Leon Turnbull Photography

Last June I made it down to Tadpole Canyon Creek on the strangest of days. It was foggy (which is very odd for June), and indeed it was so foggy that I literally could not even see the waterfall. The fog slightly lifted for about 10 seconds and I was able to glimpse this majestic waterfall (and also take a picture). It was so nice of God to do this for me. But I vowed to return to the location this year, with no fog, and also when the waterfall would be flowing better. I did both things, but with the awful snow pack this year and all the snow melted already, the waterfall was only flowing marginally better, yes it was flowing decent, but it was not going bonkers (like it should be doing at this time of year). I guess I may need to make another trip back next year (which sure as heck BETTER be a good year).

I started the hike early from Beacroft trailhead. I had a bit of difficulty getting in there from Foresthill Rd with my little Honda. It seems that the road has gotten worse there since last year. How did that happen? The trail follows the old Iowa Hill Ditch over to Tadpole Canyon Creek. This old canal was built in 1882 but never finished. It is now quite overgrown, but you can still hike along it. There are some difficult spots including one rock slide which requires going up and around, through the middle of the burned area from the 2008 fire. I may be imagining things, but it seems the route up through here is more defined now. Have many of my followers been up that way in the past year? At the top of the ridge though, the trail becomes very indistinct again over to the creek. It seemed to me that the creek had about as much or less flow than when I was here last June. In fact, I could have sworn that I needed to get my feet wet to cross the creek last year, but this year it was an easy rock hop. This would mean bad things for the waterfall, but it seems I just had a bad memory (no surprise there). I made my way across the creek, then up the ridge on the other side, meander through manzanita brush, and finally down to the waterfall viewpoint. Now I could finally see the waterfall was flowing better. Not a lot better, but better nonetheless. And it was not foggy! I also was able to finally measure the graceful beast (186 ft. high if you care). I took my photos and packed it back up the mountain. I would have liked to explore further here, but I had things to do, places to be. My intent was to go find a second waterfall further along the Iowa Hill Ditch. I was not sure but I thought that maybe I might be able to get to it before the sun got on it. It was going to be close, so I needed to get with it and not dilly dally at Tadpole Canyon.

I climbed back up to the Ditch and started hiking east. It was overgrown with brush, but it was manageable. The late Russell Towle had mentioned an impassable Big Brush along here somewhere, but I never saw this. I’m not sure where he was thinking this was, but I never encountered anything that was remotely impassable. I did encounter another cliffy section, which required me to descend off trail to the bottom of the cliff, across unstable rocks, then back up to the Ditch. And continue along the Ditch. The Ditch ends at the creek. Actually it ends slightly before the creek. It looked a bit sketchy to continue from there, so I descended downhill until I could get a look at the waterfall. It was not a waterfall. I was really hoping this was a straight plunge off the cliffs, but instead it was just a series of small cascades on an unnamed creek that was not flowing very well. Certainly not worthy of mention on waterfallswest.com. But I could not see the top of it, it was hidden behind the rocks above me. I climbed back up the hill to the trail, then examined the sketchy traverse. One step was going to be a doozy, but I thought I could manage it. I came all this way, I had to at least see what the top part of this creek looked like. Hold breath. Take step. Made it across. Now I was able to make it down to the creekside easily. I still could not see behind those rocks. I crossed the creek. Looked up. Voila. Amazing waterfall found! It was a straight drop off the cliffs after all, 93 ft. high, and very very pretty. It was still in shade also, thank the Lord. Photographing this beauty, however, was going to be a big problem. It is a very steep bank on the other side of the creek, and I had to scramble up this steep bank to get a good look at the falls. There was a ledge not far up, and I shot the falls from a distance here. After this, I wondered if I could get right up to the base of the falls. I decided to try. It was crazy. Straight up the side of the mountain, very steep, slipping and sliding, and scrambling on all fours. I finally made it up to the base of the cliff and walked along it over to the waterfall and was able to get down right at the base of the falls. It was beautiful, but it was not worth all that effort! I think also the angle was too severe to photograph, but I did take some shots, and I will be posting them here very soon. Alrighty then, time to go back down the mountain. One look from the top and I said “HOLY SHUBUMBA!!!” (or something like that). I am going to die! You don’t really realize how steep something is until you look down on it from above. I carefully and slowly made my way back down the mountain, crossed the creek, over the sketchy section, and finally had my feet planted firmly back on the Iowa Hill Ditch. Whew. Now I still had to hike back to Beacroft trailhead, and I was already completely spent. I only hiked 8 miles this day, but all the scrambling up and down mountain sides totally wiped me out, especially that last one up to the base of the waterfall. Well, I had to go back though if I wanted to avoid becoming bear food. I took my time on the hike back, taking it as easy as I could. Finally got back to the car, and was starving. I did not bring my lunch because I thought this was going to be a much quicker and easier hike. I managed to hold myself together until I got back to Foresthill where I stopped to refuel (my body). Then on the drive back from Foresthill to Auburn, in one second my great morning was practically ruined, when I saw a dead bear on the side of the road. Ugh! I hate seeing dead animals, but especially bears, which are my favorite animal. There are so few of them in California too, and this seems so pointless. The dufus that hit him was most likely speeding and it is an accident easily avoided (I don’t know that but it is probably true). Argh, argh argh! Anyway, other than that one last incident I did really have a great day in the American River Canyon.

