Leon Turnbull Photography

This is a shot taken just as the fog moved in over Canyon Creek Falls. Seconds later, you could not see a thing. I like this one much better than the last because of the atmosphere. What do you think?

The results from last weekend’s rain storm are in. Sacramento received 4.5 inches of rain, the foothills received 13.5 inches. The Folsom Lake reservoir rose from 37% to 53% capacity. Shasta and Oroville went from about 50 to 60 percent capacity. I actually expected the reservoirs to increase a lot more than this, but they are still increasing quickly. At our house in the Sacramento area, I measured 7 inches of rain at our house. It is interesting that I measured a lot more than the official numbers. The North Fork American River got up to 30,000 cubic feet per second on Sunday afternoon, incredible, and I wish I had gone out to see it on Sunday. Unfortunately, now we have one more storm tonight, and then things are going to dry out for at least a couple weeks. All the creeks will be back down to normal or below normal fairly soon.

A couple days ago I wrenched my back doing yard work. Oh crikey, what lousy timing. I should just take the weekend and recover properly. That is what a normal person would do, and if it was a normal weekend, that is probably what I would do. It was not a normal weekend, though. Huge rain storms are moving through northern California this weekend. Through the end of Friday, the Sierra foothills received more than 7 inches of rain. It continued to rain on Saturday, and there is another huge storm coming in Saturday night. Of course this all means, the waterfalls are going nuts, and there is no way I could NOT go out hiking on Saturday morning, bad back and all.

The North Fork American River gage at Lake Clementine reached over 16,000 cubic feet per second by Friday evening, more than 16 times the flow it had just that morning. This is a monster flow for this river. Why is it important? Because if the river has that much flow, then all the creeks flowing into it will also have monster flow as well, you can be sure of that. Canyon Creek is my favorite of these that flow into the North Fork. Seven significant waterfalls drop along this creek including a 134 ft. high beauty. My destination for Saturday was set.

Even though it rained all night, it was lighter rain, and the flow in the river started going back down Friday night, and by the morning it was down to 7000 cfs. This was still pretty fantastic, so I did not change my plan in the morning, though I have been wanting for quite awhile to get to this location when Canyon Creek is at monster stage. Indeed I have been waiting three years for the timing to be right. I will get there someday.

The idea was to not go down the main Canyon Creek trail. That trail would have been too dangerous in the wet weather, and I believe that the bridge is out anyway, so it would have been impossible. The idea instead, was to find a path down to a viewpoint of the biggest waterfall on Canyon Creek on the other side of the canyon. I know of a couple people that have made this trek before, so I knew it was possible.

It was raining when I woke up in the morning. And windy, very windy. These two things would make my morning rather interesting. And wet, very wet. I arrived at the trailhead without any problems, and started my hike. The first part of the hike is along old roads leading through the Gold Run diggings, and the road followed my GPS route perfectly. So far so good. The path leads over and across Indiana Ravine, and after that I needed to find a route over to the ridge I needed to scramble down to the viewpoint. Along the way I came across an old garbage can that was tipped over on the ground, with its contents strewn all along the ground. This is the middle of nowhere, why on earth would there be a garbage can here? What is worse though, is why people would throw their trash out here in the wilderness? Garbage can or not, obviously no one is going to be cleaning it up way out here. Some people need to use their brains a little more than they do. Stupid. Anyway, I picked up the can and put the garbage back in it, but it will only last until the next big wind comes along. Or the next big bear comes along (or the next little bear). I crossed Indiana Ravine and found the spot where I needed to cut over to the ridge. It got a quite a bit brushy through this part, but I made my way through and found a well trodden trail leading along the top of the ridge. I am sure this trail goes all the way back to the main Canyon Creek trail.

Now for the hard part. Getting down the ridge. I found a spot that looked promising and started scrambling down. I got down one or two hundred feet, and then it just got far too brushy to continue any further. I tried to find a way through the brush, but to no avail. I had to give up and go back. I could not believe that anyone else could have ever made it down here. It was just far too brushy. When I got back to the main trail, I was quite tired from all that scrambling, and my back was complaining. I did not want to give up, however. I decided to continue on the trail and see if I could find any other better way down the ridge. Lo and behold, after five minutes more of hiking, I came to a trail going down the ridge. A TRAIL! Not just any trail, a well trodden trail. Clearly quite a few people have been down this path before, not just one or two. I continued down the trail and although it had a couple steep parts, and poison oak scattered all about, all in all it was pretty darn easy.

As I descended, I caught glimpses into the canyon. What do you think I saw? FOG! It was clear to me that I would get down this trail to the waterfall viewpoint, and not even be able to see the waterfall! It was also raining quite hard now as I descended. So I prayed of course: Please God, no rain. No wind. No fog. Pretty please with a cherry on top? I could hear the waterfall now, thundering down the canyon. I could hear the river, thundering below. I could not see anything. Finally, I got down the ridge. You will not believe this. The fog had disappeared, I could see the waterfall clearly. There was no wind. And just as I arrived at the tremendous viewpoint, the rain stopped. I am not fooling you. Thank you Lord, this was just really incredible.

The 134 ft. high Canyon Creek Falls was thundering before me. It felt so close I could almost touch it. Yet really it was a good half mile away. The viewpoint is on some rock outcroppings on the edge of a cliff. I could see the North Fork American River off to the right, and it was magnificent. Directly below me, I could see what I think was the sixth waterfall on Canyon Creek, but the angle was severe from here for a photo of that. I quickly got out my camera and took some shots of Canyon Creek Falls before the rain thought to start up again. As I finished up, and started looking around for alternate views, the fog rolled back in. I could not see the waterfall at all! Wow. I figured that was it, so I put my camera and tripod back away, but waited around for awhile. Five minutes later, the fog rolled out and I could see the waterfall again. Alrighty then, I got my camera back out and took some more shots, and also some shots of the river as well. And then the fog rolled in yet again. This time I decided to pack it up for good, and as I did, the rain started. It rained for the entire hike back to the car. It was a crazy morning, but it was certainly an awesome one.

