Leon Turnbull Photography

The biggest storm of the season gave us anywhere from four to eight (or more) feet of snow in the Tahoe area. It is a bit early to tell but I would guess that this one storm raised our snow pack from 30 to 60 percent of normal for the year. We could really use at least one more big storm like this.

Oroville picked up about six inches of rain this week and it seemed to me that the waterfalls on Table Mountain would be flowing beautifully. So this is where I headed on Saturday morning.

By Saturday morning the rain had stopped and it was actually supposed to be sunny. That was not really good as I was hoping for overcast skies. I had planned a big nine mile hike to see many waterfalls. If it was sunny I would only get to one or two before the sun was up too high to photograph.

I actually saw quite a bit of wildlife on this hike. A coyote in the city, which was quite strange. A jack rabbit, while I was hiking to the falls in the dark.  I spooked a deer along the cliffs at Beatson Falls and as it bounded away from me I was just hoping it would not lose its footing and plunge off the cliff. Later I scared a hawk which was very close to me below the top of a cliff. And last but certainly not least I saw the rare but dreaded and ferocious bovine creature.

Yes there were plenty of cows I passed by as I hiked up to Beatson in the dark. Not unusual of course but there were quite a lot more of them this time. And they were mad at me because I woke them up! They were honking at me (as only cows can do) constantly as I passed them by. Have I mentioned before that I hate cows? I mean … I like to eat them. But that is about the only thing I like about them. As I approached the crossing of Beatson Creek I realized why there were so many more of them. There was a new corral structure there and they were all hanging out in that general area. Fortunately I was able to find an area free of cows where I could cross the creek. A lot more water in the creek this time and I could not just rock hop across, I had to take off my boots and wade.

It took a bit longer to get to Beatson Falls than I expected and I was late for sunrise. It was good that the sunrise was not colorful cuz I would have missed it. One of these days I’ll get a killer sunrise shot from this location. If the cows let me, of course.

Beatson Falls was flowing very well as I expected but some of the other lesser falls on Table Mountain were not flowing too well and I was a bit disappointed. They probably need another six inches of rain. Maybe next week.

After taking a couple weeks off, my ankle finally feels better. Not 100 percent yet for sure, but more than enough that I feel I can do some serious hiking again. Off trail hiking. To remote, tough to get to waterfalls. Down in the LA area, I went to a couple easy ones. Not a problem for my healing ankle. Walking around Disneyland for four days I survived. The worst part of that was just the fact that you are walking around on pavement all day. Walking on pavement is many times worse than walking on dirt trails. My feet were in agony by the end of that. But my ankle was fine. Last weekend, I wanted to get out hiking, but instead took the weekend off. This weekend, though, I definitely wanted to get back on the hiking grid. And I did.

The destination was to be a new waterfall for me: Upper Marble Creek Falls. I was not sure about access to this waterfall, and I had heard it was difficult, cliffy, and with abundant poison oak. I also expected to find many ticks, as this year is supposedly the worst in ages (and the last two years have been incredibly awful for ticks). I decided to take my dog along on this hike. Normally on a hike like this I would not take her, because I do not know the terrain, and I could easily get to a place where she would not be able to go any further. But she is getting older, and probably does not have too many hiking years left in her, and I was feeling like she needs to have as much fun now as she possibly can. So I took her along. And of course, that made her very happy.

If there were a lot of ticks though, the hike would not last long for either of us. I was watching very closely but I saw none of the little buggers all day long. I’m not sure why, but I suspect it may have been much too cold for them. Poison oak though was a different matter. There was plenty of that and more. Doh.

