Leon Turnbull Photography

Finally! It is raining! Woo hoo! The waterfall madman is a happy camper! At least for one weekend, anyway. Praise God for the rain, seriously. This weekend is the FIRST major storm we have had in 14 months. We have had a few small storms, but I don’t think we had anything in which we received over 2 feet of snow in the last 14 months. That is incredibly awful. Usually in every month of winter we get at least one if not more of these big storms. But we have one this weekend finally. Over six inches of rain is expected in the foothills, and up to 5 or 6 feet of snow in the mountains. Now that’s what I am talking about, but we really need so much more still, so keep praying.

Anyway, Saturday rolled around and rain or not, you know I am going to get out there. In fact, I love the rain. Bring it on! And it did come on!

But where should I go? I really had no good idea. I finally decided on going to Nevada City and Kenebec Creek Falls. I have been there before, but there are some other potential new waterfalls in the same area that I wanted to check out. I thought I would go to Kenebec first, then hit some of the new ones.

Well, it rained steadily the whole day. The lady at the gas station in Nevada City told me to stay dry. I told her I had plans to get very wet. I am not sure she believed me. But I sure did get wet. In fact, I would not have been more wet if I had swam across the South Yuba River in all my clothes! The rain also makes it quite difficult for photography. But I did not complain! No way, Jose. I am just so happy to see all this rain this weekend. Anyway, I had an umbrella and tried to manage to keep it over my camera while I took the photos. It worked all right.

Kenebec Creek Falls was not really flowing all that great. It is a very small creek, but I have seen it much better. Indeed, it probably will be much much better Sunday or Monday, and although I do plan to go out hiking again this weekend, it won’t be back to Kenebec. I had hoped though, that it would have more flow than it did. It probably rained about an inch or so in the area on Friday. It needs a lot more.

After shooting Kenebec Creek Falls,  I went over to the unnamed waterfall beside Kenebec. I was at this one before when it was flowing much better. I should have photographed it then. Today it was not quite flowing too well, but I took a photo anyway. Then I did something a bit crazy. I went for an additional 5 mile hike in the rain. By the time I was all done, I was a drenched rat. Literally. Everything was completely soaked through, including my waterproof boots and waterproof gloves. I followed the South Yuba trail over to North Canyon. I thought there “might be” a waterfall there, and I wanted to check it out. I figured I should do it now, because who knows when I will be back this way. Well, I did not quite find a waterfall. But oh it was oh so close. I found a little cascade, and it was close to 20 feet high (my lower limit) and perhaps was, but it just was not quite interesting enough. It was just a small cascade, but the biggest problem was it was not clean, there were just too many branches obstructing the view of it. It was not worthy. And that was just sad.

It was a long hike out there for nothing, and by the time I got back to the car, I was far too wet to try going anywhere else. The other ones will have to wait for another day, but at least I got one decent waterfall to see at Kenebec Creek. It was a fun and very wet day.

Here is the next Waterfall Madman episode. Please check it out!

Seven. That is the height of this new waterfall I found on upper Otter Creek. Give or take. It was a heck of a lot of work to get down here, and the poison oak was abundant. All for a seven foot high waterfall. But hey it was an interesting hike anyway.

I was certain that there would be at least a 25 footer on upper Otter Creek, or even more than that. My topo map shows a 50 ft. drop here, so I figured a good 25 foot drop would be a sure thing. Google Earth seems to show a possibility of a waterfall here as well. The problem, as I figured it, would be that it would be impossible to get down here. I had little hope of making it down due to the steep cliffy terrain, and the crazy brush. I decided to give it a shot anyway. Indeed, I almost did not make it due to the aforementioned crazy brush. Which, as you may think, was crazy thick near the top of the canyon. I could not find any way through the stuff, and in fact, had given up and was on my way back to the road when I saw a gully that was clear. I decided to head down the gully. It worked. It was quite steep but it was a decent path and free of the brush. Not free of poison oak. That was crazy too. It was strange but it seemed people had been down this path before. Way out here in the boony docks? Who would even think of going down here except me? And why? There also were a lot of bear trails crossing the gully here and there on the way down. Where were they heading to?

I made it all the way down to the creek, then realized the “waterfall” was quite a bit downstream from where I ended up at the bottom of the gully. There was a lot more poison oak to negotiate (unsuccessfully, I might add) but I managed to work my way all the way downstream, and what did I find? A 50 foot waterfall? No, just a couple very small ones, both under 10 feet. Ugh! All that work for nothing?? Well, I took a picture of one of them anyway, then made my way back to the gully and back up the mountain. It was tough going. The good news about it is that my back held up very well from this crazy hike. Even though it was just a tiny waterfall, I still enjoyed the hike. I love exploring new places, and being out in the wilderness where few people have ever been before. When I was down in the canyon, I felt so remote and alone. It was a great feeling. It would have been awesome though with a bigger waterfall.

New Year’s Day … Get up and get at ’em … That’s what I say … No sleeping in for this party maniac. Ha ha.

Yeah folks, I was in bed at 9PM on New Year’s Eve. I don’t care squat about staying up for the end of year. It’s just another day to me. But if I have a day off work, I want to get out and go hiking. That’s how I roll, man.