My rainy day started out looking for waterfalls on Monumental Creek. Instead I found this.

I learned about this location from the late Russell Towle, well off the beaten path, towering pinnacle rocks called the Monuments, from which the creek was most likely named. There are four or five of them in this area, and the largest one shown here in my photo is certainly over 100 feet high, rising right out of the creek bed; it is an amazingly phenomenal structure. I knew about these Monuments from Russell, but did not know exactly where they were. They were not hard to find even though it did require scrambling up a steep slope through very wet brush.

But I came looking for waterfalls, not monuments. Russell also mentioned several waterfalls on this creek. However, whenever someone says “waterfall” and does not mention any sort of height, I should know by now that the “waterfall” is not likely to be one of significance. Nonetheless, after studying my topo maps, I thought it was possible there might be a 20 footer on this creek, and thus I figured I must at least go check it out. I did not, in fact, find anything of significance. The biggest of the “waterfalls” was only about 5 feet, and you can see it in this photo, a tiny ant speck in the midst of the towering monuments. Even though it was raining quite hard, I had to take a photo of these incredible pinnacles. I continued from here further up the creek, but still found no waterfalls of any significance. Reluctantly, I retreated back down the canyon and headed up to North Fork Falls, just a few miles away.

It was my kind of weekend. Rain. And lots of it. The storm is not over yet as I write this, but so far it has been enough to get the waterfalls flowing pretty good. When the waterfalls are flowing, you know I am going to be out finding some.

My destination was Emigrant Gap. I knew it was going to be a wet morning hike, and it was. I was out hiking for about 3 hours, and I was pretty soaked by the end of it. I was looking for some new waterfalls out in the Emigrant Gap area. I did not find any new ones, but I know there are some and I know where they are, so I will definitely be returning in the future.

After my first hike, which was a strikeout, I went to North Fork Falls which I have been to before. What I would really like someday is to photograph this waterfall in the snow, but I think it is pretty much not possible to get to it when there is snow here. Nonetheless, there was snow on the ground here as I hiked down to the falls. Very wet snow. I was surprised to see it, but there was not any around the waterfall, unfortunately. At the North Fork campground, I scared up a heron, which was the only thing alive I saw all morning. No other wildlife. No humans. I don’t even recall seeing any birds. They were all taking cover from the rain. Only I and the heron were crazy enough to be outdoors on this dreary day.

The North Fork of the North Fork American River was flowing quite strong due to the rain. This is actually the biggest I have ever seen this waterfall. And this made the river crossing below the falls a bit tricky. Usually you can just rock hop across very easily. There was one big step over a deep section of the river that I needed to make. I tried to roll a big log across to make the crossing easy for me, but the log ended up floating downstream instead. Doh. Well, fortunately, I did not really need the log, and I was able to step across on the slick rocks without incident. On the other side of the river, you need to work your way up the slope and then down to a viewpoint of the falls. This part is very difficult and quite dangerous, especially on the very wet and slick rocks. But I came prepared. With rope. I almost always take rope on my hikes in case I need it, but up to now, I have never used it. I really wanted to get down this section to get to a better viewpoint, so I looped the rope around a tree, and used it to make my way down the slope. It worked. Once down, I had to figure out how to photograph the waterfall in the rain, which is always the hardest part of going waterfallin’ in the rain. I had my wife’s umbrella with me, and was careful not to drop it over the cliff into the river as I held it over my camera as I took my photographs. On the way back, I decided to stay on the same side of the river instead of crossing back. There is no trail, but it is not hard. In fact, I think it is actually a much easier way to get to the waterfall. I’m sure I will be using that same route next time I am here. In the snow.

When my friends come hiking with me, they know that they may not always get what is advertised. Plans can change on a dime. Strike outs happen. My friend Rob knows this, or at least I hope he does by now.

The plan was to hike down to Heath Falls from Soda Springs. It was going to be an epic hike. However, when we got to Soda Springs we found that the road was snowed in! We were forced to turn around or risk getting very stuck. This snow was from the big storm a couple weeks ago, and it was still not melted. I was shocked. I figured for sure the road would be clear by now. Not so, and I was quite disappointed. I think Rob was disappointed as well, especially since I made him get up at such an ungodly hour to go on this hike with me in the dark.

Plan B was suggested by Rob, to go on a different hike at Blue Canyon (which I had been on before, but Rob had not). It was a very good idea, however, I did not have my maps with me for this hike, and I could not remember exactly how to get to the trailhead. There was a very tricky turnoff, and I did not know where it was, and I could not find it in the dark. Strike two.

Plan C was to go back to the South Yuba River, and down to the Emerald Pools waterfalls. I knew I could get to these waterfalls again. Secretly though, I was not sure I could find them without my maps. I had only been down this route once before, and I had some doubts as we hiked along, though I did not share those doubts with Rob because I did not want to have a complete strike out this morning. In the end, I found the spot, thankfully. The river was flowing at about 80 cfs, which is quite low compared to when I was here before. Even yesterday (after the rain this week), it was flowing at about 150 cfs, and it dropped by about half in just one day. But at least it was flowing, and at least we had something to photograph. No strikeout.