Leon Turnbull Photography

Episode 3? What happened to episodes 1-2? Well, it is like Star Wars when you see episodes 4-6 before 1-3. But were 4-6 better than 1-3? And what about 7? I will not get into that debate with you, but I will say this: I still remember the day in 1977 when we went to see Star Wars in the theater (I was 9 years old). Anyhow, in this case, episodes 3-4 *are* better than 1-2 and that is why I am posting them first. It also fits because this is my third attempt at hiking to these waterfalls on Rancheria Creek. Don’t you just love all the subtle nuances?

Today the big hike begins. The waterfall madman awakens from sleeping in the car at the campground. I got almost 11 hours of sleep the previous night. How sweet is that. I needed it, and I was in no big hurry to get started. I got up, made my breakfast, drank my coffee, and drove out to Hetch Hetchy to pick up my wilderness permit.

Five minutes into the hike, my belt buckle broke. I had not even gotten to the dam yet. I had Krazy glued it before I left, and I did not expect it to last through the entire backpacking trip, but five minutes??? It was still workable, but if the rest of it broke off, I would be in dear trouble. I prayed it would hold up for the trip. I guess I will need to buy a new backpack for next time, but they are kinda expensive, and I do like the one I have. I have had it since the year 1977 (or something).

The reservoir was not full, and yet they were releasing a lot of water from the dam. It made for a nice rainbow, but why are they letting out so much water? Are those SF’ers really that thirsty?

The flow in Wapama Falls was ok. It was pretty much the same flow as when I was here last year. This is exactly what I expected. I did not get wet at all crossing the bridge. (remember that statement)

Then I remembered something critical: I forgot my first aid kit back in the car. Doh! How stupid is that?? It is obviously much too far to go back to get it now. Would I need it? It is a long trip. Can I take a chance that I will not need it? What was in there that I am going to need? Well I swear that almost immediately after remembering this stupid mistake, my toe started hurting and I was starting to get a blister. Would you call that a psychological blister? I never get blisters in these hiking boots. And now I am on a long hike, and getting a blister on the first day, and nothing to treat it with? How am I going to manage this?

I finally arrived at Rancheria Falls. My wife pronounces it ranch-er-EE-a, but I have never heard it pronounced that before. I have only heard it pronounced ranch-EER-i-a. That must be correct, then. Sorry, Tara. There are two absolutely fantastic waterfalls here, and they are both much much more impressive in person than in photos. I was not expecting either of them to be as big and majestic as they are. Wow. There is also a third one as well (I will get to that later – in Episode 3.5).

Rancheria Falls is an extremely popular backpacking destination, and there is a large area for camping, and most of the sites are all shaded. There was no one else here when I arrived, and I had the place to myself. I was surprised at this. I picked out what I thought would be the best spot, but the problem is that there were mosquitoes everywhere here, and obviously they were going to be a lot worse in the evening. I had hoped that by going in early May, I would not have to deal with stupid mosquitoes. Apparently, they get a much earlier start in Yosemite than elsewhere, much to my chagrin. I dropped my bag and made a search for a better spot. I went to the top of the main falls. There were no camping sites up there. I went down to the bottom of the upper falls. Nothing there that did not have mosquitoes. I continued on down to the lower falls, going to the bottom of that waterfall. Still no good spots. Then finally back to the top of the lower falls, and there it was. It took about a full hour to find this spot, but I found it. It was breezy, there were no mosquitoes, it had a little bit of shade, access to water at the top of the falls, and it was secluded (not that it mattered with no one else around anyway). It was the perfect camping spot. I went back to retrieve my pack, and dragged it back down to my new spot, set up camp, relaxed for a bit, nursed my very painful toe with nothing to nurse it with, and watched as the thunderstorm clouds started rolling in. I was a bit exposed in this spot. There weren’t supposed to be any thunderstorms today, but it was nothing to worry about, the clouds hovered over the reservoir and stalled there. They did not look very menacing anyway (famous last words?)