I did it. I dragged myself out of the house on Sunday afternoon to go hiking. And I am glad.

I was initially intending to hike back to New York Canyon Falls (which of course, is my favorite CA waterfall). However, I could not drive as far on Foresthill Rd as I wanted. I could only drive as far as the bottom of Canada Hill, at which point I was stopped by intimidating snow mounds on the road that were stubbornly refusing to melt. I could have hiked from there and I would have made it to NYC for sure, but it would have made for a 10 mile round trip hike (which is more than I wanted to do), plus I would have been hiking back in the dark for sure (which I also didn’t really want to do). I could have done it though. Getting into NYC in mid-April would have been pretty sweet. How well would it have been flowing, though?

So anyway … I decided to go to a different spot. West New York Canyon. In particular, Upper West New York Canyon. You can see this waterfall in the distance from Canada Hill Ridge (this is the ridge that you go down from the top of Canada Hill to get to Upper New York Canyon Falls). From there it looks like a pretty tough waterfall to get to. Indeed, looking at the topo maps, it seems there are cliffs all around the waterfall, with sheer dropoffs of thousands of feet (kidding). I did not think it would be possible to get there, but I decided to go for it anyway. It is a much shorter hike, so I thought I would have plenty of time before dark.

I started hiking on an old dirt road from near Tadpole campground. This campground was wiped out in the forest fire a couple years ago. Indeed I often used the outhouse here before it got burned down (that is probably Too Much Information for you, I suspect). As you walk along this road, you are walking right through the middle of the devastation. It is intense, the devastation. Yet even so, the brush is already growing back. I noticed this clearly as I exited the road and descended down into West New York Canyon. My legs were pretty scratched up by the end of it. They complained loudly in the shower later that night. It is a 1200 ft. descent to the falls. I tried to take a more traversing type of route down, to avoid what I thought would be steep cliffs closer to the falls. It took quite a while to make the descent. I thought I was making a big mistake, it was taking much too long to get down. Far too long. I would be hiking back in the dark for sure. I kept going though, and eventually I traversed my way over to where the waterfall was, wondering if I would be able to get any view of the thing at all. To my delight and surprise, I saw that I could indeed make my way down to a grand viewpoint just below the waterfall. Awesome. It didn’t even require any dangerous cliff scaling. Well, maybe just a tad. The waterfall is 150 ft. high, an amazing sight as it drops and slides its way down the canyon. From here the view is astounding. I could not see the lower waterfalls on the creek, but I could see where they would be. You can see the Chert Knoll far below. This is the location where you can view New York Canyon Falls from up close. I do not think you can see this waterfall from down there, however. The angle must be slightly off. Or something. Of course you can see the Canada Hill Ridge beside you. I could not see Macklin Ridge on the other side of it. For those of you who may not know, Macklin Ridge is the previously unnamed ridge which I named after my good friend Rob Macklin, who was the one who initially suggested we hike along the ridge in order to get to New York Canyon Falls, and it turned out to be the absolute best route to that waterfall. He is such a genius.

The creek in West New York Canyon was not flowing all that impressively. In mid-April it should be gushing with snow melt. There is not much snow left up here, just a little bit left, and the creeks are well past peak flow already. I calculated this year that peak snow melt happened on around April 1 (no fooling). This is the first year I have calculated this so I’m not sure what it was last year, but certainly it is normally much later. When I was here in late April years ago with my brother-in-law, New York Canyon Falls was thundering. This year, right now, based on what I saw in West New York Canyon, I think it is far past its thundering state. Maybe it never even reached thundering state this year.

It is a big ascent back up the canyon. I decided to take a more direct route, i.e. straight up, thinking it would be quicker and shorter than the long traverse I made on the descent. It was indeed quicker and shorter, and perhaps a bit tougher. I wished I had come down this way though, but now I know for next time. Nonetheless, it was a huffer to ascend that 1200 ft. I arrived back at the car well before sunset. I think I would definitely like to return here when the creek is gushing. Maybe next year will be a better one.

