Leon Turnbull Photography

Getting to New York Canyon Falls in the spring at peak snow melt flow? Impossible you say! On a day hike no less? Most certainly impossible you say! Well the Waterfall Madman thinks differently. I first discovered this potential route a couple years ago but I did not have a chance to try it out last year. It would require three important things: one, a cloudy day, and not raining. Two, Foresthill Rd road needs to be open at least to Beacroft . And three, of course the river needs to be at a peak flow, which means early to mid April in most years (but not this year).

But wait! All this is exactly what we had this weekend. The forecast on Saturday was for mostly cloudy conditions all day. I called the Ranger office and they said Foresthill Road was plowed to Beacroft. And to top it off, we have peak snow melt this week thanks to the very warm weather. I changed my original hiking plans and decided to head back into New York Canyon one more time.

Two weeks ago, remember, I tried to backpack to New York Canyon. Unfortunately, the trail is now so overgrown it is completely impassable. At that time, there was so much snow that I could not even drive to Mumford Bar. I said that it will be at least a month or more before you can drive to Beacroft. And here we are two weeks later, and there is no snow left at all! There was no snow at Mumford Bar, and no snow at Beacroft. I could not believe it. That much snow had melted in just two weeks! So I was actually able to drive past Beacroft, almost all the way to Tadpole. This saved me 900 feet of hiking, which was huge. Even though I was ready to hike from Beacroft, if I had to I do not think that I would have made it all the way. This was one of the toughest hikes, if not the toughest, of my life. It is on the scale of the Wabena Falls hike, and I think based on elevation gain, that it is tougher than that one. Total elevation gain for this hike: 3200 feet.

I started my hike at about 6200 feet elevation. There was snow on the ground, about 2 to 3 feet, and I was hiking in the snow. I was unsure if I needed to take my snowshoes or not. The snow was hard packed, but I still had to gain 300 feet to the top of the hill. Would I need them? I decided to leave them in the car. I was not sinking in more than 1 or 2 inches, so I think I made the right decision. However, on top of the hill the snow was a lot softer, and snowshoes would have been helpful and made the hike much easier. Nonetheless, I managed without them, and I only sank through the snow once. As I was walking along, and with my foot already in mid air, I saw a big hole and thought I better not step in it, too late, I put my foot down and promptly sank through the snow one and a half feet. Well, no permanent damage done and I continued on.

On the other side of the mountain, we start off with a slow and fairly easy descent of 1000 feet. I lost the snow somewhere along the way. At this point, you see New York Canyon Falls for the first time. It is from a long distance away. I did bring my big heavy lens, which of course I did not want to bring on such a tough hike, but I figured I would need it. I took photos of the waterfall from up here with the big lens since I did not know if I would be able to get any closer or not.

From this spot, it is another 1700 feet to the bottom, and it is not for wusses. Honestly, when I found this potential route, I did not think, in fact I was pretty sure that I would not be able to get to the bottom from here. When you look at Google Earth, it looks steep, severely steep, crazy steep, stupid steep, cliffy steep. But it is worth a try, right?

I started the descent. Man, this looks steep! I figured I would just go down as far as I could, certain that it would not be far. I kept going down. And going down. And going down. And going down. You can see the North Fork American River below, and Snow Mountain on the other side rising high above; the views are spectacular. Far far up the canyon, I could see what looked like a waterfall. I’m not sure, but it may have been Wabena Falls. On the way down, there were a few spots that were especially steep, and the rocks were very loose and shifty so I had to be extremely careful. I did not need the rope, however, until the very last section at the bottom. I used it here, but only for safety, I probably did not even need it there.

Finally down, I made the somewhat much easier traverse over towards the waterfall. I say somewhat, because it was a bit brushy at the bottom, but once I got past the brush, it was easy.

Oh glory!

I came into view of New York Canyon Falls. What utter magnificence! From down here, the lower cascade of the falls is blocked by Chert Knoll as you can see. There is no view from this side which is not blocked. Even from the top of the mountain, the lower cascade is blocked from view. Nevertheless, you can still see the top 300 feet of the waterfall, the main drop of the falls, and it is absolutely amazing.

This is close to peak snow melt. I actually made it to New York Canyon Falls at peak flow after all these years! This was one of my major goals since first seeing this waterfall 11 years ago. On Thursday, the flow on the North Fork American River reached 5290 cfs. This was the maximum it reached. On Friday, it was 4900 cfs. When I got here on Saturday morning, it was a bit less. Essentially, it was about double the flow that I saw it in April 2006, when I backpacked here with my brother-in-law. Incredible!