Anyhow, around 4pm, I went over to the top of the falls to get some water to make my dinner, had a wonderful baked lasagna meal (well – freeze dried – is that wonderful?), and set off with my daypack back down to Tiltill Creek. Huh? Well there is a nice 40 ft. falls at the bridge over Tiltill Creek you know, and of course I wanted to get a good photo of it in good light. What I did not realize is that it is quite a walk from Tiltill Creek to Rancheria, and a big ascent. For some reason, I thought it would be much easier to get back and forth between the two. I had planned to shoot Tiltill, then the three waterfalls on Rancheria all on that same evening. But they are all much further apart then I thought. Tiltill Creek is not very easy to photograph. In fact, it is impossible to get a clear view of it. That seems to be the norm with all these waterfalls (except Lower Rancheria – pictured here). After Tiltill, I went cross country over to Rancheria Creek. I hiked up the mountain off-trail to get back to Lower Rancheria Falls. It was actually quite fun. Way over back on the trail, I noticed a large (noisy) group coming in to Rancheria for the night, the only other group that came this day to Rancheria. They went right to the spot I had initially chosen to camp (with the mosquitoes). I’m sure glad I did not setup camp there. I took many photos of Lower Rancheria. It is a fascinating waterfall with a 40 ft. drop then fanning out in an amazingly wide 60 ft. slide. I think it would make for an amazing water slide, and you might actually survive it, as long as you are certain you can get out of the water at the bottom of it, before you get to the big waterfalls below it (episode 3.5 spoiler alert). I’m not certain you actually could get out with the way Rancheria Creek was raging this day. When I got back to my campsite at the top of the falls, I went back over to the creek to my water spot, and I found it was completely flooded. The creek had risen this much in just a few hours. The next morning, it was flooded even more. I knew it would rise during the day with the warm weather, and I could not tell how much it had risen exactly, but it seemed a lot more than I would have thought, and it had me a bit concerned. But more on this in Episode 4. I fell asleep listening to the soothing roar of the creek.

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And so we return once more to Bassi Falls and Ice House Rd. This is my fourth time up Ice House this spring. Will it be my last? I think not.

I mentioned a surprise we found last week while hiking the new Bassi Falls trail. Here it is: Lower Bassi Falls. A surprise little 18 ft. high falls, but quite impressive. I had not known this was here before, but I had never hiked this trail to Bassi Falls before. The light was bad last week when we went by it, and I didn’t think my friends wanted to stick around 3 hours for sunset, so back again this week by myself, at sunrise. The light is not very good here in the morning, and it was quite misty at the base of the falls, but I made do the best I could. Compared to 109 ft. high Bassi Falls, it is not very amazing, but it is still quite a nice little falls.

Did you know this waterfall was here? Well how about yet another one on Bassi Creek? Last year I discovered Upper Bassi Falls. This year it is Middle Bassi Falls, a very sweet 28 ft. cascade.

After shooting this lower falls, I went straight to the big waterfall, not even stopping, except for a glance (it was still flowing strong in case you wondered), and I went straight to the top of the falls. It is not horribly difficult to go up, but it is much trickier to go back down. The key word: carefully. You do not want to go the wrong way either, or you will find yourself either over a cliff or in the midst of un-navigable thick brush. Brush was the word of the day today because it does not stop at Bassi Falls. It was easy and fun going upstream from Bassi Falls, during the times I could follow right along beside the creek. However, with the high flow on the creek, there were certain spots you could not go along the creek. That meant you had to go through the brush. It was crazy thick and horrendous. I almost died and no one would have ever found me. But I persevered through that awful stuff, and was able to get back along the creek for the remainder of the journey.

I found the Middle Falls, but it was horribly in the sun. I took some pictures but they are not good. My calculations told me it would be in the shade til 9am. That was quite wrong. Also the creek was just a little too high. Getting to a good viewpoint of the falls was impossible, but with a little less flow I think it would be do-able. The flow of the SF American at Kyburz was about 730cfs. Maybe 150-200cfs less, and I think it will be good. I will definitely return.

On the hike back down, I kept thinking I should have a raft and just float down the creek. It would be amazing and fun, and I could avoid all that horrendous brush. I would just need to make sure to get out before I hit that 109 ft. waterfall. Am I right?

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Not much happening with me this past weekend. On Sunday afternoon, after church, I took some friends to see how good old Bassi Falls was behaving these days. This was the Pastor of another church with his wife and daughter and one of their friends. I dragged my son Jadon along for the ride as well (kicking and screaming?).

