Leon Turnbull Photography

On New Year’s Day for my first hike of 2018, I decided to head up to the Montgomery Creek area to try to find a new waterfall. The first 4.5 miles of the hike was easy and it took about 1.5 hours. The last 0.5 miles of the hike was ridiculous and it took about 1.5 hours. Then I had to hike it all in reverse. It took the same amount of time. I’m not joking.

The waterfall is a long way from nowhere. The last time I was up in this area I was taking my friend Brian Rueb to see a 5 foot waterfall. Well, it was not intentional, but that is how it worked out. I think that might have been the last time he hiked with me. This is one of the main reasons why I like to hike alone. I like to explore new areas to find new waterfalls that no one has been to before. Many times I strike out and do not find anything. I hate it when I bring someone out somewhere and end up not getting anywhere for whatever reason. They probably hate me for it. I’m not sure that is what Brian was thinking, but in my mind that is what I was thinking that he was thinking. Is that proper English? I did ask my son Jadon to come with me on this hike. However, it is probably a very good thing that he declined. He can’t hate me because I am his father, but maybe he would have hated me for a short time. This hike was ridiculous!

The hike started out on a dirt road, and was mostly flat the entire 4.5 miles. It was very pleasant hiking, following the creek, which was sometimes out of sight, but sometimes in view from the road.

As I was hiking along, I saw some fresh bobcat tracks and scat in the road. As I was thinking about this and wondering if I would come across the creature, I saw a strange animal come bounding toward me on the road. When it saw me, it came to a dead stop. A few seconds later it ran off into the bushes and out of sight. He was far too quick to allow me to get the camera out, but it was definitely a ringtail! I have never seen one of these animals before; apparently they were quite common back in mining days, but now they are very rare (and also nocturnal, so I’m not sure what this little dude was thinking – a late New Year’s Eve night partying, I guess). Anyhow, it was very cool.

I continued on, finally arriving at my creek crossing. From here, it is just a half mile up the creek to the waterfall. The brush along the creek was pure absurdity! I tried walking up the creekbed, walking alongside the creek, and walking up high above the creek. It was bad bad bad everywhere. Thankfully, there was not much poison oak and no ticks. (both of which was surprising – but I was not complaining). There was a bit of poison oak, however, and I did get a small rash but not too badly. After much effort, I finally got to a spot where I could see the waterfall ahead of me (with still a large amount of brush to battle through to get to it). I could see that it was a good one and a tall one. You might think that this would give me motivation and resolve to be able finish the hike, but even at this point I still considered giving up. That is how bad the brush was. I knew I still had a tough battle ahead of me. It was at this point I realized I had lost my tripod somewhere in the brush behind me. It was my cheaper one, but it was still a $70 tripod, and I had to go back to get it. It was not very close behind me either. I had to go all the way back to where I had climbed up a steep section from the creekbed. I finally found it. Then I had to turn around and go back through all that brush again!

The terrain was very steep as I got up close to the waterfall with a big dropoff to get back down to the creek. I found a way, though, which was right beside the cliff at the base of the falls. More brush. Then I had to climb down a big log (hoping it was securely in place), and I finally reached the base of the waterfall. It certainly is a fabulous waterfall, dropping 80 ft. high. It would be amazing at higher flows, but will I ever return here? Not likely.

On the return trip, I stayed higher above the creek. Not much better. I finally got back to the road. It was late now, well past lunchtime, and I was about 4 hours behind my anticipated end to the hike. Ah well, it was a good way to start 2018, and it was worth the effort … I think.

2 Comments

It has been four years since I’ve been to see my old friend, Feather Falls. I figured it was well past time to make a visit.

Why? Well one reason was I wanted to make a video of the Feather Falls hike. I accomplished this successfully, and it will be ready for viewing sometime in January. I started making videos again, and this time they are new and exciting and high quality, so if you have not seen them yet, please check them out and follow waterfallmadman on youtube. I appreciate the support. I have a brand new one being released next weekend. Do not miss it!

So anyhow, I arrived at the Feather Falls trailhead before sunrise. There were some people camping here (in the campground). The weird thing is that one of the cars had Christmas lights on (inside it). It kind of freaked me out seeing that so early in the morning. I am kidding. Sort of. I was not expecting to see anyone there. Definitely not that.

I started my hike in the dark. I had a couple hours to make it to the waterfall before the sun would get to it. I had plenty of time, but not enough to dilly daddle too much. I hiked quickly.

Frey Creek had pretty good flow in it. This is a good sign and made me happy. Even though we are in a long dry spell and even though we have not had a lot of rain yet this winter, the waterfalls are flowing already. They did not need very much precipitation to get started this winter. I think that a lot of people do not realize this (that the waterfalls are flowing already). In some areas, though, such as the coast, they are going to need a lot more water of course. I pray that this dry spell ends soon and we have a good winter.

