Leon Turnbull Photography

This weekend took me back to Table Mountain in Oroville. With two inches of rain this week, and four+ inches last week, it was time to think all these waterfalls on Table Mountain would be flowing again. Well … they were all flowing, but not nearly as well as I expected them to be.

My initial plan was to go to Ranch, Crevice, and Lower Beatson. However, I saw new “no trespassing” signs at the trailhead. What? Isn’t North Table Mountain supposed to be public accessible land? Why are there signs here now? I wasn’t sure what to do. If I parked here, it would be obvious I was “trespassing”. Probably not a good thing. I decided to go up to the main parking area, which I wanted to do anyway. My second hike was going to be to go to Little Hollow Falls, which I had not been to before. It was an easy hike to that little waterfall, and I will post that photo soon. After that I decided to continue down towards Beatson. THE LONG WAY.

I met some cows along the way. The cows on Table Mountain are killer cows. I may have said that before. I’m not kidding. They have been known to attack people. Well … I did hear of one instance before where a cow charged at someone. That is the truth, at least. The cows today were stalking me big time and were highly intolerable. They would not mooooove out of my way as I came up to them. Normally, they will move away as I approach, but not today. There was a large group of about 20 and they just stood there, blocking my way, and determined to not let me pass. I really did not want to walk right through the midst of them, so I decided to drop off the top of the hill and go down to Beatson Creek. I wanted to do this anyway, just not at this exact spot. It would have been perfectly fine, except that the entire hill was covered with poison oak. There was no avoiding the stuff. What to do, what to do. Do I go back and do battle with the cows? Or continue on and do battle with the oak? I chose the oak, and I am entirely uncertain that was the right choice. Well, I got to the bottom and now had to cross Beatson Creek which was wide and full. It was raining and I did not want to take off my boots and wade across. Fortunately, I found a log crossing the creek and managed to keep my feet and the rest of my body dry. In other words, I did not take a header of the very slippery and wet log, knock myself unconscious on a rock and drown (in case you were wondering).

I continued up the other side and headed in the direction of Lower Beatson Hollow Falls. Again, I came across another large group of cows that would NOT let me pass around them. They kept running along parallel to me, blocking me from going around. I swear one of them was about to charge me. I ended up going all the way to Crevice Falls before I could cut back to Lower Beatson. Just a bit of extra hiking there. Darn cows. What is up with them today? When I was last at Lower Beatson Hollow Falls, I was not happy with my photos or the view I found. The waterfall is quite hidden and it cannot be seen very well from the top of the cliff. And since it is on the top of a cliff, getting down is quite out of the question. Well, I really wanted to return here and try to get down to the bottom of it. I anticipated that it would be a huge effort that involved rappelling down the cliff and then wading up the creek through heavy brush and poison oak. Not something I looked forward to, but as I said I just was not happy with my photos from the first time. As it turned out, it was actually quite easy to get down to the bottom, and once down, I found a path leading right up to the waterfall. Was it a cow path? No, I am pretty sure it was a human path. I have never heard of anyone being down here at the base of this falls before, but it was obvious that people had been. This was especially clear as I got up to the waterfall. There is one large rock you have to climb up on, which would have been quite challenging, but there was a ladder! Not just any ladder, it was a good solid iron ladder. Quite fascinating. The waterfall is quite fascinating as well, dropping 38 ft. off the cliff into this very cool little grotto, with huge basalt chunks scattered about that had broken off the cliffs, and a second little waterfall beside it as well. Very cool. From here, I hiked back up and made the long trek back to my car at the main trailhead. All in all, about 10 miles of hiking for these two little waterfalls. Whew!

So we really have not had all that much rain yet this year. It does look like we are going to get our first really big storm next week God willing, but up to now we are actually below what we had last year at this time. We are actually a bit below average thus far; remember last year we had a very big November. The trouble last year was we didn’t get anything after that. I heard at least one news report saying that we have had more this year so far than last year at this time. Don’t believe everything you read folks, especially in the media.

And yet this waterfall, Plummer Creek Falls, was sure roaring last weekend. It is 113 ft high and it was magnificent … but darn near impossible to get to. And as you can see from the photo I still couldn’t get a completely clear view of it.

I have wondered about this waterfall for awhile. It is clearly labeled on the USGS topo maps, but no trail leads to it, a bright spot in the midst of nothing. It seems so inaccessible. I have serious doubts if anyone has been down here before (at least not the way I went down). This one is very strenuous and quite a bit dangerous too.

After studying Google Earth I decided to try it from the south side. It is a 1200 ft. descent to the river in only a mile, however I parked further up the road, adding another 500 ft. and 1.5 miles to my hike. I suppose I could have driven this last 1.5 miles but it was a bit muddy and steep so I decided to walk it. I also started my hike late in the day (11am). The highway out here has got to be the most agonizing highway in the state. There are so many twists and turns in the road, it is impossible to drive the speed limit (55) for most of it (reminds me of a song by Sammy Haggar). It is a long long long drive. I finally got out there and started hiking down an old dirt road but it soon became impassable and too overgrown. I almost turned back. But before doing so I decided to drop off the edge of the cliff down into the canyon – er I mean hill not cliff. And I just kept going down. When I got to the edge of the cliff – er I mean hill – overlooking the waterfall, I found I could not see it from there so I just kept going down down down. Near the bottom it got extremely sketchy with large drop-offs into the river. Not good. If I fell in I would not be getting out anytime soon. Again I almost turned back. But I was almost there, the waterfall was just around the corner, I had to find a way. The terrain was far too sketchy for my tastes but I did manage to get down to the bottom finally. All in one piece.