I learned last week that the Bowman Lake Road was already open for the year (as of the end of March). This is shocking. During a normal year, this road is not open until June, sometimes even July. It seems they plowed the road this year so they could work at the dam (they = PG&E), but no doubt it is also due to the very low snowpack this year.

I decided to take advantage of this and drive up to Bowman Lake to see it in rare, early season conditions. I was expecting there to be quite a lot of snow up there, similar or more to what I experienced the previous week in the Trinity Alps. The road was plowed to the dam only, and I expected to have to walk from there through the snow. I brought my snow shoes. I did not need them. There was no snow.

As you may know the Bowman Lake Road is pure torture. I have said this before and I will say it again, the road leaves your bones rattling for days afterwards. The potholes and rocks you have to drive over are ridiculous. It takes forever to drive the five miles to the lake (and even longer if you want to keep going to Faucherie Lake). It is the bumpiest road.

There was some snow along the side of the road as I drove up in certain places. If they had not plowed it, I’m sure the road would still be closed. I find it extremely funny how snow accumulates so much in precise locations and takes forever to melt, but just a few feet further and there is no snow at all. Actually, it is not funny. It is annoying. If the snow on the road in these few spots would melt quicker, the roads would be open so much sooner in the year. I am very happy they plowed it this year.

But as I arrived at the lake, I found almost no snow whatsoever! If you think about this, it is really awful. There should be tons of snow up there right now. Where oh where are you, snow? You could easily drive past the dam to the end of the lake. And so I did. There were some puddles to drive through, but the road is so hard, it does not turn into mud. I drove to the turnoff for Weaver Lake and parked. I could have kept driving up this road too, but I wanted some exercise. Plus, I was sick of driving that darn awful road. My head was rattling off its post.

I knew there was a waterfall at the end of Weaver Lake, and I had not been up here before, so I was hoping to get to it. I really thought it would be very easy to get to it. At the end of the lake are some crazy cliffs, much similar to the cliffs on Table Mountain in Oroville. I continued on the road past the lake, down to the bottom of the cliffs and cross countried it over to the waterfall. This part was easy smeasy. However, as I approached the waterfall, I realized I would not make it. The brush got very thick, far too thick, the sides of the gully got steep, far too steep, there were trees and bushes in the way of the view of the waterfall, far too many. There was no way to get close to this thing for any sort of decent view. And I tried. I tried going through that thick brush. Not a chance. I settled on this shot here, for which I had to stand in the middle of the cold creek to shoot. After this, still desperate for a better view, I went back up the road and on the top of the cliffs, thinking there might be a good view of the falls from above. You just can’t get close enough to the edge of the cliffs to see the waterfall, however. I crossed the creek above the falls, and tried the cliffs on the other side as well. Again, it just did not work. It was close, baby. There was almost a great view of the waterfall from the other side. Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, however. Not in waterfall hunting. I want to go back here someday and try again. I think there might be another way. There must be another way.

Well, I had to get back. I was due in Grass Valley for my nephew’s birthday party. I had wanted to go on a second hike while up here. Heck, if you’re gonna drive up this bumpiest road, you should at least go on one other hike. But I spent far too much time at Weaver Lake trying to find a view of that waterfall, and now I was out of time. I’ll be back here again, though.

You win some and you lose some in waterfall hunting. This one was a loss but even losers can be interesting.

My topo maps indicated that there “might be” a 40 ft waterfall on Otter Creek near Georgetown. No, I do not mean Silver Falls which I have been to before, this would be a different one. Surely it was worth checking out at least. This is what I love to do. Find new waterfalls. For this one on Otter Creek … I was pretty sure there had to be a decent waterfall down there, the question in my mind was could I get down to it?

I found a trail leading down to the creek. It was only a mile but with 1000 ft elevation loss it was certainly not for sissies. Surprisingly though, it was a pretty good trail, not overgrown, and I saw only one tick. Good so far. Once I got down to Otter Creek I knew the waterfall was about a quarter mile downstream and this is where the fun began (or not). The trail ended abruptly, a full scale bushwhack was in order. There was a bit of a path as it seemed people had gone down there before, but the going was difficult, it was very cliffy, and worst of all was the poison oak, which was overwhelmingly insane.