My initial thought on this waterfall was to approach it from above. Looking at a map that seems to be the quickest route. Unfortunately it is all private property above the falls, and I did not see any way to get to it without crossing through anyone’s backyard. Not wanting to give up, I looked at my map again, and saw a possible route from below. A longer route but maybe that would not be private, and as I found out it was not. Yeah. We parked the car and walked across a wide open field over to the creek drainage. From there, we started up towards the falls, and that is where we encountered all the oak, but the going was not too bad otherwise. As we got closer to the falls, the terrain got a bit rougher and steeper, but again, not too bad. I just had to be careful with my ankle is all. I could hear the waterfall as we approached, but I could not see any water in the creek downstream. Weird, I thought. When we arrived at the falls I found out why. At the base of the falls, the water disappeared underground. It must  re-emerge somewhere, but I’m not sure where. If there was more water flowing, it obviously would not all go underground, but there was not a lot of water flowing right now. It should be spectacular right now, of course, but our very dry winter has taken that away. It was still a very lovely waterfall though, even at low water flows, dropping an amazing 77 ft. into a tight narrow gorge. At high flows it would be an amazing spot to be, but also likely very difficult to photograph if there was a lot of spray. I’m quite certain I will return here when the waterfall is flowing greater. It was not difficult to get to, the only tough part was all the poison oak.

On the way back across the fields, I noticed from a long way off a couple dogs on the other side of the field. No owners. No houses nearby. They saw us coming, and just waited beside my car for us to come. They knew we were coming back that way. They were just puppies, and incredibly friendly little guys, jumping all over us when we got there. We eventually managed to escape them, and got back in the car, at which time they continued to play with each other, rolling around in the grass. Fun stuff.

After this hike, we went on a second hike in the area, looking for a second waterfall. I found it, a very big one, but it was surrounded by huge cliffs on each side of it, and the waterfall offered up no views of itself. I searched for one in vain. There must be a way to see this one. I will definitely be looking for a way to get back to this one.

On Saturday we headed up to Chico for lunch to celebrate my wife’s birthday with the rest of the family. We went to La Hacienda, or what I like to call La Barfienda, since I have never had a good meal here, and it is the absolute worst Mexican restaurant that I have been to. However, for some strange reason, my wife and everyone else really likes this restaurant, and since it was my wife’s choice, well, guess where we went? I managed to find something edible on the menu this time, however, so I can’t complain too much.

Afterwards, as per a prior agreement I had made with Tara, I left everyone in Chico and drove back down to Hwy 70 and into the Feather River Canyon to check out some waterfalls. It could be my last waterfall trip for awhile as there is now no more rain in the long range forecast. We seem to be looking at a drought year here now for sure, which I am rather depressed about at the moment. It is very hard to keep up hope after such a very dry winter thus far.

Anyway, my first stop was Elephant Butte, where I found quite a large crowd of people here, not waterfallin but rock climbing. I could see the waterfall from the road, and I could also see that it was not flowing much. It would be pointless to try to shoot it, so I continued to Jackass Creek. This one was flowing much better, and I was hoping to get down to it, but when I arrived I could see it was very steep and brushy. With a good ankle, I could have done it, but it would be foolish to do it right now. Did I mention that my son gave me a good kick (accidentally of course) in the ankle at lunch? Oooh, did that ever hurt. The ankle is fine now if you do not touch it, but just the slightest touch is quite painful (and that kick was a lot more than a slight touch).

So Jackass Creek was strike two. I had one last chance for a good waterfall before I had to get back to Chico to pick up my family. I have been to Bear Ranch Creek Falls before, and I knew it was an easy hike. Only about a mile long, and it is all on a defined trail. I had no troubles hiking up to it and my ankle was perfectly fine. I realized after this hike that I can hike anywhere now as long as I stay on trail. Once I get off trail, the terrain gets much steeper, and much rockier, and it is just too difficult and dangerous with a bad ankle. So I just need to do all my waterfallin’ on established trails until my ankle heals completely. The trouble is that pretty much all the waterfalls on my list to see this year are off trail. Perhaps it is good (a blessing in disguise?) that I hurt my ankle in a drought year (if I had hurt it last year for instance, I would have killed myself! – just kiddin – sort of).

Anyway, Bear Ranch Creek Falls is a really nice 81 ft. high drop, and as I said, it is very easy to get to. In high water, it is next to impossible to get a photo of it from this location, as there is so much mist here. In low water flows, like it is now, it is actually quite a lot nicer and a lot easier to photograph.

