Leon Turnbull Photography

I was last here five years ago but did not get to the lower falls. The lower falls is quite a bit away from the other waterfalls so I would have needed an extra day to go to it. I considered it at the time but I was just too tired. I vowed to return. Then the Creek Fire happened in 2020, which literally devastated the entire area. Many of the trails are still closed, and the Isberg and Cora trails only just re-opened this summer. It was finally time to go see the Lower North Fork San Joaquin River Falls.

It is a very long 5 hour drive to the Isberg trailhead but I was on the trail by 10AM. I expected the hike to be fairly easy and I should be at camp by 2PM. Yeah right, but it should be a good test for me. I have not backpacked in 3 months and have done very little hiking. I am still way overweight from the summer, but I have been working out a lot and I felt strong.

There were quite a few cars at the trailhead. It was surprising considering how far out of the way this trailhead is. Even so, I only saw a couple day hikers on the first day. I saw zero people on the second day.

A couple interesting things: Firstly, I noticed there was a lot of water flowing in all the creeks. When I was here 5 years ago (a wet year), they were all dry or mostly dry. I certainly was expecting them to be dry this year, indeed I was worried they would ALL be dry and I might even have problems getting water to drink from the big creek. There had been some recent rain but I honestly did not think it had rained very much here. Yet even the trail was muddy in quite a few places. They must have received more rain than I had thought.

Secondly, the devastation: it was massive. The entire canyon was scorched. I felt like I was on a barren planet. When I got off the Isberg trail onto the Cora trail I was expecting to encounter a lot of blowdowns. That was not the case, however. The trail had been completely cleared by the NFS. This was a good thing. Perhaps this is why it took so long to re-open the trails and why many trails are still closed. They don’t want to re-open them until they have cleared them. Compare to the Dixie Fire and Caldor Fire from last year. The trails there are all (mostly) re-opened already (and certainly not cleared yet). The trails in Stanislaus NF could be closed many more years if they are going to wait until they are all cleared. I don’t think that is a good thing, but at least they are actively working on clearing them. Unlike at Yosemite National Park, where they have let the trails go to rot after a fire many years ago. (I’m still upset about that – if you can’t tell – ugh).

It was much harder getting down to the river than I expected. I really thought it was going to be a cakewalk except for maybe one small section. It was difficult and steep and rocky and brushy. I made it down to the river at 3PM, one hour longer than anticipated. I found a nice spot to camp at the top of the waterfall, made my dinner, then went down to see the falls afterwards.

Lower North Fork San Joaquin River Falls is a gorgeous 51 ft. high plunge into a big, beautiful, magnificent pool. It is a stunning oasis in the middle of the devastated canyon and well worth seeing. I took many photos and enjoyed the waterfall immensely.

I returned to camp. It was still early so I relaxed on the rocks by the river (where there were no gnats). After I was attacked by a water spider, I decided to retreat to my tent and then watched a movie before bed. It was a warm night and I slept fairly well beside the sound of the rushing river.

I got up early, made my breakfast and coffee, and was on the trail by 7:30am. I found an easier way back out of the canyon, which saved a bit of time (well, slightly easier – it was still a tough 2000 ft. climb). I was back at my vehicle by 12PM, and home by 5PM. It was a fantastic, short weekend in Ansel Adams Wilderness.

 

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This is Middle Cherry Creek Falls, 36 ft. high. Where I camped for the night. A very beautiful place!

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It rained most of the night. It was still raining when I got up and continued to rain throughout the morning. So what did the weather forecasters say about this? TWENTY percent chance of showers on Sunday. I think one site might have said 40 percent chance of showers but the others said nothing like that at all. WHAT AN EPIC FAIL. Showers is one thing. I expected I might have a little bit of off and on showers and so I did bring my rain jacket. This was constant rain all night and morning. Light rain. But still rain nonetheless. Not showers. I did not bring my rain pants or my gloves. I dearly wished I had brought these two items. If I had then the hike back out would have been much more pleasant in the light rain. Instead it was miserable. You can call me an idiot for not being prepared enough, I don’t mind. I should have known better. It is a 1500 ft. climb out of the canyon with no trail and a lot of brush. The brush was wet from all the rain and so I was a soaking dog long before I finally got to the top and back on the trail.

I was extremely happy that I saw all the waterfalls on the previous day. I certainly would not have wanted to go to any of the falls in the morning in the rain. I ate my breakfast and drank my coffee hiding under a tree sheltered from the elements. The photo shown here is Lower Cherry Creek Falls, 51 ft. high.

