This was Journey’s first official backpacking trip and she was awesome! Of course you remember we had a trip at Mt Shasta recently which was supposed to be her first backpacking trip but we ended up sleeping in the car. This time we were sleeping in the tent. Come Hell or high water.
I have known about this waterfall for awhile and had been thinking about going here but it is about 100 miles past Nowhere, California. It is also in the sun most of the day so doing it as a day hike would be very difficult. It would make more sense to camp near the waterfall. I thought (or hoped) Journey would be able to do it as well. I had zero beta on this waterfall hike so I did not know how difficult it would be. There is a trail marked on my old topo map but it is not on the newer one. Does that mean the trail is now completely overgrown and impassable? Would Journey even be able to get down to the falls or would it be too steep for her? I had seen one photo quite a long time ago but I don’t know what happened to it. Well, everything is worth trying once. Right?
The last 10 miles to the trailhead is one of the roughest roads I have ever driven. It was horrendous. Very rocky, very sharp. My poor tires. Even worse than Bowman Lake Rd? The drive stressed Journey out (she doesn’t like car rides to begin with) and it stressed me out as well. On the return I thought I would try a different road thinking it would be much shorter and better but it was worse! I had to turn around and go back the same way. 10 miles of hell. We finally made it to the trailhead 30 minutes late and were relieved to get out of the car and begin our hike.
The hike is 1.5 miles up hill followed by a massive descent of 2 miles with 1700 ft. elevation loss. It was incredibly steep. It was going to be a brutal climb out the next day. Down at the creek is an old mining town from the 1800’s called Poker Flat. All that is left is an old cabin that is literally in shambles. A sign says the town was “a miserable hole”. I can believe it. We continued on to the waterfall. I was very happy to find a good, well defined trail. There was a sign that said “OHV trail” but there is no way you could drive your OHV on this. It is a narrow singletrack with steep dropoffs. Strange. However, it is very easy to hike. We came to the creek near the top of the waterfall and found a place to camp. It was small and not very exciting but I did not want to continue any further in search of a better campsite. This one would do well enough. Journey flopped out on the dirt for a nap while I set up camp and made dinner. She poked up her head when she saw me eating pizza and decided she had better come over to see what was up. Ha ha.
After dinner we went down to the waterfall. It was a very steep descent with brush at the bottom and required crossing the creek as well to get to a viewpoint. Journey did very well with all of that. Canyon Creek Falls is 45 ft. high and had a very decent flow for late September. It was gorgeous. If you look at Google Earth it seems the waterfall is at most 20 ft. high. I was incredibly happy to find such a beautiful waterfall and much bigger than expected.
We went back to camp and went straight into the tent and to bed. Journey slept well for the first half of the night but then was moving about and tossing and turning the rest of the night. I don’t know if she was cold (it wasn’t really cold, though) or she just could not sleep any more. I was the opposite, tossing and turning for the first half of the night. We got up in the morning and I made her a special breakfast and then we hiked out. Her pack was half the weight from the last time at Mt Shasta and she did much better with this. She was only carrying her water and not her food. Nonetheless, I knew she would really struggle going up the big hill so I carried her pack on this section. She did very well on the climb up the mountain and was ahead of me the entire way. It was a killer climb. We made it to the top in 1 hour and 45 minutes, including a 10 or 15 minute break. Not too bad, actually. Then the long drive back home. It was an awesome trip with Journey in Plumas National Forest but I can say with absolute certainty that I will never be back to that “miserable hole”.
An old photo from 2020 but a new and very interesting story. I had a plan to return to Mud Creek Canyon Falls at Mt. Shasta and see it closeup. I had a good route mapped out and I figured Journey would be able to do it as well. Indeed I thought this would make a good one night backpacking trip. It would be Journey’s first ever backpacking trip. The plan was set.
We arrived at the trailhead late morning. It was only a 4.5 mile hike to our camp but with 1100 ft. elevation gain. Not too bad. I knew Journey could do this … except … I bought her a little backpack so she could carry her food and water. She was really dragging on the climb up the mountain with the extra weight. I thought she did really well despite going a lot slower than usual.
We stopped for lunch at the first water source: Squaw Valley Creek. There was no water! The creek was completely dry. I was not expecting this at all. We continued to the second water source where we would be camping. This was dry as well! This was officially a disaster. I was sure that these two creeks flowed year-round. It is not a drought year. Why are they dry? Well we would not be able to camp here now and we certainly would not be able to continue up to the waterfall. Journey was almost out of water. I was counting on there being water in these two creeks. We would have to retreat. She did not have enough to get back so I had to give her some of my water and we were bone dry by the end but there was plenty of water in the car. She was also extremely tired. I realized now that her pack was too heavy. I should have had it half the weight. It was a big mistake on my part and a lesson learned. She is a real trooper though and did so well keeping up to me on the hike. Nonetheless on the way back down I took the pack and carried it for her. This really helped but she was still very tired.