Unfortunately, even after all this work, you can still only get a partial view of the waterfall. The bottom part is not viewable from this side and crossing was certainly not an option. There was also a lot of spray making it very difficult to take a photo. But I did the best I could. And it definitely is a glorious waterfall. I got back to my car about 30 minutes before sunset, extremely tired and with an aching back. It was a great day.

I had plans to go to something local this weekend right after the rain storm. However, at the last minute, my wife said she was going up north for the weekend. She did not exactly invite me, but I thought it would be a good idea to tag along, and go hiking up north for the weekend and check out some possible new waterfalls. There are tons of spots I still want to check out up that way, I just had to pick one. or two. or three. So I invited myself.

First up was this waterfall on Wells Creek. I have never heard of anyone going here before. I have never seen any photos, no one has documented this falls before, and I have never even heard anyone mention it. Even my in-laws who have lived here all their lives, and even camped in this particular area, had not ever heard of it. I wonder why that would be. That usually means it is impossible.

Well the road was sure impossible. Ok, not impossible, just ridiculous. Ridiculously slow, that is. It is a 14 mile drive on a dirt road, and it is SLOW. It is not bone-jarring awful compared to the Bowman Lake Road, but it is awful because there are so many potholes and ruts, and that means you have to drive slow, and for 14 miles of driving like that, I am a nut case by the end of it. On the plus side, there were a lot of bunny rabbits jumping out in front of my car as I drove up the road. Then a little later, there were a bunch of deer doing the same thing. Followed by a number of squirrels running across in front of me. I was waiting to come to the bear section, but I guess I never got that far. I sure drove far enough for it, you would think. The last mile or so, it did get a bit too muddy, and I decided to walk that last part. I suppose I could have driven it, but like I said I was a nut case by then, and I just had to get out and do some walking.

Finally, I got to the creek at the top of the waterfall. Wells Creek is a pretty small drainage, so I knew it would not be roaring, but after an inch of rain the night before, I figured it would be decent (ie. not dry). It probably was dry two days before this. Getting down to the bottom? Not impossible. Actually, it was fairly easy, all things considered. It is a steep descent to the bottom, but not difficult and then there is a little crook between the rocks that leads to the base of the falls. It is a gorgeous 116 ft. waterfall out in the middle of nowhere. And now you know it exists.

Three times is a charm, right? Big Springs Falls on the McCloud River has been a thorn in my side for awhile, but I was finally able to get to it this weekend. It was not a cake walk, however, and I almost did not make it.

The thing is, getting to this waterfall basically requires crossing the McCloud River, and McCloud River is basically uncrossable for most of the year. It is far too brushy on the north side of the river, which I found out big time on two prior attempts trying to get here. There is a potential route on the south side which does not require crossing the river but it is too long. However, when I was here a couple weeks ago, the river flow was low and I thought it could be done. So this was my plan, cross the river and hike down to the falls on the south side. It would be a short and mostly easy hike and I would have plenty of time to reach the falls before the sun got there, which was of course, very early in the morning.

Things do not always go as planned, do they. Certainly not with the waterfall madman, anyway. I arrived at the parking lot in the dark. I could tell right away something was awry. The river was quite a bit higher than two weeks ago. How is this possible? The only thing I could think of was snow melt from the storm we had a couple weeks ago. When I arrived at the spot where I was planning to cross, there was just no way. The river was flowing too deep and too strong. Oh boo hickey. Here comes strike three.

Well what to do, what to do. I decided to walk down river and see what could be done. At first there was a path, but eventually I ran into that deadly brush and no way to continue. Still no possibility of crossing the river. However, I decided on an alternative, and that is get in the river and wade along the shore down to the falls. Now here is where I pat myself on the back big time. The temperature in the morning was 35 degrees. Wading in the river, even for just a simple crossing, would be foolishness at best, and frostbite at worst. I do not have waders, they are too heavy to carry on hikes. But I anticipated this coldness would be coming, and I went to the scuba shop beforehand and picked up some wet socks (or whatever you call them), in order to keep my feet warm while I was in the river. This was one of the best purchases I have ever made. The river was freezing, but my feet were toasty warm in the sock booties (or whatever you call them), and I was in the river wading down stream for quite some time. The going was very slow. The river was shallower on the edge, but there were a lot of slippery rocks big and small that I had to walk over, and I had to be very careful I did not slip and fall. When I came to a little rapid, I decided to try to get out of the river and go around it. Through the brush. That was a big huge mistake. After much distraught-ness, I got back into the river below the rapid. The rest of the way was uneventful, and I made it down to the waterfall, and still had time before the sun got here. I was able to stand in the middle of the river thereabouts to take this photo.

Big Springs Falls is a real beauty. It is much like Mossbrae Falls, a spring flowing right out of the side of a hill, though it is smaller than Mossbrae (25 ft. high), and much harder to get to as we found out. It also flows year round, and even in this drought year, it was flowing like a charm.

Clear Creek Falls is a very pretty 144 ft. high falls on Mt. Shasta. It would be spectacular in the spring, but it was not too bad on this day especially considering that the creek was certainly dry just a week before. It’s a beauty, and I will be happy to return here again, even though it was a tough one to get down to.