Leon Turnbull Photography

The day after Christmas, my friend Rob and I made some plans to go out waterfall hunting. We decided to try Seven Falls near Oroville, a poison oak infested, steep cliff hanging, and brush scrambling ratfest, but an incredibly beautiful waterfall area. If there is one place that is worth getting a case of poison oak for, it is Seven Falls. We made the long, slow drive up there; tagging along for the ride was Rob’s daughter and her friend. I’m not sure Rob did such a great job informing them of what they were getting into on this hike. They seemed surprised when I mentioned what the hike was going to be like.

Well, we didn’t make it anyway. We surprisingly ran into a lot of snow on the road up past the Feather Falls area. Too much snow for my big 4 wheel drive SUV to handle. We had to turn around. In doing so, we managed to get stuck. It took awhile for us to dig out (fortunately, I had Rob and the girls to help me, or I might still be up there). We decided to head on back down and make the hike out to see spectacular Feather Falls instead. It was a good choice.

I was anxious to return to Feather Falls this winter for a couple reasons. The first is because of the huge wildfire that occurred here this summer, causing the trail to be closed for most of the summer. There was damage to the overlook as well as many fallen trees along the trail. The burnt areas were definitely noticeable, but it was certainly not awful. There were a few fallen trees but not too many, and the overlook was completely restored and damage was not noticeable except for a few burnt boards that were replaced.

The second reason I wanted to get back to Feather Falls was to determine its true height. I had read on Bryan Swan and Dean Goss’ world waterfalls website that they had determined that Feather Falls was not 640 ft. high, as is widely reported. Indeed, after examining the topo maps, it seemed to be more in the neighborhood of 400 ft. high. I wanted to measure it more officially with my laser rangefinder and clinometer to confirm this difference of opinion. I found that indeed Feather Falls is only 410 ft. high. It is definitely *not* 640 ft. high, and certainly nowhere near being the 6th highest waterfall in the U.S. (which is also widely reported). This came as a complete shock and big disappointment to me. I had always just assumed the 640 figure was accurate. Who came up with that figure and how? But the truth is now revealed: Feather Falls true height is 410 ft.

In other tidbits, Rob came oh so close to making it to the base of Feather Falls. If you’ve been to Feather Falls, you know how crazy that sounds and how sheer steep the cliffs around this canyon are. I thought he was crazy as well. I waited for him at the overlook while he made the scramble down. It didn’t seem too bad. I figured if he made it and didn’t die, I might try it as well. As it turned out, he came to one final section where the only way to continue was to grab onto some poison oak with his hands. He decided against it in the end, perhaps very wisely. As for the two girls with us, they talked a lot … about food. It made Rob and I very hungry. Fortunately, Rob had a solution. Stop at Jake’s Burger joint in Oroville on the way back. Man, they have some good burgers and shakes there. Waterfall bagged. Hunger satisfied. A good day indeed.