Once down I decided that instead of going home we would find someplace to sleep in the car and do a different hike in the morning. We drove to McCloud for dinner and I got Journey her own hamburger. This perked her up. Then we went to the local park where we relaxed for a couple hours. It is a nice big park and there was no one there. Journey did a bit of exploring on her own and snoozed a bit as well. Then we drove out to the place where we would hike in the morning. It was the first time for Journey sleeping in the car and I think she got more sleep than I did. We woke up very early and started hiking in the dark. I should have let Journey sleep some more but I thought that since I was awake we may as well get up and get going.
This hike was very interesting and mysterious …
The area has been officially closed for years. People still go here anyway. And why the heck not? So the bridge and dam are out. That is no reason to keep it closed. So there was a fire here some years ago. That is no reason to keep it closed. There is an alternate way to go here that is not closed. I am sure that is what we must have done. It was an easy route. A perfect hike for Journey after the difficult one the previous day.
There was no waterfall. I have not been here before but I know I was in the right place. The waterfall was gone. Destroyed. It was a huge mystery. I suspect it must have happened during the glacial flood event of 2021 (which also took out the bridge). It was a huge bummer and I was quite disappointed. It just goes to show that nothing lasts forever so if you have something on your bucket list then do it now. Don’t wait.
I wanted to continue on to the Lower Falls (photo shown here) but it required crossing the creek and Journey refused to cross it even though it was not too bad at all. I think maybe because it was muddy and she could not see where she would be stepping. She is funny about crossing creeks. She is awesome on rocky steep stuff but she needs to do better on creek crossings. Well I did not want to force her so we turned back. I saw a bear. I don’t think Journey saw it. It was only for a couple seconds and then it clambered down the steep bank to the creek and out of my view. We got back to the car and I made Journey her breakfast. Then we made the long drive home to see mama and of course she was ecstatic to see her and tell her all about the awesome trip she had with daddy. It was a very mysterious and fun trip to Mt. Shasta.
Initially I was planning to hike in Lassen Volcanic National Park on Saturday by myself. I did not think Journey would want to get up at 4:30AM two days in a row, plus there are some hikes in the park I still want to do. However, I felt bad for Journey the previous day. She had a great time no doubt but it was tough and all off-trail. She loves running ahead of me on the trail, exploring every little thing, and she could not do that. She had to follow in my footsteps the whole time. I know I am overreacting. She loved the hike. Nonetheless I felt I owed her a good hike. Besides, I love hiking with her. It brings me great joy when she is having so much fun and so happy. Returning to Canyon Creek Falls in Lassen National Forest should be a good one for her. It is almost entirely all on-trail. Well, not so much. Sigh.
Once again we were up at 4:30AM. Once again Journey looked at me with an evil eye for disturbing her sleep (kidding).
The trail started off well. Journey was very happy. She was able to run ahead and explore. We came to the short off trail section. This started out great also. It was very easy, just as I remembered. We descended down the other side of the hill and that is when everything went to bat sh*t. The Dixie Fire ravaged this area in 2021. The manzanita brush has grown up since then. I could not find the main trail. It should be very well defined and easy to follow. What the heck? Finally I found it, but it is now very overgrown with manzanita. The trail was not easy to follow at all. For me, once on the trail it was not too horrible (yet. it won’t be long before this trail is impassable). For Journey, however, it was very bad. She had to walk through it and it was hard for her and very hard on her feet. Manzanita is not exactly soft to walk on. She was walking very gingerly as she tried to follow in my steps. This trail should be very easy but is only getting worse and worse now after the fire. Yet another trail going the way of the Dodo bird. Et tu, Brute?
We came to the Lower Canyon Creek Falls, 41 ft. high. The creek was not flowing very well. I was surprised by this considering that nearby Digger Creek Falls was quite nice the previous day. These creeks should be quite similar in size. It was a little disappointing.
