Leon Turnbull Photography

I was hoping my son would come along on my hike this weekend, but he was sick so he wimped out. I was sick too, but I am not one to wimp out so easily. I don’t blame him though. He was sicker than I was. In a way, it’s a good thing he didn’t come. The road to where I was planning to hike was blocked by a huge tree fallen across the road. Well that pretty much settled it. Plan A was out of the question. I could have still hiked to the waterfall, but it would have been 12 miles round trip, and I was not up for a long hike. Plan B it is then.

I drove into Lassen Volcanic NP. It was extremely windy and extremely cold. The thermometer was at 20 degrees. There was a large group of people getting ready to hike up Lassen Peak – at least I assume that is where they were going; it is somewhat popular in the winter to hike up there and ski down. But the snow was complete ice today, and with the awful cold and wind, it didn’t seem like a smart thing to do. Especially the skiing down part. That would be suicide.

Well after using the facilities, I drove back out to the Brokeoff trailhead where I found another early morning riser, this crazy one was planning to hike up Mt Brokeoff. My destination, however, was down, not up. There was quite a lot of snow at this elevation (6500 ft.), and of course it was all ice. I got on my snowshoes and followed the stream downwards, and with the snowshoes on, it was easy enough. There was just one unmarked drainage I had to cross that gave me a lot of trouble. Firstly, the slopes along the creek were steep and icy, and I could not find an easy way down to the creekside. When I finally found a spot to get down, I couldn’t see any way across the creek without getting wet, and I did not want to get wet in this icy cold weather. I took off my snowshoes and with much difficulty, I rock hopped across successfully. On the way back up later, I tried to bypass this creek crossing by going straight up, but it led in a wrong direction, so I eventually had to cross it again anyway, and also with much difficulty. However I did not take my snowshoes off on the way back – crossing on a big log with my snowhoes still on. That was highly entertaining (for the squirrels watching me). That little unnamed creek sure gave me a lot of troubles … but I shouldn’t be too upset with it, because it added quite a lot of flow to my waterfall.

And downwards to the waterfall. When I came to the steep section near the falls, the snow disappeared. That was good because there is no way I could have descended that part on icy snow, period. But without snow, it was easy to do. Unfortunately, I had my winter boots on instead of my hiking boots, and they have worse tread (why didn’t I wear my hiking boots – that was stupid, Leon), but I made it down successfully, without going over the cliff, and that was tricky because the cliffs are crazy steep around here, and the ground crumbly. You sure don’t want to get too close to the edge, but fortunately, there is a fabulous viewpoint of this waterfall that does not require too many crazy cliff hugging maneuvers. And it was gorgeous! I was not expecting to find such a beautiful vertical drop, and to top it off the flow was quite decent (thanks partly to my unnamed creek nemesis). I measured the falls to be 103 ft. high, which makes it the highest vertical drop that I have yet found in Lassen Volcanic NP (Kings Creek Cascades is a bigger falls, but is not vertical). I have to say this is perhaps the most beautiful waterfall in Lassen I have seen, and yet this is another one that no one seems to know about, and I did not find any trace of path or human activity down here. It is an unnamed stream, but it does have good flow in the spring. Winner winner pumpkin eater.

After hiking back up to the snow line, I continued on across the ridge over to West Sulphur Creek. I wanted to see if I could see the upper falls from this side of the canyon. I was not planning to do this initially, but I realized I was pretty close and so I decided to go for it. It was easy enough hiking over to the cliffs above West Sulphur but there is no view of the falls from there, so once again I had to find a way down.  I took off my snowshoes again and went down down down. Eventually, I did find a view of that waterfall, but the bottom of it was obscured. Perhaps if I went all the way to the bottom, I could find better views, but there was snow down there and it would have been dangerous, and both the upper and lower falls were already in the sun anyway. I will have to save that one for another time. It was a very marvelous and very cold day in Lassen.

This is the lower falls on South Fork Bailey Creek, just outside Lassen Volcanic National Park. In total it is 122 ft. high, however you cannot get a clear view of all of it in one shot. This is the upper part, and it continues below this point for a bit and a bit. It is certainly a big beautiful cascade. I was pleased to find the creek flowing so well, I think it pretty much dries up in the summer, but there was still quite a bit of snow up on Lassen and Brokeoff when I was here, and it was melting profusely.

After going to West Sulphur Creek I continued on to Mill Creek Falls, hoping to get there before the sun started blazing down into the canyon. I figured I had enough time to hit up both West Sulphur Creek waterfalls and get to Mill Creek on time. I figured correctly.