One thing that did not make me happy: the ticks!!! They were everywhere, just dripping off the grasses along the trail. This is the second hike already this winter where I’ve seen a lot of ticks. It is only early December. They should not even be out yet! I am predicting this is going to be a horrendous year for ticks. I think it is because of the very wet winter we had last year, due to that, the ticks are going to be awful this year. Last year, remember, the ticks were not very bad at all. This is my theory. Whatever the reason, they are already bad bad bad this year and I do not like it. The good thing is that the Feather Falls trail is very wide and it was mostly easy to avoid getting lurched upon by the little buggers.

Before too long, I arrived at the Feather Falls viewpoint. The waterfall was booming! Well, perhaps not exactly booming, but it was flowing strong and it was awesome. Feather Falls never fails to disappoint. It is truly magnificent. Of course we all know by now the true height of Feather Falls, that it is 410 ft. high and not 640 ft. high. Of course we all know who is responsible for that correct measurement. I do not really see anyone using the old incorrect height anymore, but when I do see people using the correct height, they never credit yours truly. Oh cry me a river, I know. Anyway, I wanted to re-measure the height this time around. I only measured it the one time and there is some error involved when doing this. I am happy to report that my new measurement was very close to 410 ft., in fact it was so close that I am confident to keep the 410 ft. figure as the true height of the waterfall.

I thought about trying to get down to the bottom of the waterfall. That is all. I just thought about it. The main thing that stopped me from trying: the poison oak looked horrendous down there. I just did not feel like dealing with the oak today. My friend Rob the mountain goat almost made it down to the bottom awhile ago, but was stopped mostly by poison oak so I knew it would be bad the entire 410 ft. to the bottom. I could see it would be bad, so that is enough thinking about that. I went to the top of the waterfall instead and took a timeout inside the cage at the brink of the falls. It really is a bit crazy getting into the cage. The rock is smooth and very slippery. One little missed step and you are a goner. People have gone bye bye here in the past. I actually did slip on it one time, but I was already inside the case and so was in a safe spot. Still, just that little slip freaks you out. I still had to climb back out of the cage afterwards. And then I did it all a second time with my video camera. Don’t even consider trying this stunt if the rocks are at all wet.

I hiked back to the trail loop junction and sat down on the bench and ate my lunch. As I was sitting there eating, I heard the sound of a plane. It got louder and louder and louder and louder. I stood up, looking around for it. Then I saw it. A jet screamed by, flying very low, and clearly faster than the speed of sound. Boom! I heard the sonic boom as it went overhead. It was so very loud! Wow. It seemed to me that it was flying straight up the Fall River Canyon, and right over Feather Falls. It would have been absolutely awesome to have been at the overlook at the time it flew over, although perhaps it would have destroyed my ear drums. Nonetheless, I regret not eating my lunch at the overlook. Ah well.

 

 

 

 

 

No Comments

I have been wanting to get up to the High Lakes area in Lassen NF for a long time. There are quite a few waterfalls in this area. The problem is: it is a LONG DRIVE AWAY. Essentially, you drive to the other side of the Earth, and then a little more. Also, you need to go when it is a cloudy day for waterfall photography purposes, and also when the road is open (that basically means summer for the most part, and there are no cloudy days in summer).

Well it was going to be a cloudy day on Saturday, and it seemed like as good a day as any to try this long drive. I was really not sure about the road, however. You have to drive up to 6600 ft. elevation, there would surely be snow, but how much? There is no information about the road that you can look up beforehand, thus I did have a backup plan if I could not drive up there. Also I was not sure if the waterfalls would even be flowing up there. This whole hike was just a big shot in the dark. Nonetheless, I still wanted to try it.

The road to the High Lakes area is EXTREMELY ROUGH. There were a couple spots that were very sketchy driving my SUV past. I DID NOT LIKE IT. I was definitely worried about driving back down afterwards. My next car is surely going to have more clearance. Have I said that before? There was no snow until the last 100 or 200 feet. I almost bottomed out, indeed I could hear the snow scraping the bottom of the car, but it was just slight, and I was able to continue driving up to the trailhead. I made it up there. Now what?

My plan was to do a big huge loop to see all the waterfalls up in this area. It would be an all day affair. However, this plan was soon to change. I started out with a hike to Morris Lake. There was snow on the ground, and it was icy. The weather was brisk and refreshing. I saw quite a few bear tracks in the snow along the way, some of which seemed fairly fresh.

This is a popular OHV area, and even in the winter, I saw many tire tracks on the roads. I expected to see quite a few off roaders up here, but I saw no one the entire day. That is, until I was almost finished my hike. I did see a couple groups at the end, just up for the day. The road is crazy rough past where I parked, huge boulders to negotiate; I don’t know how anyone could drive a Jeep on that road, but they do. I just wish they could also learn how to pack out their trash. Is it really so complicated? I picked up quite a bit of garbage on my hike. So annoying.

