LAST CHANCE
Today (Saturday) was probably the last day of the year that you will be able to get into most of the High Country until spring. We have had record rainfall this October in northern California, I think it may end up being the most rain we have had for October in over 66 years, dating back to 1950 and beyond, but most of that has come down as rain in the mountains, not snow. So that means the waterfalls are all flowing very well for now, but we need that snow pack. Tomorrow we are finally getting snow in the mountains, and that means most of the roads will be snowed in and no longer accessible. I tried to take advantage of this final day.
Unfortunately, my Plan A backfired, because although there was not any snow, there were huge mud puddle pits, due to all the rain. I kinda suspected this might be the case, and I did not want to drive through them and risk getting stuck in the mud. So onto Plan B.
The Plan B hike was not a particularly difficult hike, and yet no one has probably ever been to this waterfall before, or even knows about it. I did not see any evidence that anyone had ever been down here before, though it is illogical that no one has seen it. In any case, mine is the first documentation of this magnificent waterfall. It is 122 ft. high, and it is a spectacular cascade.
I initially hoped to get down to the bottom of it, but it was very steep, and worse than that, it was extremely brushy. The rocks were wet and slick as ice. I was soaking wet from trampling through the brush and swamps thus far, and going any further down would have been very bad. I decided to attempt to find a view from the top of the ridge instead. I wasn’t sure that I would be able to find one, but I got lucky. I worked my way down through the brush, and towards the end of the ridge, and I found a superb view of the falls. I dared not go any further to the end, that would have been extremely stupid. The rock sloped down from here and over a 200 or so ft. cliff. Being that it was so slick, I would have certainly slid right off and over the cliff. I have no doubt about that. So obviously, I stayed safe. Good idea, madman.
Well the hike back up to the car was all right, but my back was hurting by the end of it. It has not been hurting in a long while, so I don’t know what is up with it. Same pack weight as last week, and an easier hike to boot. Ugh. I did not have any rain all day long, and the weather was good, but I was still wet and cold from trampling through the brush and swamps. It was a very good day.
EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED
So … this was a killer tough hike … but very awesome.
Going back into that nefarious canyon (you know the one – see my previous post Thorn In My Side) before it is closed off for winter, I have wanted to try to get down to this spot for awhile now, but I knew it would be tough. I had to give it a shot.
The descent is about 1200 ft. in less than a mile. If that doesn’t give you the willies, I don’t know what will. Oh perhaps the cliffs will. Yeah we had some of those.
It was actually more than 1200 ft. too, because I took a couple detours. The first detour was to Burnett Canyon. I was 95 percent sure that I would not be able to get to this one. Nonetheless, I had to try, right? And yeah I got down to the top of the falls, but then it was nothing but cliff. No way to get any further along to see the waterfall. Not even a small view of it. Well that was not unexpected, was it, so I scrambled back up the mountain. That detour was probably a couple hundred feet extra.
There is a rope descending down the last 500 ft. to the bottom of the canyon. Believe me, you need to use it the entire way. It is incredibly steep and very difficult. I went down quite a distance. However, when I came to the section where the rope descends along the edge of a 200 ft. cliff dropoff with a very steep descent along the top of it, I balked. I am really freaked out about stuff like this. I like to live. So I thought, I will have to call it quits, and back up the mountain I went. That was probably another 250 ft. for that detour.
When I got back up to the top, I looked at my map. Perhaps there was another way down that was not so crazy. And yeah, actually, maybe there was. It was not too late, I thought I may as well try it. The descent was steep for sure, but it was not cliffy and I did not need my rope. Well I take that back. It did get cliffy near the bottom, and I did need to use my rope for a very short section. But definitely not a 500 ft. long section. I found a way through the cliffs, and got a glimpse of a couple waterfalls. I was giddy.