I rested, and took many photos, thoroughly enjoying the moment.

But wait! There is more…

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This photo is Wabena Creek Falls from Jun 2009.

I do not have many good photos of the waterfalls in the North Fork American Canyon, and I was attempting to rectify that situation this weekend with a  solo backpacking trip down there. It was going to be epic.

The idea was to hike the Mumford Bar trail down to the river and follow the American River trail up to New York Creek. I did this trip with my brother-in-law 11 years ago. It was fantastic. We had no problems with the trail whatsoever. It was in excellent shape. Now? Not so much. It was epic, all right. It was an epic fail.

I could not drive all the way to Mumford Bar. The road was plowed to about 1 mile from the trailhead. Why did they not continue just a bit further? Ugh. Since there is no place to park along the road, I actually had to drive back almost a full mile before I could find a spot to park for the weekend. That means I had to hike 2 miles to Mumford, then 10 miles to New York from there. No problem. I was all ready for this.

From my previous backpacking trip last Fall, I learned a couple important things: Number one, I was too fat. At that time, I was a bit overweight, and that makes hiking with a full pack very difficult. I determined that I needed to lose at least 10 pounds before my next trip. I lost 12 pounds (to 183). I worked extremely hard over the winter to lose this weight, and I felt I was in great shape. For you young people, you might think losing 12 pounds is no big deal. Easy smeasy. Well, sorry to say you have a lot to learn. I was like that when I was younger. I could eat like a horse (or two) and never gain a pound. Now, I can easily gain 10 pounds in less than 2 weeks if I lose focus and go on any sort of binge (such as going to my mom’s house at Christmas break). Then it takes six months to lose that 10 pounds again. So anyway, I am extremely pleased I was able to lose 12 pounds over the winter. I am determined not to gain it back this summer. The second thing is this: I needed to lose at least 10 pounds of pack weight. I cut my pack weight by 14 pounds. (to 31 – I’m not sure exactly, but it was around this amount). The major thing was that my camera and tripod were far too heavy. That was 7 pounds right there. I bought a new lighter camera and tripod (but still both good quality – I want to be able to take good photos). I cut down on weight on some other things as well. I was surprised how light my pack was. This was going to be an awesome trip.

There was snow on the road, and it was very hard packed. I can see why it takes them so long to plow roads in the spring. It is tough sledding! I guarantee it will be more than a month until the snow is melted on this road to Mumford and Beacroft (and Sailor will be later than that). Why don’t they just plow the roads all throughout the winter? This is how normal northern states (and countries – such as Canada) do it. It would be so much easier to keep roads plowed throughout the winter, then they would only be closed for a day or two after storms. I’m thinking Tioga Pass, Glacier Point, and the major highways that are closed in the winter, but also Foresthill Rd. It would be so much better and awesome, but I suppose it is a money issue more than anything else.

Anyhow, I got to Mumford Bar trailhead and headed down the trail. The snow now was much softer. I was afraid I’d be sinking right through on my return trip back in a couple days. That was the least of my worries, however. There were downed trees and branches everywhere on the trail. I assumed this was from the fire three years ago, the American Fire. Absolutely nothing had been cleared. This is a major trail. It was awful. As I got further down, I lost the snow, and the trail got a bit better except for the occasional obstacle I had to negotiate. Until the bottom.

The fire did not reach the bottom at the river, but the trail was absolutely horrendous. Over growth of prickly brush dominated the entire trail, with a stream running down the middle of it. There was no trail, in actuality. I had to go straight through this brush? This seemed impossible, but I gave it a go. My pants got all torn up. My legs got all torn up. I somehow got through this mess and to Mumford Bar. Breathe, Madman, breathe.

So now what would the rest of the trail be like? I imagined it would be somewhat overgrown, but not nearly to the extent it was. It started out all right. An unnamed stream flowed down beside Mumford Bar at torrent pace. I had to wade across it. If this small unnamed stream had such tremendous flow, how would I cross Tadpole Creek ahead? Again, I did not need to worry about such things. The trail started off all right. There was some overgrowth, a lot of poison oak, but I had a good feeling. Really, I just wanted to make it to Beacroft. Then I could go back up the Beacroft Trail. I  had no desire whatsoever to return up the Mumford Bar trail, which was so awful. The trail disappeared from time to time with overgrowth, and I had my doubts, then I found it again. But before I got to within 1.5 miles of Beacroft, it was gone forever. No trail. Incredible brush. Incredible poison oak. Completely impassable. There was no going on from here. I could not even get to Beacroft. I had to go back to Mumford Bar. Epic fail.

