More Madness
Sugar Pine Creek Falls is a doozy of a waterfall to bag. If you’ve been down to Jay Bird Canyon Powerhouse, you know that the canyon walls are incredibly steep here. Almost unbelievably steep. And you’ve probably noticed this waterfall on Sugar Pine Creek from across the canyon. But how to get up close to it?
The third time is a charm for me. The first time I was here, last year, I didn’t really do much exploring cuz the light was quite bad, but I noticed that the route down from the road looked way too steep to try. So I didn’t. The second time, I tried going up Silver Creek from the powerhouse. I almost made it, but I came to a dead end and could go no further. I realized the only possible way to get a view of this waterfall was to scramble down from the road. I decided to try it again this past weekend. I even brought rope, thinking it might help me get down if it was too steep. When I arrived, I found that it wasn’t nearly as steep as I thought it was. There was an obvious route down from the road to a viewpoint overlooking the falls, and I didn’t even need the rope.
I made it to the viewpoint, took a couple photos, and then thought it might be possible to go even further, maybe all the way down to the bottom. I decided to try going further. Well, that’s when it started getting much more dicey, and the poison oak decided to make an appearance as well. Going further required putting my hand right in the stuff, and the terrain got quite a lot steeper. I made it to a second (and better) viewpoint, and took another photo (shown here).
From there, I decided not to continue any further. I had gotten to a great view of the waterfall, and felt I had bagged it. I didn’t need to get to the bottom. Plus, it looked a lot steeper further down, with lots more poison oak, and I didn’t need to push my luck any further. Though, maybe someday I’ll return and try it. Who knows. Sugar Pine Creek Falls is a huge waterfall, about 600 ft. high. This is the lower 100 ft. of the falls, dropping into Silver Creek. The upper sections of this massive waterfall are not really viewable, but this lower section is definitely a beauty.
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