drove through the area for the first time this weekend, where the fire started, along Highway 70 north of Oroville. As you would expect, the devastation was intense. It was absolutely awful. I was not hiking in the burn zone, I was just driving through it. Unfortunately, the traffic was also awful because of the construction and cleanup, and there were many road delays. I do not know why I did not think that they would be doing cleanup and that there would not be any delays, but alas, it did not occur to me. Well that was dumb. It took an extra hour to drive through the area.

I finally arrived at my hiking destination: Murphy Creek Falls. This is the second time I have come here. It is a short hike up to the first waterfall (pictured here). The flow in the creek was good, and again it was extremely tricky crossing the small stream just before you reach the waterfall. One slip here and you are toasted, down and out over a waterfall. I did actually slip in the stream. But smartly, I was using my rope to cross for safety and I caught myself before disaster struck. I took my photos of the first waterfall.

Next I wanted to try to get up to the second waterfall but unfortunately, I ran out of time. There is a decent trail up the mountain and I followed it. I was kinda surprised to find a trail here, actually. However, it did not go to the second waterfall. It continued up the mountain above the upper falls. It  made sense to continue following the trail. By the time I realized this was the wrong way, it was too late. I came to a dead end. I could see the waterfall but the view was obscured and it was not worth taking a photo. It was now almost dark, and I had to retreat back down the mountain. If I had not made that wrong turn and if there were no traffic delays, I probably would have had another hour of time and could have made it to the falls. I will have to come back up here another time. The sooner the better. I arrived back at the car just before dark. The workers were done for the day, and there was no delays driving back home. It was a nice hike to a beautiful waterfall in Plumas National Forest.

It did not get down to freezing in the night, but it was cold, so I was actually glad I had both sleeping bags. I was very warm in my tent. I got up at sunrise, and went out into the cold. It was not really very cold, though. As I said, it was much colder at Llewellyn Falls in September. It was a very pleasant morning, I made breakfast and had some coffee, then packed up.

Instead of going back up the mountain the same way, I headed up the creek. There are two more waterfalls upstream from the big drop on Eleanor Creek, both of them are pretty nice, and access is much easier, so I was very glad to see them.

It took 3 hours to get back to Frog Creek in only 2 miles. The climb back up the mountain was killer. It was after 12PM when I got there. I had lunch and filtered water. I still had 9 miles to hike back to the car. At least it was all on trail now, but it was a long slog back. The last couple miles of road walking back to the dam at Cherry Lake is particularly painful (because you just want the hike to be over!). I finally got back to the car at 4PM. It was another 7 hour hiking day. I lost 3 pounds of weight on this trip, and that is after the huge pizza dinner I ate at Pizza Factory in Groveland. It was a fantastic trip into the Yosemite Wilderness just before Christmas.