I came to one point where I had to cross the creek. I took off my boots, put on my “non slippery” water shoes, took one step into the creek and promptly fell onto my butt, getting most of me quite wet, but my camera was safe in my backpack (which is all that matters of course). No one but the squirrels were around to see me spill, and I am sure they were laughing hysterically. Dang those rocks were sure extremely slick. I continued down the creek (more carefully) to the waterfall. The non waterfall. My 40 ft high waterfall was a whopping five feet high. There was another little thing shortly below this one, which was ten feet high. My forty footer was non existent. And I was so sure there would be something good down here. I crossed over the slippery rocks in the creek again so I could get down to photograph the five footer. The ten footer was a bit too difficult to get down to so I skipped it but all in all this was not worth the extreme effort to visit. I’m sure I will be regretting it in a couple days big time when the poison oak rash sets in.

The hike back up was tough but I took it slowly. I had to. My belt buckle broke so keeping my shorts up was not as easy as it might seem. I addition to this, my shorts got totally ripped somehow (probably when I took a dump in that creek). Geez, good thing I wasn’t on the Yosemite Falls trail. The squirrels were having a field day. My GPS also wasn’t functioning very well. My old GPS broke recently and I had to get a new one. I loved that old GPS. It was so reliable and would function great even under heavy tree cover and in deep canyons. So I bought the exact same model this time (though they don’t even make this model anymore). You would think this new one would work exactly the same as the old one. No sir-ee Bob. I lost a signal down in this canyon and it just did not want get a good satellite lock down there. I know my old one would not have had this problem down there. This is really bad news if I can’t rely on my GPS. Ugh. Good thing I was able to find my way out of the canyon without a GPS today. I just followed the chattering squirrels.

I set my clock ahead an hour on Friday night. One day early. All part of my plan for the weekend. Actually, Thursday would have even been better, but of course I had to work on Friday, so I couldn’t do it then. I also went to bed a little earlier than usual on Friday night, so I really only lost half an hour. By the end of the day on Saturday, I am fully adjusted to the new time, so that will make getting up to go hiking on Sunday morning very easy, and with sunrise an hour later now, I will get an extra hour of sleep back as well. Does that make any sense at all to anyone but myself? P.S. Don’t tell my pastor I might be skipping church on Sunday.

I drove up to Foresthill on Saturday morning, anxious to get a good hike in with my brand new hiking boots. They would certainly end up getting a good workout. I had a great plan, but this time around, the plan did not come together. I came to a locked gate, private property, and an ominous sign that said: no “warning” shots will be fired. Ah ok, I guess we all know what that implies. I will definitely not be hiking here. Time to implement Plan B.

Plan B was to hike down into Snyder Canyon. I found this waterfall when I was hiking to Blind Canyon last year. I could hear the waterfall from the road, but could I get down to it? It was very steep. Like practically vertical steep. At least that is what I remembered from my nightmares. When I arrived this weekend, and peered down into the canyon, I saw steep but it was not vertical steep. It was definitely do-able, but I could not see all the way down to the creek though, and it looked quite brushy down there. It was going to be a challenge but Leon the Waterfall Hunter was ready. Down I went. Weeeeeeeeeee ahhhhhh…..

The first part was not so hard getting down (getting back up was another story, however). I could not see any waterfall, but I could hear the creek, and I let my ears do the walking towards the loudest part of the creek. I knew there was a waterfall down there, but I was not sure exactly where on the creek it would be. Once I got down to the trees, I found a bit of a path, and it led me through most of the brushy-ness. Obviously people had been down here before. That in itself is a bit shocking. This canyon just seems too steep and remote, and who the heck would think there would be a waterfall down here anyway (besides me). There was a heckuva lot of poison oak down closer to the creek as well, and I eventually gave up trying to avoid it. Here’s hoping I don’t get the itch.

I could finally see the creek and a waterfall, and I made my way down to it. The last step was a doozy, I had to jump down from a rock to the creek level. Once down I turned around. Umm, how am I going to climb back up that rock? Oh well, let’s worry about that after I take pictures shall I? The waterfall is not a photogenic one, and it was not flowing very great, even after some recent rain we just had. This was the best view I could find, and I had to climb up a slippery rock to get to this spot, then slide back down the rock afterwards, all with camera and tripod in hand.

Now about climbing back up that other rock? There was just no way I could do it. I would be stuck down here forever. I looked around for another possibility, and I found one, managing to hook my rope around a tree branch and hoist my way back up the drop-off. It was a bit on the crazy side of things but it worked. Fortunately my wife will probably not read this because she is currently in Alaska. (don’t anyone tell her, ok) Haha. Back up through the poison oak, and up the very steep mountain. I was beat, but I made it. I can’t imagine I will ever be back down in this canyon, it is just too steep and difficult, but ask me again in a year, and I might give a different answer. I do think there are other waterfalls down there.