After I got back to Chico we drove down to Oroville for dinner at Jakes Burgers. Mmmm, now that is so much better than La Barfienda. LOL.

The weather is all twisted. Winter is supposedly well under way but definitely not for us here in northern CA. After a decent November we had nuthin in December, one of the driest Decembers ever. Initial reports indicated the wet weather would begin in January but now I’m still not seeing too much of anything in the long range forecasts, except for an occasional shower or two. We are probably looking at more dry weather through mid January. Of course we need the rain and snow for more than just the waterfalls. It is our lifeblood in California.

Well, not to be outdone by the dry weather I still wanted to go waterfallin on Christmas Eve on the way up north to visit family. The original plan was to hit Feather Falls, but I just happened to see on dreamflows that PG&E was releasing huge amounts of water in the Pit River and that meant that Pit River Falls would be flowing. Indeed it should be utterly spectacular. Even though it is a four hour drive from my house it would be well worth it and I was going north for Christmas anyway. So up I got at 2:30am and started driving north. I arrived at the Pit River overlook at 7am. Pit River Falls was NOT utterly spectacular. What the hey? This was all twisted, it made no sense. At 5am the gage above Pit 1 Powerhouse was at above 20,000 cubic ft per second. That is mega water flow! But now at 7am it looked to be only at 500 or 600 cfs. What happened? Did they only bring the water level up for a short few minutes? Or was it some sort of error in the gage reading? I do not know. Neither one makes much sense. Well even at 500 cfs the river still has good flow, albeit not spectacular, and I had never been down to the bottom before (not to mention the very long drive out there), so I decided to continue the plan of hiking down to the falls.

If there was an actual well defined trail to the bottom then it would have been easy. There is no trail. There is a path that people have gone down before, but it is very overgrown, there are a lot of branches and twigs you need to walk over, the ground is very rocky and crumbly, and the slope is steep. About 2/3 of the way down I slipped on that crumbly slope and fell, severely twisting my ankle. I heard a pop sound as I fell. Oh oh. It was definitely not broken but it was not good. What should I do? I sat down and recovered myself for five minutes then I decided it was not (and would not be) a show stopper. I continued down to the falls, slowly and gingerly. It was not that bad but I was limping and not putting much weight on the ankle. Coming back up the mountain afterwards was harder but I still made it without too much difficulty. The worst part was the next day, when I was in quite a lot more pain and hobbling around the house worse than my mother in law’s 16 year old cat.

But I made it down successfully to Pit River Falls. The waterfall was nice and with less flow it was easy to climb around on the rocks beside the falls. There were a lot of photo opportunities and I took plenty of photos. Without knowing what the heck was going on with the gage reading I was a bit worried about this, wondering how safe it was down there, and what would happen if they suddenly released a truckload of water over the falls. I watched the river carefully always making sure I had a quick escape route. All in all, it was an enjoyable morning despite the pain, and if you are wondering how my ankle is now, it recovered quite well enough to get back out on the trails on Tuesday.

I love studying topo maps to try to find new waterfalls. I suspected there might be other waterfalls on Brandy Creek and my goal on Thanksgiving Day was to find them.

I cut down off the main trail and descended the steep terrain to creek level to the spot on my map where I figured there should be a waterfall. Nothing. But not giving up yet, I then traversed downstream. I found something. Two somethings. Unfortunately though, they were small somethings. The upper and prettier something shown here is about 11 ft high. I could not get any closer to the falls than this as that pool is quite deep. The lower falls is about 15 ft high though from certain angles above it looks much higher. It was very cliffy and too difficult to get down to it. If it was bigger I would have attempted it but instead I just took photos of the upper and more photogenic falls. I was bummed these falls were not bigger as I do not think they warrant inclusion on my website. Oh well. I ran out of time to explore as I needed to get to Redding.

On the way back down I passed another group of hikers and then saw more as I drove back down the road. I was surprised. I did not think I’d see anyone out and about on this day. I guess they had the same idea as I did to get a good hike in before eating their big meals.