So what is the deal with the Bassi Falls trail now? I’m sure you are all wondering about it, just like myself. The USFS website indicates the road should be open now, but it is still gated at Ice House Rd. What I really am wondering about is now there is a new “permanent” sign saying no motor vehicles are allowed on the road. This leads me to think it may be gated permanently. I guess we will find out in another month or so. There is also a new trail to Bassi Falls now, which has been just opened in the last year or so. I had never taken this trail before, but we took it this time. It is 2 miles and is quite an easy trail. It is well signed and easy to follow for the most part. However, the old trail was only a half mile long, so compared to that, it is not so easy. Everything is relative, right?

I have mixed feelings about all this. On the one hand, you would think that if the trail is harder then less people will go to see Bassi Falls. This would be a good thing because Bassi Falls is a complete madhouse on the weekends in the spring and early summer. Less people would mean the Bassi Falls experience will be much more pleasant. However, the reality is that an easy 2 mile trail is not going to keep anyone away. Even this weekend, on a stormy Sunday afternoon in April, and in very early season, there were a lot of people at Bassi Falls, despite the extended walking required. Half of the people did not even know about the new trail, so they had to walk up the old road to the old trailhead. That is much tougher, but they still did it. Also, hiking 2 miles vs. a half mile makes it much more difficult to see Bassi Falls at sunrise or sunset, when the light is at the best. But I did find one interesting surprise on hiking this new trail. I will talk more about that later.

I felt very tired on the hike. As I said, it is an easy 4 mile (round trip) hike. Elevation gain is minimal. I hope it was just because it was a warm, sunny, Sunday afternoon. Normally I just relax on Sunday afternoons, and thus I was not mentally prepared to do any hiking. I have a big trip coming up in a couple weeks, and I will be hiking 7-10 miles per day for about a week. How am I going to do a 10 mile hike every day with 3000 ft. elevation gain when I cannot do a 4 mile hike with 200 ft. elevation gain? Oh boy. Can’t wait to find out.

I have already said the weather was stormy and also that it was warm and sunny. Did you catch that? So what was it man? Make up your mind. It was both! I swear the weather literally was changing every two minutes. It was raining, then two minutes later it was sunny, then it was cloudy, then it was sunny, then raining. It was crazy weather. All in all though, the light was not too great, and I’m not excited about the photos I got this time. But it did not matter much, I was not there to take photos.

The falls were flowing quite well and strong with snow melt. Everyone was happy. One fun thing about Bassi Falls is trying to get up closer to it, which requires you to walk through the extremely cold creek. This is easy enough to do, and Jadon and I worked our way onto a big rock up close to the falls. But the daughter of my friend and their other friend went a lot further, jumping across into the very middle of the creek onto some more big rocks. The problem is that this was extremely dangerous. The creek is raging. If you slipped and fell into the creek, you would be swept downstream. It may be fun to jump over to the middle in front of the falls, but it’s not worth it! I told the girl to be extremely careful, it is dangerous, but that was all I could really say. Her parents were off somewhere else and not watching. I couldn’t make her not do it, but I could make my son not do it, and I told him he would not be following her, but he said “don’t worry daddy, I have no intention whatsoever of going over there”. Ok whew, he is definitely a smart kid. Anyhow, the two of them made it ok. They just gave me a little heart attack, that is all.

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New York Canyon Falls is surely the most spectacular waterfall in California outside of Yosemite. Am I right? A 462 ft. high waterfall in very remote territory, no trails, rugged and almost inaccessible canyon, incredible beauty. There is nothing else like it.

It is at least 10 times more difficult to get to it in April, when it is flowing at its best. I’ve been wanting to do this as a day hike and at peak flow in April for a long time, but how? And even more so, to get there in good lighting. It was time to try it.

However, I slept very poorly on Friday night. Why does that always happen before a big hike? I slept so bad, I turned my alarm off. There was no way I was going to get up at 3AM to do this. When I finally did get up, I thought I could go for a hike in the afternoon, but just something very easy, nothing hard. Well, later, I said maybe, maybe if I can drive all the way to Tadpole, then perhaps, perhaps I could try the New York Canyon hike. It would be 5 miles one way from there. That’s not too bad. I did a 6.5 miles hike a couple weekends ago in the evening. Yeah but … one problem … this hike had about 3000 ft. of elevation to climb.