From what I learned later, the Beacroft Trail is even worse. If I had tried going up that trail, I would have been in even more dire straits. Shame shame shame on the Forest Service for letting these major and awesome trails go to pot. In only 10 years they have gone from excellent to impassable. This is unforgivable in my opinion.

 

I got back to Mumford Bar and rested and ate my lunch. It was incredibly difficult and tiring thus far. I was certain I touched the poison oak quite a bit and was in for a horrible rash in the near future (thankfully, it was just a small rash). I still had a very difficult climb (2700 ft.) and six miles back to the car. Not to mention the awful brushiness and fallen trees to get through. I could have camped at Mumford Bar, but I did not feel like it. It is not really a very interesting spot, you cannot even get down to the river here. So I rested, then climbed out of the canyon without taking a single photo. It was a long and tough climb. It took me four hours to hike that six miles. On the drive home, I called my wife and asked her to order some pizza for me, so it was waiting for me when I got home. I have a great wife.

 

 

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It is early in the season, but this is definitely my find of the year so far. It’ll be tough to top. A stunning 212 ft. high waterfall newly discovered by the Waterfall Madman. Never before documented. Never before seen (well perhaps not that).

By my calculations the sun would be on ridge above the falls at 7AM. It is a six mile hike one way to the waterfall. That meant I have to start my hike 5am, 1.5 hours before sunrise. That meant I would need to get up at 3AM. Oh my goodness.

I started the hike 5 minutes late. Ok no problem. Less than five minutes into it, I hear a big creek ahead. It sounded loud and strong. Please let there be a bridge. Ah nope, no bridge. I had to take off my hiking boots and put on my water shoes. The water was up to my knees but not a problem to cross. Now I was ten minutes late. The entire hike was on logging roads (so I thought) so the going was pretty easy, but I had to take a bit of detour at one point, which was another delay. Now I was 15 minutes late. I was not going to make it on time. The only thing to do now is to start jogging. I don’t like doing this but had no choice. Jogging in the dark is not smart. I was certain I was going to scare up some critters like lions … or bears … or perhaps a skunk. Well, I didn’t. Only a few birds were scared up (or scared me up as I ran past them). I was almost to the falls when I came to the end of the road. No more nice logging road anymore down the last section along the ridge to the falls. This was a lot more difficult, but I still made it by 7AM. However, the sun was already up on the ridge. Earlier than expected. But it did not matter, there was no view of the waterfall. I could hear it. I could not see it. There was supposed to be a nice open view of the falls from the ridge! I did get one glimpse of it but there was a big tree in the way. There was only one thing to do. Go down to the bottom. This was a familiar story.

I ran into poison oak for the first time on the way down. I just wanted a good view of the thing, and finally got a decent one halfway down, though I was hanging onto a rock ledge on the edge of a cliff. It is definitely a spectacular falls. I tried to go further down but there was just too much oak. Didn’t want to deal with that crap again, and I already got a decent shot anyway. So back up the mountain I went. After photographing the falls, I realized I lost my rope and my backpack rain cover somewhere up the mountain. What? There wasn’t much brush on the way down. How did I lose those things? I traced my steps exactly on the way back up, and sure enough, I found them near the top. Laying in poison oak. Terrific.

On the way back, I came across a skunk on the road. It is odd that I would see one during the day instead of earlier when it was dark. It was foraging for food and had no clue I was there at all, but I could not get by it on the road. The only thing I could do is go off the road through the bushes, and I was about to do that but then he finally saw me and took off running. Thankfully running in the other direction, and thankfully not spraying while he went. I was surprised he’d be scared of a human when he has such a potent weapon.

Meanwhile it was a long slow hike back, with no jogging involved. Most of the hike is thru a OHV area.
I found lots of garbage in this area, and picked up so much my backpack started getting very heavy
There was also many gun shells. I didn’t pick those up. So annoying! Why can’t these people carry out their trash. Argh! I didn’t see any OHVs but I started to hear gunshots in the distance. Oh great. Am I going to see them? Yep, you bet. They were right at the creek crossing, and it was loud.
Please don’t shoot me! I just wanted to get past them as quick as possible, and I didn’t even take my boots off. I just splashed through the stream. No big deal, I was only five minutes from the car.
When they saw me (and they did), they didn’t even stop shooting tho they were all wearing ear muffs and I wasn’t. Isn’t it just common courtesy to wait until I passed? It is not like I was doddling. I was booting it past them as fast as I could. Not to mention I picked up all their bloody trash on the road. Show some respect, people.