With rope in hand, and after getting down to the crazy waterfall on upper West Sulphur, I figured getting down to the base of Mill Creek Falls would be a cakewalk. I figured wrongly! I made my way from the overlook at Mill Creek down to a large rock, just above a 7-8 ft dropoff. There was no good foothold from here and even with a rope, it was just too much of a dropoff to continue down the rest of the way. The entire bottom area was all misty anyway from the spray of the falls, and I would not have been able to get a decent shot from the bottom, so I decided to just shoot from the rock. This is further than I have ever gone before down here, although it certainly would have been awesome to make it all the way down. Just a bit too crazy for my blood. Somehow, Mountain Goat Rob made it all the way down without a rope. I don’t know about that guy. He is a bit nuts. Will I ever try this another day? I don’t know, though I am sure I will be back to this waterfall again. It is a beauty, and it was flowing stronger than I have ever seen it before.

Here’s some alpenglow of Mt Brokeoff in Lassen Volcanic National Park. The alpenglow only lasted a few seconds and then poof it was gone. I was really hoping those clouds over the mountain would color up a bit but they never did. C’est la vie, I guess.

Well this government shutdown has me annoyed to no end. I would not even care if the parks were closed if they still let us in there to hike the trails, but we cannot even do that. How dare the government take our land away from us. Now Utah is opening their national parks (paying the feds for it), but will California do the same? Of course not. Our governor doesn’t give a crap about our parks. He has proven that already. Oh how I would love to knock some sense into our politicians. This had all better be settled before waterfall season starts or else…

Speaking of which … when “will” it start? Who the heck knows but I sure am anxious about it. I just read one report saying that we could have an above average winter in California (about time, I say). I am hoping so, but then again I read another report we will be having a weak El Nino which is exactly what we had last year, and that makes me think it will be another below average season. How about we split the difference and have a NORMAL AVERAGE  season? After two awful years in a row, that would make me happy enough.

Here you go folks: A brand spanking new waterfall just found in Lassen Volcanic National Park. It is a nice one and a significant drop too at 50 ft. high. Thank you very much, Mr. Amazing and Crazy Waterfall Hunter at waterfallswest.com!

I say that last sentence in jest because of a recent high profile news article in which a certain canoeist in Canada found a previously unknown waterfall while canoeing down a remote river. He claimed it was 40 ft. high but from the picture I saw, it was clearly only around 20 ft. high, and likely less than this! Now he is getting paid money by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society to find waterfalls in Canada. I did not say anything about this previously, but I really thought the whole thing was very lame. I mean, heck, I find new “uncharted” waterfalls all the time. Last waterfall season, for instance, I found Upper West New York Canyon Falls (and it is 150 ft., not 20 ft.), not to mention quite a few others as well (oh I could mention some of them: SF Rubicon River Falls, Upper Clipper Crk Falls, Upper Iowa Cyn Falls, Upper Devils Falls, Iowa Hill Ditch Falls). And I am not the only waterfall hunter that finds new waterfalls. It is not difficult if you know where to look, and have a lot of determination. So it kind of bugs me that he finds a 20 ft waterfall and now gets paid for doing it. One thing I guess I can say about him is that he is a lot smarter than me if he can scam RCGS into paying him to find 20 ft. high waterfalls.

This season (which has only just begun) I now add yet another one to my list, which I am naming West Sulphur Creek Falls. Although not far from a main trail, it is hidden and rather remote. I am quite certain that no one currently in the park service has been to this waterfall or even knows of its existence. I saw no evidence that anyone had been down there in the recent past. Of course I am not foolhardy enough to believe that I am the first person to ever lay eyes on it (I am only slightly foolhardy). In fact, I saw what seemed like a very old road down there but it was so old I am not sure if it even was a road, and certainly has not been used in over 100 years. And if anyone did see it in the past, it was probably just swished away, discounted, ignored, snubbed – even though it is a significant drop at 50 ft. high. That is because it is hidden in an extremely steep canyon, surrounded by cliffs on both sides. The cliffs seem even steeper than those at Mill Creek Falls – and we all know what those are like (see my previous post). It was very difficult to get any view of this waterfall at all, I was standing on a hairy scary precipice, and even then, the top part of the falls is obscured by tree branches, so from this viewpoint it is not very photogenic, but it would be sweet if you could get down to it. It may or may not be possible to do that; I would like to come back and try someday, but I did not have time on this day as I had to get to Chester to meet up with my family for lunch. Oh and by the way … there are more “uncharted” waterfalls in Lassen NP, and some of them may even be a lot bigger than this one.

It is of course rather a huge shame and disappointment that Lassen NP is now closed because of the government shutdown (as well as all other national parks). So now you can’t even go to this waterfall (at least for awhile). It is very irksome for sure. Even the trails are closed. I just don’t understand that. I could understand closing the facilities, but why the trails? Why can’t we still go in there and hike? This is our land, people. Not the government’s.