Leon Turnbull Photography

For the first time ever, our entire family went along on a backpacking trip with me. You heard me right, all four of us. It’s a miracle! How did I do it? It actually only took one word: ocean. If I say that word to my wife, she gets all giddy and excited. It probably took a few more words for my kids to agree.

I planned this trip months in advance. You have to do this because it is very difficult to get reservations at the Wildcat campground in Point Reyes National Seashore. Even a couple months in advance, everything was booked except for one last campsite, and that only for one night (Friday). All the stars need to align as well: the tides, and of course the weather. There are only a couple days a year where the tides come into alignment for what I wanted to do. As for the weather, we needed a lot of rain leading up to the event, and then nice weather on the day of the event. This is winter in California. Good luck with that madman. But that is exactly how it all panned out. We had quite a bit of rain in the two weeks before our trip (not nearly as much as I hoped – but it was enough). Then the weather showed a break for Friday. More rain was expected on Saturday afternoon. It turned out to be absolutely perfect timing. It was not even going to be very cold. I guess I could take credit for planning this out so perfect, but then I’d be struck by lightning. God is so good to us. Thank you Lord! I should also mention that I needed cloudy skies to take photos of this waterfall. That happened also. It was another miracle. Again, thank you God!

I was not able to do everything I wanted on this trip. We got a very late start. That is mostly because the visitor center does not open until 10AM! By the time we got our permits and got to the trailhead, it was 11:30AM before we started hiking. We did not arrive at Alamere Falls until 2PM, which is much later than I wanted. I had hoped to be at camp by this time, and then we’d have time to setup camp and hike up to Horsetail Falls before dark. Horsetail Falls is only accessible at very low tide and that was my primary goal for this trip, but we did not even get to camp until 5PM, and sunset is at 5:30PM, so going to Horsetail was out of the question. There is always next year. And next year, I will make sure I have enough time to get up to Horsetail.

We spent a lot of time at Alamere Falls, eating our lunch, and resting, and enjoying the waterfalls. Since it was Friday, there were not too many other people here (when we came back on Saturday, we passed a ton of people on the trail). It was beautiful and sunny for the hike up to the falls. We had grand views of the ocean. It clouded over in the afternoon by the time we arrived. Perfect. I went down to the beach to take my photos, while the rest of the crew rested up top. They were pretty tired, and so did not want to go down. It is a steep and tricky descent, and you need to be very careful, but I did not think it was too bad (it looks worse than it is). The rangers try (unsuccesfully) to dissuade people from coming down to Alamere Falls this way. They say there is poison oak (there is not), and that the descent is too dangerous (it is not – if you are careful). Don’t be stupid though and do something you are not prepared for and don’t have proper footwear for – such as going barefoot (we saw some hikers doing this – I could not believe it).

After photographing Alamere Falls, I went back up to get my crew. We would all have to descend to the beach with our packs on. With the tide going out, it would be an easy hike up the beach to Wildcat campground. We all made it down safely. Speaking of packs, you may want to know our pack weights: Leon: 43 pounds, Tara: 22.5 pounds, Jadon: 20.5 pounds, Nekoda: 14 pounds! You would think they would want to help the old man out and take on some more weight, but no sir! Actually, I did not mind taking on the extra weight. I wanted them all to be comfortable and to enjoy the trip as much as possible. Even with the light packs, they all had some difficulty.

The hike up the beach to Wildcat was the most enjoyable part of the entire hike. Too bad it was only 1 mile long. Along the way, we had a very close encounter with a huge elephant seal sleeping by the cliffs. We could hear it snoring as we passed by. We kept our distance (as you must), but it was a very cool experience.

We arrived at our campsite at 5PM. We setup camp, made our dinner and ate it in the dark, then we went to bed. There was only one other group in the entire campsite. Even though all the sites were booked (including one of the large group sites), no one was there. I am confused about this: If you book a campsite months in advance for January, what are you thinking? If it is not balmy and warm, you are going to cancel it? You do not get your money back if you cancel it. (and it is $20 – so not particularly cheap).  This is winter, people! Oh I am afraid it is only going to be 51 degrees, we just cannot go if it is that cold. If the weather was really awful then I would have canceled our trip also, but frankly I thought the weather we had was perfect. No rain, and the low temperature was only 51 degrees (which is very warm for January). There were showers forecast for overnight while we were sleeping, and I was expecting to have some, but we did not even get any showers at all. It was a fantastic day one in Point Reyes National Seashore.

