Leon Turnbull Photography

On Christmas Eve I headed up to Downieville. My goal: Attempt to get down to the monster waterfall on Cherokee Creek.

I had little hope for success. On Google Earth, it looked incredibly steep, cliffy, brushy, and it did not look like there were any open views to the waterfall. It was worth a shot though, of course. 😉

I arrived at first light. It was steep but not cliffy or brushy (yet). There was a lot of poison oak on the descent, however. Once again though, I seemed to have managed to avoid getting the big itch. I’ve been doing well at that lately (knock on wood). I continued the descent, deftly avoiding touching anything of the oak variety. I came to the spot where I hoped I could get a view of the thing, on top of a cliff overlook. Oh, but there were just too many trees in the way. It was so close. It would have been a magnificent view point if it were completely open. If I hung my body out over the cliff, whilst holding onto a flimsy tree branch, then I could get a pretty clear view (but uh, no thank you on that one). I thought I was done for, and there would be no further entry down the mountain. But then I saw that I could continue down further without any death defying maneuvers necessary. Just a little further down and I came to this spot with a clear view of Cherokee Creek Falls. This plunge shown here is 79 ft. high. Just as I got here the fog rolled in, completely obscuring my view of the waterfall. But I absolutely could not leave here without a good decent photo. So I waited. And I waited. And I waited. Finally, the fog cleared slightly. Just enough to take a decent photo.

There is a lower tier of this waterfall, about the same height as the upper tier. I was able to continue further down the mountain, but I could not find any clear spots to photograph the lower tier. The terrain got too cliffy to go much further, so I headed back up the mountain. I still had more waterfalls I wanted to visit this morning and I had already taken much longer than I wanted at Cherokee Creek, but it was worth it. What a magnificent waterfall.

This is Little Hollow Falls, 30 ft. high. It doesn’t really compare to all the big waterfalls on Table Mountain, but it is a nice little thing, and easy to get to.

This weekend took me back to Table Mountain in Oroville. With two inches of rain this week, and four+ inches last week, it was time to think all these waterfalls on Table Mountain would be flowing again. Well … they were all flowing, but not nearly as well as I expected them to be.

My initial plan was to go to Ranch, Crevice, and Lower Beatson. However, I saw new “no trespassing” signs at the trailhead. What? Isn’t North Table Mountain supposed to be public accessible land? Why are there signs here now? I wasn’t sure what to do. If I parked here, it would be obvious I was “trespassing”. Probably not a good thing. I decided to go up to the main parking area, which I wanted to do anyway. My second hike was going to be to go to Little Hollow Falls, which I had not been to before. It was an easy hike to that little waterfall, and I will post that photo soon. After that I decided to continue down towards Beatson. THE LONG WAY.

I met some cows along the way. The cows on Table Mountain are killer cows. I may have said that before. I’m not kidding. They have been known to attack people. Well … I did hear of one instance before where a cow charged at someone. That is the truth, at least. The cows today were stalking me big time and were highly intolerable. They would not mooooove out of my way as I came up to them. Normally, they will move away as I approach, but not today. There was a large group of about 20 and they just stood there, blocking my way, and determined to not let me pass. I really did not want to walk right through the midst of them, so I decided to drop off the top of the hill and go down to Beatson Creek. I wanted to do this anyway, just not at this exact spot. It would have been perfectly fine, except that the entire hill was covered with poison oak. There was no avoiding the stuff. What to do, what to do. Do I go back and do battle with the cows? Or continue on and do battle with the oak? I chose the oak, and I am entirely uncertain that was the right choice. Well, I got to the bottom and now had to cross Beatson Creek which was wide and full. It was raining and I did not want to take off my boots and wade across. Fortunately, I found a log crossing the creek and managed to keep my feet and the rest of my body dry. In other words, I did not take a header of the very slippery and wet log, knock myself unconscious on a rock and drown (in case you were wondering).