Once back on the trail at the top of the ridge it is a 4 mile hike back to the car. Unfortunately there is still a lot of brush overgrowing onto the trail. It is not a problem if the brush is dry but of course it was not dry. It was also still raining. It was too miserable to stop so I hiked the entire 4 miles without stopping. It is all downhill though so that was good. I got back to my car and turned up the heat to warm myself up. I drove straight home. I did not stop for pizza this time but I did get a triple western burger at Carls when I got back. It was a good trip down into the Cherry Bomb gorge in the amazing Emigrant Wilderness.

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My sleeping bag zipper busted in the middle of the night. Toasted. Kaput. The temperature was less than 40 degrees and I had no sleeping bag. Well thankfully I had my sleeping bag liner with me and I put the useless sleeping bag over me like a blanket so I was not cold. Now for my trip next week I am going to have to use my summer sleeping bag (hint: it is not summer).

I wanted to sleep in a bit but I was awake at 6AM anyway. I made breakfast and coffee, took some more photos of the waterfall and was on the trail by 7:15AM.

I did not see any animals on this trip but I did see quite a few animal tracks in the snow: bear, coyote, and some absolutely huge cat prints that could only be from a mountain lion. All the tracks were fresh. So where did that mountain lion go? He is probably watching me from somewhere close by. Hmmm …. lunch time …

On the road back to where I was parked I came across an interesting sight: a big truck was stuck in the snow. You would not think that someone with such a big truck could get stuck but there it was. They had already tried pushing it out to no avail so I could be of no help to him but thankfully his friend was already on his way to rescue him. I continued on my merry way and arrived back at my car a short while later. Maybe it was a good thing I did not attempt to get past that snow patch the previous day. It was a fabulous couple days in the Desolation Wilderness.

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I have been to Crystal Basin Falls before but I always wanted to return at peak flow in spring and camp here as well. I envisioned it being very spectacular in spring. I put it on my list to do this year.

The timing for my vision was critical and after checking the snow maps and satellite images I thought this weekend might be one or two weeks too early. However, the next couple weeks would not be possible for me so I decided to go now. There would likely still be a lot of snow here but it still should be good.

The road to Wrights Lake on Highway 50 was still closed and gated (at least, that is what the website indicated) so my idea was to go from Ice House Reservoir. It is 10 miles to Wrights Lake from there and there would be snow but I figured I would drive as far as possible and hike the rest of the way. I hoped to drive at least 3 miles on the road. I drove 5 miles before I hit the first snow bump on the road and decided to park here. I think I could have driven a little further but I wanted to get in a decent hike. It would be 5 miles on the road plus 3 miles on the trail to Crystal Basin Falls. It would be a fairly easy hike which I certainly needed after the huge one I did in Yosemite last week.

Wrights Lake was closed in the summer for the Caldor Fire which raged through here. You might expect the entire lake to be burned but in fact there was no burn through this area at all. It was as beautiful as always. That is a good thing for sure. I did see badly burned areas along the American River canyon (highway 50) but nothing in Ice House or Wrights Lake area.

I reached the trailhead for the Rockbound Trail. This is where I expected things to get very difficult with the trail being very snowy and very muddy. Instead I found the trail to be almost all clear and very easy. This was shocking. The snow must have all melted off in just one week. Now I am thinking I was not 1 or 2 weeks too early but perhaps 1 week too late.

I arrived easily at Crystal Basin Falls at about 12:30PM. The waterfall was nice for sure but definitely not what I had envisioned. Even if I had been 1 week earlier I don’t think it would have made much difference. I now think I probably need to come back during an above average year at peak flow. Anyhow I setup my tent right next to the waterfall and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon. It was an incredibly beautiful spot.

In the evening I decided to hike up to Twin Lakes. Normally I would hike on the south side of the creek but the creek was too high to cross without getting very wet and there was quite a bit of snow on that side so I tried the north side of the creek instead. It was a little difficult getting up above the waterfall but once I was able to do that it was mostly easy going up to Twin Lakes. However, the closer I got to Twin Lakes the more snow there was to traverse. It was soft but I was not postholing. Twin Lakes was very gorgeous and still iced over. The waterfall was flowing but not as well as I had seen it before. I did not stay for sunset to take photos. If I had stayed then I would be hiking back down in the dark back to camp and I did not want to do that. I already have good photos of those waterfalls. I would much rather go back down and take photos of the lower falls in the evening. That is what I did.

Part 2 is on the way …

 

 

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