So guess what? I could drive all the way to Tadpole. Did I really really really want to try this? I think my mind was not in agreement with my body. The mind won out. But the body had the last laugh.

It is weird that there was zero snow up to Tadpole, then all of a sudden, 2-3 feet of snow on the ground, almost instantaneously. I would need my snowshoes. There were some campers at the end of the road at Tadpole, and they told me they had driven up the road in their “snow jeeps” all the way to Robinson Flat. I told them to send a search party for me if I did not get back from my hike. It might be needed. Indeed, it was almost needed.

There was about 2-3 feet of snow on the ground, in some places up to five feet, but it was hard packed walking on the road with the jeep tracks, and I really did not need my snowshoes. It was easier to wear them, though, then carry them, so that is what I did. When I got off the main road, however, the snow was deeper and softer. Snowshoes were definitely required here. It’s a good thing I brought them. As I descended, the snow became more patchy, and finally disappeared. I left my snowshoes along the side of the road. No one would be coming down this road, not even the jeepers. Bears, on the other hand? Yes to that. I did see some big old bear tracks in the snow as I walked down the road, I was following Mr. Bear into the great unknown. Well, hopefully, he would not come back and steal my snowshoes.

I hiked down Macklin Ridge towards the Middle Falls. I don’t know, but it seemed to me that Macklin Ridge was much steeper than before, and the rocks were much more loose and crumbly. What is going on, Rob Macklin? I expect to see a nice, maintained, and easy to follow trail. Geepers, you name a ridge after a friend and then he doesn’t even bother to maintain it properly. Seriously, though, it is not likely the ridge that is worse, it is my memory that is worse. Old age, you know.

So … what do you suppose is the one thing that I was most concerned about on this hike? Was it the long hiking distance (5 miles)? No, not that. Was it walking through 5 feet of snow? Nope. Was it the huge elevation that I had to climb (about 3000 ft.)? No, but I suppose that definitely should have been the most concerning. Was it the bear that I was about to catch up to? Negative. So what was it then that I was so concerned about? Two words: creek crossing. There is just something about crossing a fast flowing creek at the top of a 462 ft. high waterfall that is just a little disconcerting. Perhaps it’s just me. The Middle Falls looked to be flowing very strong. This crossing could be deadly. However, this is not even nearly the same thing as crossing into the Merced River at the top of Vernal Falls. That is just plain obviously stupid. This crossing is only partially stupid. No, I am kidding. The truth was, that I had no idea what this crossing would be like. I have only been here at low flows before, I have never even gotten my feet wet. In the past there has also been a big log that allows for an easy crossing. What would it be like at higher flows? I did not know. If it was too dangerous, I would just go back to the Middle Falls. As it turned out, however, the crossing was easy. I had worried for nothing. The log was still there, but I missed it, coming down to the creek above stream from it. Instead of trying to get back down to it, I just put on my water shoes and made the very easy crossing. No problem. On the way back, I crossed on the log, which was even easier.

After the creek crossing, I knew I would make it. I knew it was going to be glorious. It is still a big descent down to the knoll opposite the falls, and again, it seemed to be much steeper than I remembered in the past. I am definitely losing my mind. The waterfall was stunning. The first time I came here with my brother-in-law it was much bigger but we were on the other side that time. This was certainly the best I have seen it from this location, but still I was hoping for a lot more. I missed peak flow by one week. The flow from the North Fork Dam was about 1200 cfs, and the week before it was over 2000 cfs. But there is still a lot of snow to melt, and if it gets warm again, the flow is going to go back up. Will I come back again this year? Ha!

It was 5:30PM and the waterfall was still in the sun. I did not want to start hiking back out of the canyon any later than 5:30PM. My calculations had told me it would be in the shade by 5:30. It was not. The sun took FOREVER to go down behind the ridge. Finally, at about 5:50PM the falls got into shade, but just barely. I took my pictures quickly and got out of there, 20 minutes late. It is a very tough and slow slog up that mountain, yet I thought I was making good time. I found my snowshoes along the road. The bears did not drag them off. I got back to the main road at 8PM, in the dark, and very tired. I was about done. Oh how I wished I could have driven to this point! Yet I still had another couple miles and 300 ft. up to the top of Canada Hill. I did not make it. I bonked. I was done. I almost puked a couple times on the road. I could not eat or drink, though I forced myself to drink anyway. I decided to just lay down and wait for my rescue party in the jeeps to come get me. But they would not be coming. I am sure they were all quite drunk by now. So I got up and continued on. It took an hour to hike those two miles to the car, but I made it back at 9PM.

