Here is one more from the archives. Another view of Far Upper Canyon Creek Falls in the Trinity Alps. I just love that incredible green water color.
Don’t worry folks. It may be summer now. It may be hot. The snow may be all gone. But I have plenty of new waterfall images to post. Very soon. Lots and lots. Stay tuned.
This is another one from Canyon Creek Falls in the Trinity Alps. This is Little Canyon Creek Falls. It is 20 feet high in two tiers, this is the upper tier. You cannot see both tiers in any single viewpoint.
Anyway, I did not get to any new waterfalls this weekend. But I did try. Boy did I try. It was an 11 mile hike round trip, with over 1500 feet elevation gain, at high elevation, and when all was said and done, I was turned back by heavy manzanita brush. Oh that stuff can be awful. And annoying. Mostly annoying. I got all the way up to the top of the mountain. I could hear the waterfall in the distance, but it was still quite a distance away, and there was a mound of the stuff in between. I tried to punch through it, but it just got too thick to continue. I had to turn back. Needless to say, I was disappointed.
The good news though, is that I found an alternate route to try and I think I will be able to make it to the waterfall this other way, with significantly less brush. It was too late in the morning to try it this weekend (and I was too tired as well). The bad news is that I do not know when I’ll be able to try it again. It was a killer hike to get up there, and it is getting late in the season as well, and next weekend I was planning to go to Yosemite. In a way, I wouldn’t mind skipping Yosemite and trying this again next weekend. I think it will be a great waterfall, and it seems to still be flowing quite well. But who can say NO to Yosemite?
Some of you may be wondering where I was hiking this weekend, but I want to keep it as a surprise. You are just going to have to wait. And maybe for a long time. Ha, sorry. But can you guess where I might have been from the clues I left in this blog? I was very surprised there was a lot of snow up there still. Above 8000 ft. there was a good consistent and solid pack of snow of at least a few feet thick. I was really only expecting to find patchy snow at this elevation. Even at lower elevations, above 7000 ft., there was still quite a few snow patches, and the creeks were flowing pretty good up there, and little streams were making the trail quite muddy and swampy in places. This all is a good thing, but I was surprised to see it. The bugs were starting to come out though. That is not a good thing.
I decided to bike the first four miles of the hike, thinking it would be faster, easier, and save me a lot of time. Actually, though, it probably took the same amount of time as it would have if I had hiked. It was supposed to be flat and easy going, but there was a lot of walking the bike up hills, over rocks and logs, streams, and through swamps. It was pretty slow going. But going back down afterwards, it was a lot easier and faster to bike the last 4 miles down to the car, so I *think* it was worth it in the end. Unfortunately, I did lose my bike pump somewhere up there. Good thing I did not get a flat and have to walk that 4 miles after all.
It has been somewhat of a disappointing weekend for me thus far. I had big hiking plans, but could not get any sleep on Friday or Saturday nights. Ugh, why does this happen when I want to get up early? I turned off my alarm both days. I am still thinking of going out Sunday afternoon. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. Should I or shouldn’t I? I don’t really want to be tired for work on Monday either.
On the plus side, Nekoda had a dance performance at the El Dorado County Fair in Placerville on Saturday, and she and the rest of the girls were awesome as usual.
This is the Upper Falls on Canyon Creek. The true Upper Falls. It is hidden away around a corner and the trail does not go by it, and there is no path over to it either, so I suspect that most people go right on by it without even knowing it is there. I would not want to miss this one. It is really a fabulous waterfall, 96 ft. high, and has an interesting fan shape, sliding into another big enticing pool. I climbed out on some huge logs in the middle of the creek to take the shot. They were swaying back and forth in the water, not really good for setting up a tripod on, and I wish I had better light, but this shot turned out ok.