The first one I wanted to see was Lower Burnett Canyon, but when I finally got to the bottom , I found there was no way to get to that falls. The cliffs descended right to river level on both sides of the river. This was the one out of the three waterfalls that I thought for sure I would be able to see. Nothing doing. This was unexpected, and a bummer. But there was still the other one.
I know of only one other person who has been down here before. Clearly, with that rope being there, others obviously have been down. I have only seen one photo, though, and his photo made this waterfall seem to be very small, 10-15 ft. high at most. Google Earth also seems to think this waterfall is only 15 or so, maybe 20 ft. max. So really, this one was very low priority for me, and I did not even have it on my website, thinking it less than 20 ft. high. Does my photo make it seem this is a small waterfall as well? It is actually 51 ft. high, about 3 times higher than what I was anticipating, and it is a drop dead gorgeous straight drop into a magnificent plunge pool. Wow what an amazing waterfall. It was very unexpected.
I would love to come back here again, but I don’t know if I will, considering how difficult it was. I climbed 500 ft. back up the mountain, and nearly bonked. I still had another 700 ft. to climb too, but I rested, ate some lunch, and eventually got back up to my car. It was an amazing day in that nefarious canyon.
FIRST AND LAST
Our FIRST rain storm of the new waterfall season was a whopper. Where else would I go for my first waterfall hike of the new season except to my favorite river, the North Fork American River. We got 2.5 inches of rain on Friday, and the river was up on Saturday morning, but not as high as I thought it might go. Nonetheless, it was high enough. High enough for a rainy day hike and to find a new waterfall in the process.
It is a long hike down to the falls, yet only 4.5 miles. Starting my hike at 7AM, I hoped to get down to it in 2 hours. That seems reasonable, does it not? But at 10AM, I was still quite a distance from the waterfall, and I almost turned back. The terrain was getting steep and brushy, I was hiking through the woods with no more trail to follow, I was soaking wet from hiking through the brush, and there was a big storm coming in the afternoon. I wanted to be back at the car before that started. However, I continued on; it could not be much further, could it? I finally got down to the falls around 10:30AM.
Technically it is a not a “new” waterfall. Kayakers have gone over this falls before, but access for “normal” people is pretty much out of the question. Other than kayakers, I do not know of anyone who has been here (although I’m sure some have). I won’t say how I got here, it was all perfectly “legal” of course. I will say that you do need to cross the river. Of course, that is impossible when the river is high. On Saturday morning, however, the river was at 180 cfs. That is far downstream, up at the waterfall it is probably 1/3 of that amount. So basically, I thought, it might be crossable or it might not. I was able to cross the river without much difficulty. The river was flowing well, but there were some mellow sections. No problem. It was darn cold, though. It was wet and showery all morning, and I was drenched by the time I got to the falls. Was it worth getting so wet? Was it worth the effort and needing to take an extra long time to get down to it, and then having to hike back in the rain? Heck yes! What a magnificent 40 ft. plunge dropping into a narrow spectacular gorge. This was the LAST waterfall on the North Fork that I had yet to see, and after more than one try previously, I finally made it. Bagged! I have seen all eight waterfalls now on this amazing river. See my website if you want to know how to get to this one.
THORN IN MY SIDE
Is it possible to get excited about a 13 ft. high waterfall? Yes it certainly is, if it is as adventurous as this one. The North Fork of the North Fork of the American River is a thorn in my side, and has been, like forever. It still is.
I almost did not make this hike. I am sick with a cold this weekend. On Friday night, I went to bed and slept horribly. I even turned off my alarm. I was not going to get up early to hike. But then I woke up at 4AM, and was feeling a little better. Should I stay or should I go? I knew that I would regret it if I did not go. And I knew that I would regret it if I did go. What a dilemma. Well guess what? I got up.