One of the campers called out to me: “Hey snowshoe guy, you made it back! I was worried about you” (and yes, he did sound drunk). I said something back to him, but I don’t think he heard me as he was too engrossed in his beer drinking. I was hoping they would have offered me a beer, but then I really would have puked, probably. Instead, I got a soda at the store in Foresthill. It was a glorious day in New York Canyon and it will take me quite a few days to recover from this one.

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So I had a great old big epic hike planned this past weekend, but I slept like crap, the animals kept me awake most of the night, and my back started hurting again that night for no particular reason at all. I decided to sleep in a bit longer and do a much easier hike: Stony Creek.

The rain had stopped and the sun was trying to come out. This was unexpected. I expected more rain. As I drove up the road, I drove past a sign saying “Road Closed”. I couldn’t figure out why that sign was there anyway. The road is paved and not gated, it might make sense if the road was not paved. Anyway I figured it must be fine to continue on the road as it must be there because of snow, but the snow had all melted now, so therefore it was perfectly acceptable to keep driving, and besides, many other cars had already gone up the road in previous days. I made it almost all the way to the trailhead before I hit a big old snow patch. I parked along the side of the road and hiked.

It was 4 miles one way, but mostly easy going, not much elevation gain/loss on this hike. At the high point of the hike, I came along quite a bit of snow to trudge through, but fortunately it was hard packed and I did not sink in. Continuing on, I soon lost the snow as I started to descend into the canyon. After four miles of hiking I was close to the creek, I just had to get off the road and go straight down. This part was a bit hair raising.

The ground was thoroughly saturated, and not to mention I was hiking through the fire area, so all this made it very dicey to descend the steep hill. The ground was incredibly slick. I slipped once. I slipped twice. I slipped a third time right into a big huge hole. I could have easily broke my leg in that hole, but thankfully there was no damage. After that, I was a lot more careful. Indeed, I took one step at a time, making sure each foothold was secure. It was getting much steeper as I got closer to the creek and waterfall now. I certainly would not want to slip right off a cliff. It wasn’t cliffy actually, but it was steep for sure. I still could have had quite a big spill if I slipped, but I was done with slipping. I made it down to the falls.

I thought this waterfall was incredibly pretty, a 60 ft. high waterfall in two tiers. It was hard to see the upper tier, but the lower tier was pretty just by itself. The sun was really trying to come out now, but never quite made it, and I was able to take some nice shots of the falls before hiking back up the mountain. Then the rain started up again.

I picked up a lot of trash on the hike back up. I couldn’t believe the amount of beer cans I found, some of which were clearly burned in the fire a couple years ago, but some other ones were much newer. So annoying. I also found something very strange. Someone had left their weed in a container that was shaped like a moose, or a pig, or a pig-moose. I have seen a lot of stuff and trash left on the trails, but this is a first. People don’t usually just throw out their pot on the side of the road.

I got back to the car, and started driving home. I came back to that ‘road closed’ sign (remember that?), and there I saw a ranger driving up the road. Clearly he must have seen that I was on the wrong side of that sign, and I wondered if he was going to stop me, but he did not. I wonder, though, if I had finished my hike about an hour or so later, if he would have ticketed my car for parking in the forbidden zone. He clearly was very ticket happy today, that is for sure. Why would I say such a thing? Well, I drove back down the hill and wanted to check out Bassi Falls, to see if the road was open yet. It was not open, which I do not understand, because their website says it is open now. But there were some cars parked along the road, one of which was parked right in front of the gate. And guess what? He had a ticket from the ranger in his window. Poor guy shouldn’t have parked in front of the gate, I guess, even though there were no signs and it was obvious no one would be opening said gate. I’m just glad I got off the mountain before he got to my car. Heh heh. And what if he had searched my car and saw that weed? Oh my oh my. LOL.

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