My plan was to do the Spencer Meadow loop as I have done before but considering how overgrown the trail is I now had my doubts. Should we just go back? I did not want to subject Journey to more difficulty. We continued up the trail for a short distance and it became clear again before we reached the upper falls. Relief! Journey was happy again. The upper falls was looking quite pathetic so I did not even bother to take any photos of it. Above the upper falls the trail once again became very overgrown with manzanita and Journey had a very hard time but it was another short section and then it was clear again. The rest of the way back to the car was all good. There were probably about 1000 grasshoppers on this section. They were flying everywhere as we hiked through them. The hike ended up being about 5.5 miles in total. It was a wonderful morning in Lassen National Forest.
July 4. We were up north visiting my wife’s mom for the long weekend. I really wanted to take Journey hiking somewhere. I wanted to do something new but also something that we could get to in time before the sun got on it. She is not allowed in Lassen Volcanic National Park so I could not go there. I could go to Lassen National Forest, however. There was one hike that would work: Digger Creek Falls.
We were up at 4:30AM. Journey was not very appreciative about this disturbance to her beauty sleep but she would be excited once we reached the trailhead. We arrived at about 5:45AM.
It is a short hike up to the waterfall. The USGS topo map shows an old trail following the creek up to Heart Lake. It is not the official trail to Heart Lake but I was confident it would work and I have heard of others going up here before. The trail to the waterfall was not too bad but there were a lot of downed trees we had to climb and jump over. Journey was a trooper and did very awesome. There was only one that she could not jump and which I had to lift her over. (on the way back down I was getting ready to help her again but she surprised me and insisted on jumping over it on her own).
We arrived at the waterfall in short order. Digger Creek Falls is a very pretty 47 ft. high tiered cascade. The creek was flowing quite well for early July. I was pleased. In order to photograph the falls, I had to get right in the middle of the creek. It was really the best and only spot to photograph it. I left Journey beside my pack while I did this. She waited very patiently and was absolutely perfect. That’s my girl.
After the waterfall my plan was to continue on the old trail up to Heart Lake and then come back down on the official trail. It would make for a very nice loop and a perfect hike for Journey. It did not happen. After the falls, the trail became much much more difficult. I lost the trail many times and in fact, it was impossible to follow. We were essentially going off-trail. Lots of downed trees. It was slow going. Journey did very well to follow in my footsteps as I tried to find the best route for her up the mountain. We got very close to the lake but then the route became much worse: too difficult, too rocky. I could tell that Journey did not want to continue any further and I don’t blame her. We turned around to go back.
When we got back to the waterfall I gave Journey her breakfast. There were a few mosquitoes but they were not bothering me (though I think Journey may have gotten a couple bites). Mostly, I think the mosquitoes have migrated to higher elevations now. It ended up being about a four mile hike by the time we got back down to the car. Not as much as I had hoped and I felt bad about bringing Journey on a tough off-trail hike. It was hard and she could not run ahead on the trail as she normally loves to do. I would have to do something better tomorrow. Even so, it was a great morning hike for both of us in Lassen National Forest on Independence Day.
Since my wife had to take our daughter back to the Bay Area after her spring break, Journey had a choice to either go with mom or myself. If it was really up to her she would certainly choose mom but she would have a lot more fun with me. The decision is made: hiking with daddy. But there was four feet of new snow in the mountains and I did not feel like that would be a good spot to take Journey this weekend. She would be swimming. Literally. Maybe I should go on a lower elevation hike. I decided to go to Burma Falls in Oroville. I have not been to this one in a long time and there would not be any poison oak or ticks.
I thought the gate opened at sunrise but I was wrong. It did not open until 8AM. I could not wait around until then. It would be too late getting to the waterfall for photos. I thought about just going up to Table Mountain but I did not feel like it so I found a place to park off the road outside the gate and we walked in. It was only an extra 1.5 miles round trip so not a big deal.
It is an easy and flat walk along the road to the waterfall. The last time I was here there were cows right on the road. I was worried about that with Journey along but we saw no cows today. Even if there were the road was wide so we probably could have gotten past them easily. I was also a bit worried about the sun because we had a longer walk and thus were a little bit late so we ran a bit on the downhill sections. This made up time and we arrived at the waterfall on time. The last part involves a bit of scrambling along the creek and hillside. Journey did excellent. She’s getting to be an expert now with the scrambling.
We rested at the waterfall and Journey ate her breakfast while I took photos.
On the way back there was a vulture sitting on a railing by the road. This was so funny: Journey just casually and slowly walked towards it. So nonchalantly. La la la la. Then all of a sudden she bolted towards it. The bird took off just in time. It was so hilarious. And I got it all on video. We also saw a couple squirrels on the hike. Journey loves chasing squirrels also (and she did). It was a very lovely morning in Oroville and we saw no one on the entire hike.
