Leon Turnbull Photography

I am finding it more and more difficult to find new waterfalls. This past weekend saw my fourth strikeout in a row. There is a good reason for this: if it is a new waterfall that no one knows about or has been to, then by definition it will be almost impossible if not impossible to get to; otherwise, many people will have been there before!

This weekend the hike started out pretty good, but soon ended in a mass of steepness and brush. It was supposed to be an easy 2 hour hike to the waterfall, but after two hours had passed I was still at least a mile, a few hundred feet in elevation, and a tough river crossing away from the destination. I had to turn back. The nice thing is I was not too far away from Ice House Reservoir and South Silver Creek, and there was still enough time left in the day to get there.

As I drove to the end of Ice House Reservoir, I encountered an enormous mud puddle. I debated about proceeding through it with my SUV, but it looked just a tad too big for my beast to handle. I was planning to walk the rest of the way, but there was another guy there and he encouraged me enough to go for it. It is rather interesting that he decided to NOT proceed through the mud with his truck (which seemed more up to the task than my SUV), but he was certain that I could make it (or he just wanted some entertainment to see me get stuck). Well, I decided to take his advice to heart and I went for it. As it turned out, it was fairly easy to make it through the mud, and I continued to drive to the end of the road without any more major obstacles.

I ate my dinner sandwich, and then started up the trail to South Silver Creek Falls. It is only a half mile and a pretty easy hike, but I was extremely tired from the first hike, and I struggled. Nonetheless, I was determined to make it to a waterfall today. The creek was flowing quite well from snow melt, but for how much longer? Peak water flow is long gone, most snow has already melted, and I suspect that in 2 or 3 weeks, this creek and many others will be reduced to summer time flows. I was a little braver this time at South Silver Creek Falls, setting up my tripod on the very edge of the rock ledge, and so this time I got a clear camera angle and view of the magnificent waterfall, and one that I have not shot before. I suspect that I was braver this time because the rocks were all dry and the footing was firm. The last couple times I was here I think the rocks have been wet, which makes the precipice extremely dicey and slippery. You certainly would not want to fall from here.

Well it was getting late by now, and time to get back to the car, through that giant mud puddle, and drive back home. It was a very pleasant afternoon in the Northern Sierra.

This past weekend was quite a disappointment. I ended up being zero for four in search of new waterfalls. I went first up Foresthill Rd and ran into too much snow to continue. I tried a second location and also came across too much snow. I then went back to Foresthill and up Mosquito Ridge Rd, trying a different route to Peavine Creek Falls. This time I ran into too much brush to continue on. I went to Grouse Falls next, which is easy and does not count (it is not a new waterfall anyway). After that I tried to find another new one in the area, and again ran into too much brush. So all in all, it was an ofer weekend, and rather disappointing.

On the plus side, this last little storm we just had at the end of April was pretty sweet, dumping a couple feet of snow in the Sierra. Maybe it will extend waterfall season a couple weeks, but most of the snow had already melted before this storm, so it is still not going to be a very good spring. Will we get any more rain in May? Pretty please.

Grouse Falls was definitely flowing pretty nice this weekend, and the road was all clear from any snow, since it is at a lower elevation. Grouse Falls is always a great waterfall to visit in the spring, but it is such a long drive out there. I don’t think I will be back on Mosquito Ridge Rd this year.

Here’s the newest vid from Waterfall Madman – from Lassen Volcanic National Park, West Sulphur Crk Falls. Please watch in HD. Thanks!

I found this 25 ft. waterfall in Mad Canyon right beside the road. Getting up close to it was completely maddening! The poison oak was absolutely nightmarish! It was so bad I decided to come back the following week with my clippers, and tried to clip away all the oak as I scrambled up through the brush to the falls. I don’t think it worked because I still got the itch afterwards.

It was not even worth all that trouble anyway, the waterfall is not very photogenic and not very big. It looked a lot bigger from the road.

This was an extremely difficult waterfall to get to, there was a ton of poison oak, steep terrain, and I did not even get as far as I wanted to. But I did find this new 38 ft. high waterfall, so all was not completely lost.

This is Peavine Creek, near Foresthill. From Mosquito Ridge Rd, it is more than a 1400 ft. drop down to Peavine Creek. There is no trail. The poison oak is very abundant, especially as you get closer to the creek. I did not feel very comfortable hiking down into this canyon, for many reasons, some of which included wild animals jumping out of the wooded trees onto me. I thought multiple times about giving up and going back up. Usually these thoughts were most numerous in my head when the going started to get too brushy or the poison oak got worse. Then the terrain would clear a bit, and I decided to keep going. Down. Down. Down.