With the lack of rain and how utterly and inhumanely dry it has been, you may wonder why I would even bother. Well heck, it is my favorite time of year to get out hiking. I am not going to let the STUPID weather keep me from doing what I love to do. Besides, waterfalls are still flowing. You just need to pick the right spots to go to. If I had gone to, say, Traverse Creek or Dutch Creek, I would be sorely disappointed. But Silver Falls on Otter Creek is a much larger drainage, and it would still have some decent flow. So that is just where I went. And by golly of gollies, it was actually flowing, just like I said.

I was almost in Placerville before I realized I had forgotten my wallet and phone back at the house. Argh, my wife would be worried. I would not be able to send her any messages. Too late to turn back now. Let’s just hope I don’t put the car in the ditch out in the middle of nowhere.

The road out to the trailhead is rough rough rough. And muddy muddy muddy. With the no rain situation, you would think there would be no mud. Think again. When I was here last year, I had to stop because of a huge mud hole. The same mud hole was there today. I tested it, however, with my hiking pole, and determined I could continue driving through it this time. When I was here back in 2009, I don’t remember any mud holes on this road. The road seems to have gotten much worse over the years. Or else my memory much worse. You decide.

And now a new problem presented itself: the road was gated just before getting down to the trailhead with a large NO TRESPASSING sign. What the hey? This is a public road and a public historic trail. How can anyone put up a big gate preventing access to this public trail? It is totally illegal to do this. Not only this, it added a mile to my hike because I had to park further back. Argh! When I got back home, I checked my maps. To the best of my knowledge, it seems that the forest road briefly crosses private land just before it gets to the trailhead, and that is where the gate is, but the trail seems to be all on public land. Unbelievable. Totally illegal gate.

That gate was annoying but it sure is not going to stop me. Off I went down to the waterfall. The trail, though it is old, public, and historic, does not get very much traffic. It does have brush and poison oak overgrowing onto the trail, and a few fallen trees to negotiate. A few ticks as well. And mountain lions.

When I got down to the creek and started working my way up to the waterfall, I apparently found the local lions’ dinner spot. Bones scattered all over the place (deer bones, I think). And that means … it was either mountain lion or Sasquatch that was here enjoying the waterfall view while munching on a tasty snack or two. No sign of Mr. Cougar was to be had, and that was surely a good thing. I continued to the waterfall.

As you can see from the photo, Silver Falls was not raging by any means, but nor was it dry as many creeks are these days. In fact,  the flow was only slightly lower than when I was here last time, which was in January 2009. Pretty darn nice waterfall. Interesting to note also: that grate (or whatever it is) at the base of the fall was not here last time. Wonder how it got there. Weird.

There was a bit more snow and ice at the Upper Iowa Canyon Falls. It was a magical setting. Quite easy to reach the upper falls because the water was so low but the shade and snow made the exposure difficult to handle. But I like the final result.

I did not spend too much time here because I had to get to the church. My kids were practicing for the Christmas play (the actual play was on Sunday). My son Jadon had one of the lead parts and he did a fantastic job. I was very proud of him. Nekoda did great with her part as well.

Please check out my latest Waterfall Madman Video (Episode 2 – Curtain Falls). Try to watch in HD 1080p if possible:

http://youtu.be/QoEdWdwupDA

God is awesome. He has answered our prayers in a big way this week. We had a lot of concern recently that my wife Tara might have cancer, and I won’t go into details but the test results came back negative on Friday. Praise the Lord. But it is not just that He answered that prayer, He did it in a very special way, answering another prayer at the same time, and that was re-invigorating our marriage practically overnight. After 15 years, we both feel like we are newlyweds again, and it is a real miracle. As I said, God is awesome.

This waterfall, however, is not awesome. It is not really very big either, only 14 ft. high. Nonetheless, it is a pretty one, and I think it was much prettier in person than seeing it in this photo. In the spring when the creek is flowing better, it would be even better I suppose. I think I would like to come back here, now that I know the proper way.

It started out being an easy hike down a logging road. Then the road disappeared shortly before reaching the creek. The main road continued off in the wrong direction. After a bit of searching I found an old road leading down to the creek. It was very overgrown. Why is nothing easy? I thought this would be a simple and easy jaunt to the creek and down to the waterfall. After scrambling through the thick brush, I came upon an easier path and made my way down to the creek, but I chose the wrong side of the creek to hack my way downstream. It was far too brushy. I followed what I think was a bear trail but the bears did not make it very easy for me. Eventually I came to a small cascade and no way to get down to creek level because of the massive honking boulders along the creek. The waterfall location was still downstream and I had no way to continue. So back I went. The old “road” continued on the other side of the creek, so I rock hopped across making my way upwards and onwards. There was poop everywhere. Not bear poop. Not mountain lion poop. Cow poop. What on earth would cows be doing out here in the middle of nowhere? I did not see any of the wild, killer cows. I made my way to an open area and descended down to the creek where I found this waterfall. The last section down to creek level was a bit too iffy, and I had not much time because I had to get back to the church for band practice (I made it on time but with only one minute to spare). There might possibly be an upper section here that I could not see, and thus I wouldn’t mind coming back in the spring. It certainly is a pretty little thing.