February was just Febru-tastic! At the beginning of February, we were basically average across the board. As of Mar. 1, here is the update: Snow pack is 147% of normal (northern CA), 154% (Central Sierra), 146% (Southern Sierra). Rain fall is 133% of normal (north), 127% (central), and 122% (south). All is looking good, and the rain looks to be roaring into March. We should end up well above average for the year. But …. I just want to say one thing. Please do not complain about all the rain and snow we are getting! I’ve been hearing a lot of complaints recently. If you live in Lake Tahoe, and do not like the snow, why do you live there!!?? Do you want us to go into another huge drought?? Believe me, another drought is coming. Indeed, my prediction is that it will be even worse than the last one. We have basically four months out of the entire year where we get all (or most) of our rain and snow. (Dec-Mar). No one should be complaining about rain or snow that we get during these four months. We had a horrible start to the winter. Everyone was complaining about the lack of rain and upset about the fires that happened. Now people are complaining about the abundance of rain. Personally, I am praising God for all the rain (and we all should be). It is also important to note that Lake Oroville is *NOT* full yet and is BELOW normal (because they drained it after spillway incident a couple years ago). We still need a lot more rain in March to fill that reservoir. Hopefully we will get it in March.

Anyhow … speaking of rain… it was just a wee bit rainy on Saturday morning. I still wanted to hike, however, since I missed hiking last weekend. Going to Napa was not my first choice. However, everywhere else I thought of, it seemed to be just very heavy rain all morning. In Napa, supposedly, the rain was ending early. Indeed, when I woke up on Saturday,my weather app said it was just cloudy there. The rain had already stopped (supposedly). I decided to go to Napa.

As I drove down the freeway from Sacramento,there was a torrential downpour. In fact, the rain was extremely heavy for the entire drive. It seemed to be getting worse the further west I drove. Is it really not raining in Napa? Visibility was poor. I had to drive slow. It was ridiculous. By the time I got to Napa, it was still raining (not cloudy), but at least it was now just light rain. When I got to the trailhead, it was just misting. So I would not call that cloudy, but it was not rain either. It was really the perfect hiking weather.

I have not hiked to the Palisades before. I have been wanting to go. I heard there is a waterfall there. It should be great today.

It is a good trail. It is a very interesting trail. There is a rock maze along the way which you can walk through, and try to make it to the center of the maze. Whoever did this, must have worked for many many hours. Maybe it was aliens. I am not a fan of rock piles and cairns and such in the wilderness, but this was very cool. The trail is also very long. It is a hard trail. The hike was 3 miles longer than I expected, and the waterfall was much further than I thought. The elevation gain on the hike was much more than I thought (about 1800 ft. in total). All in all, it was a pretty darn tough hike. At least it was all on trail, but I do think I somehow managed to touch some poison oak.

I finally arrived at the waterfall. I was almost ready to give up, since I had been so much hiking further than expected. That would have sucked. I am glad I kept going. It is a very gorgeous 48 ft. high falls. I just wish that tree was not there at the bottom of it. I did go down to the bottom of the falls, which was not too difficult, and was pretty cool, but it was too difficult to photograph the waterfall from the bottom because of all the mist. There was no just good spot. The best place to photograph it was from the top. But here too, it was difficult. The cliffs are extremely unstable. I did not want to get very close to the edge. It was a big dropoff to the bottom of the cliff. Not fun.

It was a long and tough hike back to the car. Six hours total hiking there and back. Was it worth the effort? I would say, yes. It was a Febru-tastic day in Napa Valley.

I did get the poison oak itch from my hike last weekend. Indeed, I got the oak in my eye. I could not see anything on Monday morning, and had to call in sick for work. This is the third time this has happened to me. Last time was about a year ago. Thankfully … I still had enough drugs leftover from the last time. My wife did not have to take me to the doctor again (which she was grateful for), and by Tuesday morning, I am all better. It would sure be nice if I could just buy these drugs without a prescription. It kinda sucks having to go pay the doctor $200 or so, in order to get a prescription for something I need, and then go pay $ to buy the drugs, so I can get rid of the poison oak in my eye. Also, it would be even better if I did not get oak in my eye in the first place! I have been very careful about avoiding oak, and honestly, I thought I was careful this time, and I did not think I would get any poison oak itch this time either. I don’t know what happened, but somehow I missed something in my cleaning up, or maybe I was just in too much of it. Anyhow …

After my hike to Wild Oat Falls, I got back to the car, very tired. It was raining. I really wanted to do a second hike (actually more than 2 hikes), but I was so tired from the first hike, very wet, and I did not want to go out in the rain any more. I had my lunch in the car, and checked my weather app, not expecting any let up in the rain for the afternoon. However, surprise, it said the rain was apparently going to stop in about 30 minutes or so, for a brief time. Well, I suppose I could do a second hike (an easy hike) after all.

My friend Mike told me this was an EASY waterfall. With a capital E-A-S-Y. Umm, yeah, not exactly E-A-S-Y. It was not H-A-R-D. However, the hike did gain about 300 or 400 feet, and the last part involved whacking through some brush and poison oak to the edge of a very steep cliff, looking down on the waterfall. I would not call that easy, especially the part where I am treading on pins and needles at the edge of the cliff, trying to photograph the waterfall. Anyhow, I managed to do it, and got back to the car before the rain started up again. It is certainly a very pretty waterfall.