The Canyon Creek hike last weekend was over 14 miles with 2500 foot elevation gain. I started hiking at about 6:30AM and got back to the car at 5:30PM (not all of that time was hiking of course – I like to stop to take pictures!). It takes me two full days to recover from a huge hike like this one. No kidding. When I was young and vibrant (ha!) it probably would take a few hours to recover from a hike like this. Not any more, Theodore. After the hike, I was starving, so I stopped in Weaverville at Round Table Pizza, and ate some wings and most of a medium size pizza, then drove back to Red Bluff. Then the cramps started, as they often do on a big hike. They started in my hands. It is hard to drive when your fingers are cramped and in agony. Later that night as I tried to sleep (and “tried” is the key word), my legs started cramping badly. I could not scream out, or it would wake the kids who were sleeping right next to me. I usually don’t sleep well the night of a big hike, and this was no exception. Next day was Easter, and we went to early church service. It was a pretty busy day, and of course we had to drive back home to Sacramento as well. I had a fairly good sleep Sunday night, but Monday at work I was super tired all day long, and also felt like I still hadn’t caught up on all the calories I burned from the hike, though I kept eating constantly all day. I went to bed early again. Finally on Tuesday, my body seemed to be back to normal. Just in time to get ready for next weekend’s hike. Haha.
As of April 1, we finished this year in California at a dismal 55 percent of normal snowpack in the central Sierra Nevada, 48 percent in the north, and 40 percent in the southern Sierra. We had a very wet November and December, but then three straight months of almost nothing. This is two awful years in a row for us, and this year was perhaps even a bit worse than last year or about the same. We may get some more precipitation in April but it will not impact the snowpack much, if anything. The snow has already started melting, and we will have another very short waterfall season this year in California. The waterfalls are currently flowing well in the mountains, so if you can get out, now is definitely the time to go. It will not last.
This is the Far Upper Canyon Creek Falls, often referred to (incorrectly!) as the Upper Canyon Creek Falls. If you missed the boring rendition about the naming of waterfalls on this creek, and you care, you should read my last blog entry before this one. This is probably the most popular waterfall on this trail because it is the easiest to get to. The waterfall is 65 ft. high and is a real beauty, it was my second favorite waterfall along this trail. It has real grace, splashing down in a horsetail form into a lovely little pool, changing direction and going over another little drop into another drop-dead green pool. The color in the pool was enhanced by the sun. When I arrived here, I had “light clouds” in the air, which were trying to blot out the sun, but mostly unsuccessfully. I wish I had better light when I was here, but the pool would not have been so green if it were more cloudy, so actually this photo turned out just dynamite for me. I ate my lunch here at the base of the falls, trying to gain energy for the hike back down the mountain. I still had to make stops at the three other major waterfalls on the creek on the way down.
It is very early into waterfall season but without a doubt this monster waterfall on Canyon Creek in the Trinity Alps has taken an early and huge lead on being the most spectacular waterfall I have seen this year. Lower Canyon Creek Falls is an incredible cataract, an amazing 142 ft high, and ripe with full snow melt. Wow. Like I said it is early and I’ll probably be going to Yosemite sometime. But still.
Ok so you may be wondering (or maybe not) why I have not visited this popular hiking area in the Trinity Alps before now. There are waterfalls! I must be foolish! Well it’s not like I haven’t tried. The first time I was planning to go years ago I forgot my hiking boots back in Sacramento. Doh. Another time there was a forest fire in progress and the road was closed. Peachy. Other times since then the conditions just have never been right when I’ve been up north. You know me, I like to photograph waterfalls, and this hike is seven miles one way with multiple waterfalls, all of which all get early sun, so it is impossible to get to them in good lighting conditions … unless it is a cloudy day. Finally this Easter weekend the conditions looked right. The forecast was calling for “mostly cloudy” skies with showers in the afternoon. Time to get my boots on. Now just make sure I don’t forget them this time!
I don’t know about you but to me “mostly cloudy” means “almost all clouds” in the sky and very little clear sky … NOT … light scattered clouds with mostly clear blue sky. Humph. Well I started out hiking anyway with trust in God that those clouds would soon come. It reminded me a lot of the Tuolumne River hike I did last year under much the same conditions, and much the same kind of terrain, with the big difference being this hike started off going uphill and finished downhill (which is SO much better then the other way around).
