It was dance show weekend so my wife and I had to go to the Bay Area to see our daughter perform. Leaving at 5AM so Journey and I could do a hike beforehand was an allowed thing. Let’s go!
This was going to be a 4.5 mile hike and all on trail so not difficult, and no ticks, and no poison oak. What a relief.
After a short distance we came to a creek crossing and lo and behold there is a waterfall here! A surprise waterfall! It was not exactly a spectacular one but I thought it was worth taking a photo, so I got out my camera gear and set up in the creek. I was not paying attention and I did not hear the group of hikers coming up behind us until it was too late. Journey got scared. The reason was that the trail here is very narrow. There was no room for the hikers to pass by her so she got scared and started running up the trail to get away from them because they did not stop and wait for me to get her first. I told the lady in front to stop and I left my camera in the creek and went up to get her. Even though Journey was scared she came back to me when I called her and I got her into a place where the hikers could go by. She is such a good girl. She is not normally like that and we had no issues with anyone else we saw that day but it was just because the trail was narrow and there was no place to pass. No worries. We continued our hike.
After this we came to the main waterfall of the day: Tucker Falls. The information I had on this one was lacking so I was only 90% sure of its location but I turned out to be right on. Supposedly there is a campsite here called Tucker Camp but I saw no obvious place for one. It was not a particularly flat area but I did see the waterfall from the trail so I knew we were in the right spot. You have to climb up to it. It was a little difficult but Journey did well of course. Once up at the falls I saw that I went the wrong way up which was more difficult than the proper way. Ah well, c’est la vie.
Tucker Falls is 23 ft. high. It is not an incredible waterfall but it is a good little one for sure.
We took photos and continued up the trail doing a big loop back to the car. We saw a lot of bikers, hikers, and runners along the way. It was still early when we got back to the car so we went to a park where Journey played fetch for another couple hours. Where does she get all the energy? She was tuckered out afterwards though. It was a great morning in Marin County.
It was time to return to the Bay Area this weekend after the big storms. My wife joined Journey and myself because we would visit our daughter for lunch after our hike. It was going to be a good day.
The plan was to visit three waterfalls I have not seen before: Lower, Middle, and Upper Pensacola Falls. Thanks to friend Mike for telling me about these waterfalls. We arrived at the trailhead at sunrise. It is a residential neighborhood and the neighbor was watching me through the window as I got ready for the hike. Come on lady, it is a public trail and a public street. It is ok for us to be here. That is one excellent thing about Marin County. There are so many public open spaces for hiking, even right in residential areas.
The hike begins on a trail up a very steep incline. I was huffing in very short order. Journey had no such problem. Before long, the route leaves the nice trail and descends steeply to the creek. No more trails. It was a lot more difficult than I expected. It was brushy. It was not really that bad but it was enough that Journey decided she did not want to continue. There’s no trail this way, daddy. Let’s get back on the proper path! I encouraged her to keep going on the non-path and she followed me faithfully. There was poison oak. I tried to avoid touching it and I think I succeeded. Barely. I did not end up getting the itch when I got home. Whew. There were ticks. I plucked two or three off of my legs. The bad thing is that I knew if I had some on myself, that meant Journey would be getting quite a few as well. Should I turn back now? We were already too far committed on this hike. We had to keep going and deal with the ticks later.
We made it down to the creek and the middle falls, which was very lovely. There was not any good place for Journey to sit at any of these three waterfalls, so she just stood there while I took photos. She was very patient as always. We crossed the creek and climbed the steep slope to the upper falls, a smaller one but very pretty. From here we climbed up to the top of the ridge. Lo and behold, there was a trail! This trail is not on any of my maps but it was a pretty good one and looked to descend all the way back down to the neighborhood where we started. This would probably be a lot better than going back the way we came, through all the brush and ticks and oak. But first, we had to descend to the lower falls (off trail, again).
Lower Pensacola Falls is the biggest of the three waterfalls and is 40 ft. high (pictured here). It is a gorgeous waterfall, hidden away in an unlikely place. I went down and stood in the middle of the creek to take photos, while Journey waited patiently for me up on the steep slope with nowhere to sit.
We climbed back up the hill. When we got back to the trail I checked Journey over very thoroughly (so I thought). I plucked about 10 or so ticks off of her. I thought this would be the end of it. I did not see anything more on her. I must have gotten them all. I was pleased. The trail did go back to the neighborhood where we started and it was very easy. I should have gone up this way in the first place. It would have been a thousand times better. Well, now I know for next time. When we got back to my wife at the car we checked Journey over again, together. We must have plucked another 50 ticks off of her. They just kept appearing in her fur, a never ending nightmare. I was disheartened because there were so many. I did not think the hike was really that bad in terms of ticks but it was bad. No harm done. We got them all off of her but we still found a couple more once we got back home.
We had a good lunch with our daughter and drove home. It was a gorgeous morning in tick infested Marin County.
It was dance show weekend for my daughter Nekoda. Since we had to go to the Bay Area it seemed like a perfect day to go early with Journey for a waterfall hike. Cataract Falls was our destination.
Cataract Falls is a very popular hike. We arrived at the trailhead at 7AM. There was already one car there in the very small parking area and two cars showed up right behind me. Already people on the trail and it is only 7AM! You will want to read to the end of the story.
We had the trail mostly to ourselves although I did see other people, of course. The weather forecast said it was going to be cloudy in the morning. There were absolutely zero clouds in the sky. Not even one. Doggone it. Those darn forecasters strike again. That meant I did not have a lot of time to get to the top so I did not stop at every waterfall along the way, just a few of them. Also, it is a little hard for Journey to get to some of the falls and I did not want to make things too difficult for her.
