Leon Turnbull Photography

So what happens when you have a 200+ foot waterfall dropping off a 14,179 foot mountain? Well, let me tell you. It is a little overwhelming, that’s what. The mountain makes the waterfall look like a piddly little cascade, that’s what. It makes that small 5 footer on Squaw Creek look huge in comparison, that’s what.

If Mud Creek Canyon Falls were anywhere else, it would be a monster of a waterfall. But against the looming backdrop of Mt. Shasta, it is almost insignificant. See my below photo to get a better idea of what this waterfall looks like. The one above was shot at 400mm from across the canyon.

It is a long and rough drive out to the Clear Creek trailhead in the Mt. Shasta Wilderness. As I got closer and closer, there was more and more snow on the road. But it was not enough to stop my big SUV. I thought that I might find too much snow on the trail but it was really no trouble. The thing about this hike was that I was not at all prepared for it. I only thought of doing this hike the day before; with all the snow melting right now, it occurred to me that this waterfall might actually be flowing nicely at this time of year. But I had left all my appropriate hiking books back in Folsom, so I had no idea where to go, or how far of a hike it was. I did a search on the internet though, and I found good enough directions to the trailhead. But I found differing opinions on how long the hike was. From the info I found, it seemed that it was about a 3 mile hike at the most. I figured that I would just hike for an hour and if I found the waterfall, great, if not, then I’d turn back. I found the waterfall pretty easily and it was only about a 1 mile hike, and quite easy. The drive out to the trailhead was harder than the hike to the falls.

The view of Mud Creek Canyon Falls is from across the canyon. It is a spectacular view of the mountain and waterfall, but it is a long way away. There is certainly no easy way that I know of to get closer to the waterfall. It would be an extremely steep descent from the Clear Creek trail, then a steep ascent back up Mud Creek Canyon. This would also be quite dangerous as well. It sure would be nice to get closer, if I could figure out a way to do it.

The glaciers that you can see here at this viewpoint are called Konwakiton Glacier and Mud Creek Glacier. The very interesting thing about these and the other 5 glaciers on Mt. Shasta is that despite all the global warming going on, the glaciers on Shasta are actually increasing, not decreasing. They are the only known glaciers in the continental U.S. that are increasing. This is definitely strange to me and doesn’t really make sense. It is not as if northern California has been particularly colder than usual in recent years.

Here’s another long distance view:

After shooting at Middle McCloud, my next stop was Upper McCloud Falls. It is possible and not too difficult to hike to all three falls on the McCloud River. But since time was of the essense, I drove there. From the parking area, you need to scramble your way down to creek level where the best views are had. I think I managed to pick up a slight case of poison oak here too. Argh. Upper McCloud Falls is 25 ft. high, and dumps into a huge pool, which is popular in the summer for swimming. The river is a bit cold at this time of year though. I didn’t want to even get my feet wet on this day. Fortunately, I didn’t have to.

On Saturday, I managed to drag my friend Brian out hiking with me. On Black Friday, he said he’d rather go out and stand in line at Kmart with the hordes of other people out shopping that day. Silly boy. But on Saturday, he was game for waterfall hunting. I gave him a choice as to where to go, and he picked Squaw Creek.

The thing about waterfall hunting is that you never know what you are going to get (kinda like a box of chocolates). A co-worker had told me there was a waterfall out on this creek on the road past Potem Falls. He told me precisely where it was. I found it on Google Earth. On Google Earth, I could easily see that there were three waterfalls at this location. But what he didn’t tell me and what I couldn’t tell from Google Earth is how big they were.

It is a long drive from Redding to Potem Falls, and Squaw Creek was about 12 miles past Potem Falls on a rough dirt road. It was very early in the morning, and you would think we wouldn’t see anyone or anything out on this podunk road in the middle of nowhere. Wrong. We passed a couple trucks driving very slowly. It looked like they were hunters searching the woods for deer or other game. I imagine that we scared their precious animals away when we drove past them. Good. On the way back, we passed a few more trucks. We saw one guy drinking a beer at 9 in the morning as he got into his car to drive away. We also saw a few houses out here in boogieland. Who the heck would live way out here? Why would anyone want to live way out here? We decided not to get out of our car and go up to ask anyone why they lived out here. Brian imagined some old dude sitting on his porch with a beer in one hand and a shotgun on his lap waiting for us as we drove past.

Well, about the waterfall, we did find it after all that long drive. It was a whopping five feet high. The three falls I saw on Google Earth were all very small, the largest of them was 8 feet high. I’ll never trust Google Earth again. And the next time someone tells me about a “nice” waterfall, I’ll ask them how high it is.

We had to scramble down a steep bank from the road to get down to the creek. There was a trail here, so obviously many other people had been here before (including my co-worker). I’m at a loss as to why anyone would drive way out here in the boonies for a 5 foot waterfall. Once down at the bottom, we had to wade across the creek in order to get to a spot to photograph the falls. My dog Kaya does not have anything to do with that kind of nonsense. She will not go in any water that is up past her belly. I took her back to the car while Brian stayed down at the creek to chase away any cougars that might be in the area. We took our photos of the small waterfalls, then left. On the way back, we stopped at Potem Falls. Now that is a really nice (and big) waterfall. We did not take photos of Potem Falls though, as the sun was too harsh by the time we got there. It was, however, flowing very nicely for this time of year.