I was back in the Bay Area for an exciting weekend adventure. This time, I was back to see the Devil. Mt. Diablo State Park, that is. It has been a while, a long while, since I was last here. I really wanted to try to get to Wild Oat Falls. Did I make it? Well, I think you know that already, but it was killer, very difficult, and poison oak infested. I almost blew it, though.

There was a big storm coming in, but it was supposed to be cloudy and showery all morning. It was not showery at all. It was also not cloudy. Well it was cloudy when I started the hike.

Whenever I am here, the trail to Donner Creek is especially muddy. Ridiculously muddy. But it was good to see the creek flowing well from all the rain. Praise God for the rain. We are now well over average for the year so far. The waterfalls should be  fantastic.

Thanks to my friend Mike, I had a good route planned for Wild Oat Falls, and it was my full intention to follow this route. But alas, that did not happen. Enter poison oak. Well, you see, I thought it might be good to go to Donner Creek Falls first. It is on the way and would be a bit easier (I thought) to go to those waterfalls first, even though I’ve been to them before. I should not have done that. But anyway, I did. I spent a lot of time, far too much time, scrambling around those waterfalls, and tiring myself out. Now the sun was coming out. The clouds were all gone. It was supposed to be cloudy all morning! Nope. Not Cloudy. By the time I could get up to Wild Oat Falls, now, it would be in the sun, and that is the waterfall I really wanted to get to. I blew it! I should have gone up to Wild Oat first! I knew it, too. Ugh.

However … all was not lost. I saw a path heading up the canyon from the Donner Creek Falls. I was not planning to go this way. I knew there would be a lot of poison oak this way. Guess what? There was a lot of poison oak. However, it was much faster doing this now then going my original route. I could not avoid touching the oak. I gave up trying, and just trounced right through the stuff. Hoping beyond all hope, that I will avoid getting the itch this time. (actually … I have not gotten the poison oak itch in a long time – knock on wood). It was a tough route, climbing up the canyon this way. The waterfall was much further than I thought it was. This was NOT the right way to go to it! I continued climbing, and finally I could see the falls. It was still in shade. Could I make it in time? I still had a long way to go. Finally I reached the viewpoint. It was still in shade. I was ecstatic. Wild Oat Falls is a stunning 83 ft. high waterfall. Such magnificence! I took photos and enjoyed the view. I did not go back down via Donner Creek Falls, I went back the way I had initially intended to come to this one. It was much much easier. And no poison oak! (but it was too late about that, anyway). It was a long hike back down the mountain. By the time I got back to the car, the clouds were back. It was raining. Yeah!

After going to see four waterfalls in Novato in the morning, I drove to Fairfax, and stopped for lunch at Round Table pizza. What should I do after lunch? I wanted to go on at least one more hike in the afternoon.

I drove to Lake Lagunitas for the next hike. This is a very busy place. There were tons of people out biking, hiking, running, and walking. I wondered if any of these people would be going to see this waterfall. The answer: NO ONE. Only the waterfall madman is out to see the waterfalls. Of course, 99% or more of the people there had no idea there was even a waterfall at Lake Lagunitas. Did you? Thanks to waterfallswest friend Mike, I knew there was a waterfall here and I wanted to go see it. Perhaps another reason no one was at the waterfall is because it is a killer hike! I was anticipating a short and quick hike up to the falls, but no sir. This hike was crazy, and it took a very long time. However, if I had gone the right way in the first place, perhaps it would have been short and quick. I always tend to make things harder than they need be.

There was a nice trail to begin with, but before too long I lost it. So I just went straight up the creek bed, which is the way I thought I should go and the way that made the most sense. There were multiple creek crossings. There were many fallen logs to crawl over and under. There was a lot of brush to trounce through. There was much steep terrain to climb up and down. It took a long time! It took forever! It was the never ending bush whack!

Finally I got up to the top where I could see the waterfall. A couple more creek crossings, another steep hill to clamber up, and I finally made it to the falls. That is when I noticed an actual trail that went right up beside the waterfall. Ugh.

So I took photos of the waterfall, which is a pretty nice drop (32 ft. high), but would have been much better at higher flows. Then I wondered about that trail. I did not know where it went, but I did not really want to go back down the same way. That would have taken forever. The trail was perfect! It went all the way down to the bottom, pretty nice and mostly very easy to follow, all the way down to where I had initially lost it on the way up. Oh that would have been so much easier to take this trail UP to the falls. Now I know. But will I ever be back here to do this hike again? Perhaps, if the creek is at a high flow (for certain, a high flow).