Leon Turnbull Photography

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).

Whenever I go over to the Bay Area, I am always disappointed by the flow in the creeks. Not always, but probably over 90% of the time I go there. I thought for sure today would be different. It was less than 48 hours since the major storm, the biggest storm of the year so far. Surely the creeks would still be in flood, definitely they would all have very high flows. Indeed, I was thinking I would not be able to cross some of them.

This is why I chose to go first back to Pacheco Creek Falls, which I have been to before. I figured the Little Pacheco Falls would be flowing, and I have not been to that one (when it was flowing). Now would be a great day to do it. Well, I arrived at the trailhead at sunrise, thinking that I would need to wear my water shoes for the hike, since you need to cross the creek a number of times. However, the creek was not in flood. The creek was not high. The creek was actually very low. In fact, the creek was lower today then when I was here the first time. How disappointing! What happened to all that rain that came down??? It would be an easy rock hop across at all points, so I put on my hiking boots instead and headed up the trail.

The Little Pacheco Creek was basically a trickle (again). I did go up to this falls (again), and this time I did take a photo, but I was really bummed. I really wanted to see that one flowing well.

I headed up the creek to the main Pacheco Creek Falls, crossing a number of times (easily). I came to the lower falls and took photos of it, then you need to climb up the cliffs to see the upper falls (pictured here). I was worried about this section. There are huge dropoffs as you climb up the trail, and with the ground still wet (from the rain that came?), it was very unstable. I was right to be worried, because the main section of trail was too dangerous to traverse. Thankfully, I was able to climb up and around it, and then able to get up to the waterfall. I compared my photo from last time I was here, and I think there was more water the first time. They got over 4 inches of rain here this past week. Darn it all.

I had planned to spend the entire day in the Bay area, and see about 8 or so waterfalls. However, because the flow was not high, and because it took a lot longer to do some of the hikes than I anticipated, I cut my day short. I did see 5 waterfalls, however, including 4 new ones (including Little Pacheco), so stick around and you will see some more photos coming very soon.