I arrived first at Lower Canyon Creek Falls expecting to find a well traveled trail down to the falls. Surely there must be one, this is a popular waterfall is it not? I searched and searched but could not find anything and now I was well past the waterfall. This was rather weird I thought and did not figure out why there was no trail until much later in the day. I decided to keep plugging on up the trail and attempt to get to this lower falls on my way back down.
I arrived shortly at a surprise waterfall, a 30 footer and stopped to take some photos. After this the trail got much more difficult. Once I hit 4600 ft elevation I was hiking through snow. I had brought my snow shoes but did not need them, nonetheless hiking through snow is tough slogging and this section really wore me down. By the time I arrived at Middle Falls the sun was already out. Where were those clouds? I continued all the way up to the first lake. I had initially wanted to hike much further but I literally could not take any more steps up hill. I was worn out from the hike, most of it through snow, 2500 ft elevation gain, 7 miles one way, and a very heavy pack to boot (carrying those snow shoes all the way and I did not even use them!) Not to mention I still had to stop and photograph all the waterfalls on my way back down the mountain.
There are four major waterfalls on Canyon Creek plus numerous smaller falls including the 30 foot one I mentioned above. If you read Ann Marie Brown you will be very confused. She mentions only three waterfalls in her CA waterfall book. In earlier editions of her book, she completely missed the Lower Falls and thus describes the three uppermost falls as Lower, Middle, Upper. In her latest edition, she does now mention the Lower Falls properly, but she still ends up being very wrong, now she forgets to mention one of the other three waterfalls on the trail (and she still does not describe the true Lower Falls at all). As for that other CA waterfall guidebook, whose authors have clearly not even been to Canyon Creek, they just plainly copied Brown’s information (from her earlier edition), and also missed the boat, not getting the Lower Falls mentioned at all. (Gee I wonder who I’m referring to?) Both books completely neglect the most spectacular waterfall on Canyon Creek. It is really not hard to figure out. The USGS clearly labels the three biggest falls on the creek in the correct locations. The uppermost falls (65 ft high) is not labelled by USGS (though it should be, and it was my second favorite out of the four). So you want the correct info? Go to waterfallswest.com (the site will be updated very soon). I think this is why no good trail exists to the real Lower Falls. No one knew it existed. The vast majority of people hiking this trail are oblivious as they pass by such an amazing waterfall.
By the time I got back down to the Lower Falls I was dead tired. I figured I would have to descend from the main trail about 200 ft off trail down to the falls. I did not think I’d have the energy to get back up. I would be stuck down there forever. I did not want to go down. But I had to. So I did. As I descended I did not get too far before I almost gave up. It was very brushy and I was down on all fours crawling through it. I persevered however and got out into a more open area. I could see the waterfall now and it looked like a dandy. I was going to make it. When I finally got down to the bottom I was in awe. Sheer magnificence. Oh yeah, and by this time in the day the clouds had finally moved in (thanks again, God). It’s sure a darn good thing I decided to go down there. Immediately below this main section is another 30 ft drop. In order to take this photo I was standing at the brink of this lower waterfall. It was just a bit freaky, and it seemed much higher than 30 ft. Two steps to the left and I’d be writing this blog to you from my grave.
Before heading back up I filled my water from the creek. I don’t usually do this but it was an emergency. I was not worried about getting sick. The water was pure snow melt, flowing fast and clear. I was rejuvenated, and I made it back up to the main trail without difficulty (or dying). I still had four miles to hike before I was back at my car. These last miles were not hard but very slow going since I was so tired. Then my knee started hurting, most likely due to the heavy pack I was carrying. My knee was revolting, trying to wrench itself out of my body. That would be just perfect. Only one mile from the trailhead and my knee gives out. I’d have to crawl the last mile. I made it however, and I did not have to crawl. I was sure glad to be done, and then even more glad to get to Weaverville for dinner at Round Table Pizza. It was a great day in the Trinity Alps.