After a long struggle, I finally got close to the creek. Then it started getting much steeper, and the oak got much more plentiful. There was no avoiding the stuff anymore. When I got to the creek, I started working my way upstream. I still had a long way to go. I came to a couple small waterfalls where the creek split. The best way was to climb up between them. Off came my hiking shoes and on came my water shoes. Above these small waterfalls, I could see a larger waterfall in the distance, and this was my final destination. I measured it to be 38 ft. high, and it was difficult to photograph. I do not really like the big log sticking out in the middle, but I could not move any further to the right or I would be swimming. My camera also stopped working here for some reason. I have no idea why, and it seems to have fixed itself magically now, so perhaps God was telling me not to continue further.

I had no intentions of continuing on anyway, so God did not need to tell me that, but I am pretty sure there is a bigger waterfall above this one. It may or may not have been possible to get to it, but I was completely spent by the time I got to this one, and there was no way I could continue any more. Oh yeah, I still had to climb back 1400 ft. out of the canyon.

When I finally got back to the car, I found that I had a couple ticks embedded in me. It has been many years since I have had a tick bite. I am always very careful about checking myself constantly during hikes, but somehow these ones snuck under my clothing without me noticing. One was on the back of my arm, and I managed to get it out, but the other was on my back and I could not see it. I only saw it by the reflection in the window of my car when I checked myself over. I tried to pluck it out, but I was not certain I got all of it. I could not see “back there”. I was concerned so I decided I would drive quickly back down to the river where there surely would be people around I could get to help. On the way down, however, I saw a couple bicyclists ascending up the hill. I stopped and asked them if they would look at it. I am quite certain they thought I must have been some kind of maniac, because they were very hesitant about stopping. I do not blame them at all. Some weirdo saying he had a tick in his back way out in the middle of nowhere? Finally the guy turned around and came to look at it, and he was able to see that I had indeed gotten the entire tick out. Well I was sure glad about that and I thanked them profusely for stopping to help out the maniacal stranger.

So will I be back someday to do battle with the ticks and oak again? Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t. Probably I will.

Here is the latest Waterfall Madman video. Feel the roar at Bassi Falls:

This week has been very warm. The snow has been coming down all in one fell swoop. In fact, I think that in a matter of a couple days, we have already now reached and have gone past the peak of snow melt. There will not be very much snow left up in the mountains after this week.

All this means that the waterfalls are gushing right now. If you want to see any this year, you had better get up into the mountains now. It will not last too long.

And so I decided it was the right time to make my annual pilgrimage to Bassi Falls to see some hot diggity snow melt action. I suspect that I am the first one to visit Bassi Falls this year. I suspect I am the first who even thought of going there already. It is only mid April. Isn’t there still far too much snow on the road? Not this year my friends. The snow is kapoosh. But that does not mean you can just drive right to the trailhead. Even though there is no snow and it should be open, the road was gated at the turnoff near Ice House Rd. I knew this would be the case however, and expected to have to walk from Ice House Rd, but it is only an additional 1.5 miles, so it is no great difficulty.

The morning is not the best time to photograph Bassi Falls, but it was my only option for this weekend. It was also the weekend for our church’s annual all night prayer vigil. I signed up for the 4AM time slot, with the intention of driving up to Bassi Falls for sunrise afterwards, but time was of the essence because I had to be back at the church for a meeting at 9AM. I planned everything to a tee. Almost. I arrived up on Ice House Rd at 5:30AM in the dark. I could hear the roar of Bassi Creek though I was quite a distance away from it. Is that really the creek? Or is it the wind in the trees? There was no wind today. Well that certainly boded well for my hopes for the waterfall.

I arrived at Bassi Falls at about sunrise. It was crazy flow. Awesome roaring snow melt. I have seen Bassi Falls at much higher flows in prior years, but I am not sure it is going to get any better this year. As I said, I think we are already past peak flow. We’ll see if I am right. Maybe we will still get a lot more rain.

I moved up the left side this time, trying to get a closer shot of the waterfall, and waded through the freezing cold creek to find this little pool for the foreground. I think there are better angles for Bassi Falls, but I think this one works all right. I was just trying something different.

Now I had to boogie back to the car and drive to the church for that meeting. As I said, I planned everything perfectly, and I almost made it in time. Except for the stupid McDonald’s where I stopped to get some breakfast. I had to wait 15 minutes for my food! Unbelievable. That made me 10 minutes late for the meeting. Sigh. Well, at least I was forgiven. 🙂