I continued up the other side and headed in the direction of Lower Beatson Hollow Falls. Again, I came across another large group of cows that would NOT let me pass around them. They kept running along parallel to me, blocking me from going around. I swear one of them was about to charge me. I ended up going all the way to Crevice Falls before I could cut back to Lower Beatson. Just a bit of extra hiking there. Darn cows. What is up with them today? When I was last at Lower Beatson Hollow Falls, I was not happy with my photos or the view I found. The waterfall is quite hidden and it cannot be seen very well from the top of the cliff. And since it is on the top of a cliff, getting down is quite out of the question. Well, I really wanted to return here and try to get down to the bottom of it. I anticipated that it would be a huge effort that involved rappelling down the cliff and then wading up the creek through heavy brush and poison oak. Not something I looked forward to, but as I said I just was not happy with my photos from the first time. As it turned out, it was actually quite easy to get down to the bottom, and once down, I found a path leading right up to the waterfall. Was it a cow path? No, I am pretty sure it was a human path. I have never heard of anyone being down here at the base of this falls before, but it was obvious that people had been. This was especially clear as I got up to the waterfall. There is one large rock you have to climb up on, which would have been quite challenging, but there was a ladder! Not just any ladder, it was a good solid iron ladder. Quite fascinating. The waterfall is quite fascinating as well, dropping 38 ft. off the cliff into this very cool little grotto, with huge basalt chunks scattered about that had broken off the cliffs, and a second little waterfall beside it as well. Very cool. From here, I hiked back up and made the long trek back to my car at the main trailhead. All in all, about 10 miles of hiking for these two little waterfalls. Whew!

Here is some perspective for you of 144 ft. high Canyon Creek Falls. The North Fork American River is below right. You can see Bogus Point straight ahead and Lovers Leap peaking out behind it with a nice bit of fresh snow on it and the surrounding mountains. I have never seen the waterfalls on unmarked streams flowing off the distant mountains before.

This photo is just for my sister in law. She’s always asking me why I never show any sky in my waterfall photos. Well it’s not like I hate the sky. What she doesn’t understand is that sky normally does not work in waterfall images. It is usually detrimental to the image and intrusive. Plain blue sky is boring and overcast sky is ugly. Either one or other of these are almost always present when I go hiking, or else more likely the sky is non existent deep inside the canyon where the waterfall is. It is better to focus on the waterfall itself and usually it is the only option. But sometimes sky works very well and this was such a case. The light clouds and fog added a lot of interest in this scene to the surrounding mountains, and a superb sense of scale for the waterfall. It is an amazing spot.

Some of you were wondering where I would go after a huge rainstorm, like the one we just had (or more accurately, supposedly had). There is only one answer to that question: Canyon Creek Falls.

The so-called storm of the year, hugely over-hyped by the media. The biggest storm in six years. Storm-aggedon. Rain-ocalypse (as I called it). Binky (as a friend of mine was calling it). I think not. Okay okay, well I think they did get quite a bit of rain in the Bay area, and also in northern California. But it seemed to bypass the northern foothills and Tahoe area. We were supposed to get 5-7 inches in the northern foothills, and we only received about half that amount. We did get much needed precipitation, but in fact, the storm last week was bigger than the one this week, for our area at least.

I was anticipating waking up to see the North Fork American River with at least 8000 cubic feet per second flowing, and hoping for even twice that flow. It would have been the case if the rain forecast had been true. However, it was only at 4000 cfs, and that is the amount it peaked at for this storm. It was only half the amount that I expected it to be.

I have been wanting to see Canyon Creek (which flows into the North Fork) at monster flow for many years now. It is gnawing at my insides. Driving me to insanity. Yet, Canyon Creek Falls continues to be an elusive beast for me. Oh yes, it would be flowing very well, fantastically well. But it would not be the monster flow that I want to see before I die. That I must see before I die. So … I drove up the hill and hiked in to Canyon Creek Falls anyway.

The flow was almost identical to the time I was here last. I compared photos from last time, and I could tell it was just slightly more this time around. Not monster. But still awesome. The rain was done for the time being. The sun was trying to come out. The view was astounding. I could see waterfalls flowing off the distant mountains on unmarked streams. I had never seen that before. The North Fork American River was remarkable, flowing strong far below me. Light clouds and fog were enveloping Lovers Leap and other mountains. It is an incredible spot and I was happy to be there.

Enjoy the present. We can thank the Lord for every drop of rain we get, it is all so much needed. Perhaps next time I’ll see that monster flow. Bring on the next rain-ocalypse.