Leon Turnbull Photography

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. 🙂

I was not intending to come to this particular waterfall, but sometimes that is just how things roll with me. I was hoping to drive up on Foresthill Rd and at least hoping to get to Beacroft if not further. As I drove through Foresthill, I found that it had snowed the previous night as far down as the town. That is about 3500 ft. elevation! I was pretty surprised about this. If there was snow this far down, then getting to Beacroft would certainly be impossible. I did not even try. I turned around and started thinking about Plan B. I seem to be going to Plan B a lot lately.

Plan B would be to go back to Big Mosquito Falls. I have been wanting to get back to this waterfall when it has good strong flow and try to get down to the bottom of it. It has been awhile since I was here last, but I wondered if I could even get to this waterfall. As I drove up Mosquito Ridge Rd I came once more into the snow. The turnoff is at about 4500 ft. elevation, and there was quite a bit of snow. The road goes downhill from there, but it is a steep downhill, and I was worried about getting into a jam way out here in the middle of nowhere. I am sure I could have done it, but I decided to walk. It was less than 2 miles, so it was not a problem to walk it. Besides, I needed the exercise anyway. That is what I told myself anyway.

Getting down to the bottom of the falls was an issue. It is steep enough anyway, but with the wet snow, the path was very slick, and a tad dangerous. I took it very slowly and very carefully, and I made it down to a great viewpoint of the waterfall. From the top of the ridge, there is no good view of this waterfall. But down at the bottom, the view is spectacular. I did not go all the way down to the bottom of the falls, as I was sure I would not get any better view.

I had wanted to go further downstream, but I decided against that as well. The sun was out, and the hike so far was longer and more difficult than initially anticipated, and there was a lot of poison oak, so I decided to leave that adventure for another day.

Nonetheless, on the drive back home, I did find one new waterfall for sure, perhaps even two. However, I could not get to them. I will have to try that another day as well. More adventures ahead for the Waterfall Madman.

See the latest video from Codfish Creek Falls, and please watch in HD:

Here is yet another shot of Devil’s Falls, from a couple weeks ago when it was flowing well. Since then we had a couple weeks of ugly dry weather. The spring people may have liked it, but certainly not I, especially this year when we are in such dire straights for snow and rain. Thankfully, it is back to winter this weekend, and we have another storm which will hopefully bring a few feet of snow into the mountains. March normally brings the end of our wet weather, but I am praying it will continue well into April this year.

This year I have been trying not to watch the long range weather forecasts. I hate getting my hopes up and then being so disappointed. On Monday two of the three weather forecast models were predicting we would be getting 12 inches of rain through the end of this weekend. That got my hopes very high. Then the very next day, it was cut back to 4-5 inches. Argh, I hate that so much. This is precisely why I have been trying to keep from watching the forecasts this year. Just trust that the rain will come. God will provide all we need. Yes, the rain is coming.

On Monday I saw another very long range forecast which also got my hopes up. There is a very strong El Nino forming in the Pacific Ocean. It is much too early, and this is exactly why I don’t want to get my hopes too high, but if this comes to fruition, it will indeed be the answer to all our prayers, and finally spell the end of this incredibly nasty drought in California next winter. Keep praying people!

Please enjoy the next installment of Waterfall Madman: Episode 8 – Table Mountain waterfalls. Please watch in HD:

When I heard from a friend last weekend that the Foresthill Rd was open already, I was in shock. How strange is this? There should be 5-10 feet of snow on the road up there right now in a normal year, but with the meager 12 percent of average snow pack we have this year, that means there is no snow on the Foresthill Rd. This is probably a record for the earliest the road is open. Yet the creeks do have water in them from the small amount of snow that is melting and from some recent rain (though it will not last very long). I was not even thinking about Foresthill until last weekend, but that changed quickly. I figured I had better get up to my favorite area before all the water is gone.

On Monday, I had an epic all day hike planned out. It was going to be awesome, and I would have a brand new waterfall in the bag. However, by Friday afternoon I had serious doubts about this epic adventure. From my initial calculations, I figured this new waterfall would be in the shade by about noon. That would be perfect, giving me plenty of time to get down there and back out before dark. When I re-calculated on Friday, I realized that was incorrect. It would actually be in the sun much later, possibly until as late as 4PM. There is no way I could wait down in the canyon anywhere near that long, I would be hiking back in the dark for certain, and I definitely did not want to hike all the way down there and not be able to take a good photograph of the waterfall. This is really important in my world, and I plan all my hikes to be able to arrive at the waterfall destination in good lighting conditions. If the lighting is bad, I will not even take any pictures. Besides all this, but I had doubts about my back. On an all day hike, I would have to carry a lot more water, and also a lot more gear. My backpack would be a lot heavier, and I did not think my back could handle such a load on a such a long hike (it would be 3500 ft. of elevation hiking back out of the canyon). Also, I wasn’t even sure about my route. It would be crazy steep. Could I even make it to this waterfall?  All these doubts overwhelmed me, and so as I got into bed that night I made a final decision and opted for Plan B. I still want to try to make it to this other waterfall someday, but I will have to figure out a better plan on how to do it.

Plan B was a much easier trek back to Tadpole Canyon, where I have been 3 times before. On the last time there, I noticed another waterfall in upper Tadpole Canyon. I did not have time to check it out then, but I vowed to return. And so I did yesterday. It is a strange waterfall, but a very pretty cascade. I say strange because it is bigger than it looks. Up close it seems more like 20 ft. high, but it actually is 41 ft. high. (I measured it). There is an upper 13 ft. section you cannot see from the base of the falls (in this photo), and the bottom section that you can see here is 28 ft. high. Anyway, it is certainly very pretty. And also very hidden away. I suspect very few others ever knew this was here. You would not see it if you were on the normal route along the Iowa Hill Ditch. For some reason, the last time I was here I hiked a much higher route, and that is when I saw it. Lucky me. And lucky you, cuz now you know about it too.

Speaking of strange, I learned later that when I was here, there was a drunk that put his car into the ditch on the other side of the road immediately opposite the Beacroft trailhead. It is so odd that I did not see it when I drove here, and when I left two hours later, I saw nothing also. I wonder also that if I had gone on that epic hike as initially planned, I would be driving up past here earlier in the morning, and perhaps I would have run into the drunk coming down the hill. Perhaps God’s angels were keeping me safe by giving me all those doubts on Friday. You gotta wonder.