Anyway, from the first junction, it is supposedly 6 miles round trip to the waterfall.  I figured it would be quick and painless, but it was actually probably 8 miles and it was a much much tougher hike than anticipated, with about 1100 ft. elevation loss (which I would have to hike back up). Despite the elevation loss, the snow continued on the road and “trail” all the way down to the waterfalls. This was worrisome because there is a very steep descent off trail down to the falls. That made for a very sketchy hike on cliffy terrain. Could I make it down? In addition to this, the brush is crazy brush. It was not manzanita, I’m not sure what it was, but it was just as bad as manzanita. I was thick in it, and could see no light at the end of the tunnel. I almost turned back, but I persevered, and I finally got through it and then the rest of the way down was not too bad. I came to the first waterfall.

The first waterfall is a pretty darn nice one in its own right, and is 43 ft. high (that will be my next post). From here you can tell there is a huge waterfall just below you, but you cannot see it. You are standing on the brink of a monster cliff with no way to get down, and no way to see the falls. Well, I thought, if I could get over to the next ridge and down, I would be right in front of the waterfall and have a grand view of the thing. The trouble was twofold: First, it looked to be very cliffy on the next ridge, and there was snow on it, so it looked potentially impossible to get down it. Second, there was a huge ravine between the ridge and myself, so how would I possibly cross it? Well, I worked my way over and I saw a way to cross the ravine. With snow on it, it was a bit tricky, and I slipped once. Thankfully, I was holding onto some tree branches, otherwise I probably would have slid all the way to the bottom of the ravine. No joke. I got across onto the ridge. It actually did not look too steep or cliffy at all, and even with snow, it was not difficult to get down it. All the way to the viewpoint directly across from the waterfall. Glorious waterfall. 151 ft. high magnificent waterfall, and flowing fairly well this early in the winter too. The views down the canyon were absolutely breathtaking. What an amazing place. I have never seen any photos of these waterfalls before. Perhaps people have been down to them, but they have not been documented by anyone before waterfallswest.com.

It was already noon. I ate my lunch at the viewpoint. Now I had to climb back up the mountain. 1200 ft. back up. As you can imagine, it was a very tough climb out. I realized there was no possible way I could hike to the other waterfalls. Even if I was not so tired (and I was), it was now too late. I would have been hiking back in the dark for certain had I continued on as originally planned. As it was I just got back to the car less than an hour before sunset. I will have to come back here at some point, but I’m not sure when. Even though I only saw the two waterfalls, they were absolutely spectacular, and it was an incredible day in Lassen National Forest.

No Comments

I’ve always wanted to snow shoe to Mill Creek Falls in Lassen Volcanic National Park in the winter. Well, this past weekend was my chance to do it.

My wife joined me on the hike. She just got brand new snow shoes (an early Christmas gift). I was totally jealous. Mine still work fine, but they are really beat up. I want new ones like she now has. Maybe I will steal them from her. Hummmmm ….

We arrived at the park before sunrise. I talked to some lady while my wife was using the restroom. They were camping in a tent at the park. It was 24 degrees. Yikes, that is a bit cold to tent camp for my bones. She said it was not cold. Ok, if you say so, ma’am. There was two feet of snow on the ground, but it was hard packed. You almost did not need snow shoes. Almost, but not quite. We would have been sinking in a lot without them. The latest storm dumped a lot of rain, but there was not much fresh snow, only a few inches. I wished there was more fresh snow. We need it. This winter is definitely not starting out like last year. Sadly. Although… actually we’ve had more rain this November than last year (but much less overall because October last year was huge).

It is a gorgeous hike. We saw quite a few animal tracks in the snow, including fresh bear tracks. I always like seeing those, but we did not see any bear or other animal. We arrived at the overlook to the waterfall. It was incredibly pretty in the snow, and flowing well. In the summer, I have no (or few) qualms about descending partially down the cliff to get a better view of the falls. I dared not do any such thing this time. It would have been extremely dangerous. Sliding off the cliff. That would not be much fun. The hike was very fun.

But it was tough. It is not an easy hike to Mill Creek Falls. There is a lot of up and down hiking and with snow shoes, it is twice as difficult. My wife struggled on the hike, especially on the way back from the falls, but she made it. Even I was tired by the end of the hike. This was not an easy way to break in your brand new snow shoes. Whew.

We were almost back to the trailhead when we saw a couple descending the trail. They were drunk, they each had a beer in their hand, they were wearing running shoes, and they were falling all over the place in the snow. They said they were going to the falls. Yeah, right. Good luck with that. I can easily imagine them getting stuck in the snow and not able to get up, and no one there to help them out until spring. Or else falling down the cliff at one of the very sketchy spots, at which you need to be extremely careful (ie. Not drunk). Frankly, I was just hoping they were not planning to leave their empty beer cans out on the trail. I try not to be stereotypical, but these are exactly the kind of people that do this kind of thing, and it ticks me off all the time when I see litter in the wilderness. Ok, well, enough of that. I hope you all had a great weekend.

No Comments

Rock Creek Falls, 42 ft. high.

I was a bit bummed about that log across the bottom. It does not add character to the falls, as some logs do (Lion Slide Falls), and I do not think it has been there too long. It might be a new addition in the last year or two. But all is not lost. The colorful trees beside the waterfall were a nice bonus.

No Comments