There were even more of them where my car was parked. What? Are they shooting at my car? It seemed like they were rather too close to it. Anyway, I got in my car, wet boots and all, and drove out of there as fast as I could. I did not get shot, and despite the loud and annoying ending, I had a great morning making this fabulous new discovery.

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The good news is that I was actually able to get to this waterfall. The bad news is that there is no clear view of it.

My initial plan was to go on a 12 mile hike (in the rain) to a couple other new waterfalls, including a big one. However, access to the area was closed because of active logging as a result from the King Fire in 2014. Three years later and the area is still closed to the public. Ridiculous!

However, there were no closed signs on the other side of the road, even though the fire reached on to this side as well. I decided to try Leonardi Falls, a much shorter hike, but potentially more difficult and dangerous. Also, it was snowing, not raining. There was a couple inches of fresh snow on the ground, and it continued to snow all morning. I was happy about that. Snow is much preferable to rain.

I tried this hike a few years ago, before the big fire. I could not make it to the falls at that time because the old road was far too overgrown with thick brush. I was swimming through it. I turned back before I was strangled by the brush. I had always meant to try the hike again with a more determined attitude, but the King Fire intervened.

As I hiked through the old burnt forest this weekend, I found the going much easier. Yet there was still a lot of brush on the road. At first, I thought the brush had not burned, even though all the surrounding trees had burned. As I hiked along, however, and passed the point where I had turned back before, I realized that the brush had indeed burned. This was all new growth. In less than 3 years, all this brush had grown back and it was becoming close to un-navigable already. Yet I continued on, past the point of no return (where I had turned back before), and towards the mysterious waterfall. I just hoped that none of this new growth was poison oak. It was all covered in snow, so I could not tell.

I did not really think I could get too far down the ridge to see the waterfall. In fact, I did not think I would even get a view of it. The ground was extremely saturated and very unstable. I did not want to get anywhere near the edge of a cliff today. But I kept going down and down. Past where I thought I would only be able to go. Down down down. It was not cliffy or dangerous. Finally, the waterfall came into view. I got down to a rock, which was secure and stable on the edge of the cliff (I hoped). I could not go down any further from here. Unfortunately, the trees were obscuring the view of this marvelous 41 ft. high waterfall. If the view was clear, it would be incredible. You can see from the photo that the fire reached all the way down to the falls. If those trees had toppled, then maybe the view would be clear. Or maybe not. There is a lower tier as well, a even bigger drop, and I got down to it also, but the view of that one was even more obscured. Oh well. At least I finally made it to this elusive waterfall. If not for the King Fire, I doubt I could have done it.

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I know most people in California are itchy for spring to come. They are done with the rain. They say we have had far too much rain this winter. It is time for warmth and sun! They are getting their wish now. After just one small-ish storm in March, it has been rather sunny lately and all that snow is starting to melt now – slowly. Truth be told, I am getting rather itchy for spring myself. I have some epic hikes and backpacking planned for this spring when I can get into the high country. It will be an amazing waterfall season this year. I cannot wait to get to them. I am already there in my mind, not my body yet … but alas it will be quite awhile before we can get into the high country this year. Maybe even July. Despite the itchiness, however, I do wish we would get more rain in March. March is still winter. We need rain in winter. After the end of this month, then the snow can melt. That is what I say. I may get my wish about that as well. I do see the possibility now of more storms after next week.

Speaking of itchy … yes I was in the poison oak again this last weekend. A lot of it. I don’t know if I can avoid getting the big bad rash this time. There was no avoiding the stuff. It was all over me in and out.

This hike was somewhat close to my last hike in Shirttail Canyon, indeed I started at the same place, I just went further downstream this time. Last week’s hike was not too bad at all, really. This week’s hike was absolutely killer. There was a heckuva lot of brush, and a heckuva lot of poison oak, and a heckuva lot of very steep terrain and cliff climbing. At first I did not think I’d be able to get down to the river at all. My desired route was blocked by private property. Almost giving up, but decided to try an alternate route, not thinking it would work, but I persevered and after much bush whacking shenanigans, I finally got down to the creek below the falls. I could not find any view closer to it than this one. I could not see around that big rock on the corner. This was the best viewpoint I could find, and not a very great one. With less water flowing, I could cross the creek and get a much better vantage point, but will I ever be back down into this ridiculous canyon again? Not likely. Ah well.

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