The road to the trailhead was far worse this year than last year. There are a few spots that seriously require a high clearance vehicle. Last year, I made it over them without difficulty, but this year I found that someone had built up the dirt mound, so I actually bottomed out going over them. The first mound I got by, barely, but the second one I bottomed out. It was very close, but no cigar. Ugh! I turned my vehicle around, then drove back up past that first mound, which I found to be more difficult going up then down, but I got by it. So now what do I do? Go home and back to bed? That sounded like a very good plan. However, I was less than a mile from the trailhead, and I drove out here all this way, so why not just hike from here? That is precisely what I did, of course.
I have a new backpack for backpacking, and today I was taking it out on a test run. It passed with flying colors, and I cannot wait to try it out for realz next week. You would not think I would need a backpack to go on a day hike, but I actually did today. The trail descends down to the river, then you need to walk upstream to a certain magical place called the Pool of Cold Fire. If you are ever here when the light is just right, you can understand why it is called that. The very first time I was here, I had that amazing light, but not in the times I have been here since. The trouble is, the river goes through a very narrow channel here, with towering cliffs on each side. The waterfall (waterfalls) are on the far side of the channel, and just out of sight. There is absolutely no way to get to the waterfalls without going through this channel. It is impossible to scale up the cliffs on either side of the river. The only way is to swim. However, swimming with expensive camera equipment is not a good plan. Thus we proceedeth with option 2: Buy a raft and drag it (or carry it in my new backpack) all the way down to the river, inflate it, and paddle up the channel to the other side.
I was rather nervous about paddling up this channel. Could I really do it? Would the current be too strong to paddle up, or instead take me far downstream before I could exit to shore? Would I flip the raft and dump all my precious camera equipment to the bottom of the river? What if I got to the other side and punctured the raft, then how would I get back? What if a big rock fell on me as I paddled up the channel? So many horror stories went through my fragile mind.
As it turned out, paddling up the channel was very easy, and very fun, and I had no problems. Until … I got to the other side. There is a big huge rock in the middle of the river, and another big rock protruding from the side into the river. The two openings on each side of the rock were far too small to squeeze my raft through. The river was very deep here, and there were no footholds to climb up on the rock. I was stuck. I could not figure out how to get by this obstacle, and I was almost ready to turn around in defeat. However, I saw that there was a large flat submerged rock, and I was able to get out of the raft and stand on it, while holding onto one of the other big rocks. I had to be careful not to dump out my camera equipment or the paddle, or even worse, let go of the raft and have it float by itself back downstream. It was also a bit sketchy to stand on, and tough to find good footholds, but once I secured myself, I dragged the raft across the opening to the other side of the rocks, then I lunged with one of my feet across to another submerged rock, which I pulled myself up onto, then plopped myself back into the raft. All was good. I then proceeded to paddle up the rest of the way to the end. Going back across that obstacle was much easier. Thank the Lord.
When I got to the end, I could see the waterfall around the corner. Not! It was hidden at the end of another deep pool, and around another corner. I dragged the raft through the deep river and up over some rapids and rocks, up to this other pool, then paddled across. At the end of this pool, I could see the waterfall, in fact it was awesome cool sitting there in my raft right up close to it. But there was no way I could take photos of it from the raft, and there was nowhere I could exit the raft here. So back I went, ditched the raft, and climbed up on the side of the sloping cliff. This was quite a bit sketchy, with dangerous dropoffs, but I was able to get in a position to photograph the falls, and back down safely afterwards.
This 13 ft. drop is actually only the bottom section of Lower North Fork Falls. There is an upper tier around the corner, and another drop just above. I had high hopes that I could continue up river from here, but there was no doing that. Again, the cliffs on both sides of the river were massive, with no possible way to continue up past this little waterfall. The NFNFAR has skumped me again. Well at least I got to see this little beauty. It was not a big loss at all.
Rafting back downstream was much easier and more relaxing. The hike back up to the car was not precisely relaxing, however. It is a very steep climb, and the gnats were out in force, I ate more than my fair share of them. Wasn’t there supposed to be a nice wind today? Apparently not. It was tough carrying the raft and gear back up the mountain, but the backpack did well and I am pleased with it. All in all, a fantastic day on the NFNFAR.
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