We rested at the top and Journey had breakfast. Instead of going back down the same way I decided to go back on the High Marsh Trail and Helen Markt Trail. This is a much longer hike but we had a lot of time and there were no people on this trail so Journey could be off leash the entire time. There would’ve been a lot of people going back on the Cataract trail. It was fairly tiring so when we finally got back down to the lake I thought we would have a good long rest there. Journey laid down for two minutes then she wanted to get going again. Crazy dog.
We got back to the main Cataract trail. Holy crikey! I could not believe my eyes. I must have cataracts! Major traffic jam! It is only about a mile back to the car from here but there were literally hundreds of people. Going up and going down. I knew there would be quite a few but this many? It was absolutely nuts. Journey was as surprised as I was to see so many people. It was a slow slog back to the car following the long line of people and not being able to pass any of them. It did not matter to us because we were done with our hike and had seen all the waterfalls but if you were hiking at this time, tell me how is this an enjoyable hike? It is far from enjoyable with this many people on the trail.
We got back to the car and drove to the park where we would meet up with my wife. Journey of course was overly ecstatic to see her and wanted to play fetch with her for the next hour. How are you not completely tired from our five hour hike, Journey? She is such an energizer bunny (as my wife always says). It was a wonderful and eye-popping morning in Marin County.
On Black Friday (after my morning hike) I had to drive my daughter back to her university in the Bay Area. I hate driving to the Bay Area because the traffic is always bad. I despise traffic. I would rather sit at a Starbucks for two hours (waiting for traffic to subside) than sit in traffic for two hours. It was pretty good on the way there and we made good time but I could see that it was horrid going back the other way. There is no way I was going to drive in that mess to go back home. I would take Journey on a hike instead and then drive back in the evening.
It had only been five days since the Bomb Cyclone but I was sure that all the waterfalls in the Bay Area would be back to just a trickle. The only one I thought might still be good is Cataract Falls which is the perhaps the biggest creek in the area. The problem is that Google Maps was saying the lower road was still closed. That meant I had to drive all the way around to the top of the waterfall and hike down from there. That is a lot of extra driving but I thought I had time for it. I did not realize, however, that they lock the gates on the upper road at sunset. That meant I did not have very much time after all. I figured I would just hike down as far as I could and then whip back up to the car before sunset.
There were only about 10 cars or so at the trailhead, however there were a ton of people on the trail. Where were they all parked? I passed well over 50 groups for sure. Journey had to be on leash for the entire hike. She still very much enjoyed it though.
I made it down to the big waterfall (shown here) and stopped. I would have to boot it back up the trail and did not have time to photograph any of the other cascades (except one other). That did not really bother me because the creek was not flowing very well anyway. I want to come back here when it is flowing much better. For sure I will do that when I can drive to the bottom and also first thing in the morning (when there aren’t very many people). I learned that much today. I also learned not to trust Google or Apple Maps. On the way back up I passed a ranger who told me the lower road was indeed open after all. That explains where all the people came from. Ugh. At least Journey had a good hike but she was quite tired afterwards. I got her a hamburger because she was such a good girl. The drive back home was not too horrible. It was a quick but lovely hike in Marin County.
As of Feb 1, our California stats do not look so good. Snow pack is at 60% of normal (north), 53% (central), and 35% (south). Rain is at 77% (north), 51% (central), 43% (south). It is up quite a bit from Jan 1, but clearly we are still far behind average. The Southern Sierra in particular is in dire straits. We need a huge February and March to catch up. Having said that, voila! We have two monster storms hitting us this weekend. The first one was not really so big, actually. We just had 2.5 inches of rain in the foothills. I had wanted to go back to Oroville but they only had 1.5 inches. But the Bay Area? 4 inches of rain. Hmmmm, should I go back to Marin County one more time?
I asked my daughter if she wanted to hike with me. Shockingly, she said yes. Usually she wants to rest on the weekend because she is dancing 5 days per week, but for some reason she wanted to hike this weekend. And this would not be a particularly easy hike either.
I wanted to return to Big Carson Falls because I did not have a very good photo of it. Plus it should be absolutely rocking with all the rain. In fact, I was a bit worried we would not make it. There are three big creek crossings and after 4 inches of rain I thought they might be at flood stage.
I picked Nekoda up from her dorm at 7am and we got out to the trailhead by 7:30am. There is just one single parking spot so it’s a good thing we were there by sunrise. It was a Big Chilly morning for us to see Big Carson Falls but we warmed up quickly. It is a 700 ft. climb up the mountain and then a 600 ft. descent down to the creek and waterfall (and reverse that on the way back). The creek crossings were pretty tame. We rock hopped the first two without much difficulty. The third crossing I had to wade across but you don’t even have to do that one in order to see the waterfall. I went across to get a better photo angle but Nekoda did not bother with it. I was a little surprised the crossings were so easy. I have been down at this creek in the past when it has been uncrossable and I was expecting similar conditions after so much rain.
Big Carson Falls is 56 ft. high. We chilled out at the base of the falls enjoying it very much. It was gorgeous and flowing much better than the last time I was here. I was pleased. I think Nekoda was pleased as well. She thought the hike was a bit too hard though. She asked me which of my muscles were sore after the hike. I told her none. I don’t think she believed me. We ended the day with a pizza lunch. It was another magnificent morning in Marin County.
