First of Season!
It is my tradition now to go out hiking on Black Friday. It is my favourite day of the year to go hiking. While everyone else is out shopping, I go out into the wilderness. It is beautiful and peaceful, and no one else is out (no matter where I go), so I have it all to myself.
This year, however, the weather did not fully co-operate. I had plans to do an epic hike on Friday, but the forecast was calling for heavy rain on Friday morning. Actually, I looked at a number of different weather forecasts, and there was a huge difference, ranging from light showers to heavy rain. I couldn’t decide if I should go out or not, so finally I determined it would be better to go hiking on Saturday instead of Friday. I let my wife go out and brave the shopping crowds on Friday while I stayed with the kids. On Saturday, it was my turn to go out. I chose Wagon Creek Falls at Mt. Shasta City, a 6 mile hike which shouldn’t be too difficult. ha!
I woke up at 4AM, ready to start my day with a good Dutch Brothers Coffee before the long drive up to Mt. Shasta. But it was closed! This place is supposed to be open 24×7! I was thoroughly upset. Not to mention tired! How was I gonna drive 1.5 hours without any caffeine in my body! Well, I did it, but it really made me very tired for the entire day.
Anyway, I arrived at the trailhead and it was still dark. I wasn’t exactly sure of the route and not confident of hiking it in the dark, so I figured it would be all right to start hiking once it got a bit lighter out. It was also EXTREMELY cold and windy, reminding me of the Black Friday hike I made a couple years ago, which was the coldest day I have ever hiked. Not quite so cold today, but I still had to wear my winter coat.
The hike to Wagon Creek Falls starts out with a shotgun blast to the heart. You have to climb 1000 ft. to the top of a small mountain, in less than a mile of hiking. This trail does not fool around. It goes straight up the mountain. And I mean straight up. It was relentless and grueling. Finally I made it to the top of the ridge. It was just past sunrise now. There were great views of Mt. Shasta from the top, but I did not take out my camera because I was a bit late for sunrise, plus it was so darn cold, and there were no clouds in the sky anyway. I think it would be a good spot for sunrise if the conditions were better, but I don’t think I’d want to climb up that hill ever again.
Once you finally make it to the top, you get more bad news. The trail starts descending on the other side! That means I’d be coming back up this other side on the return trip. Fortunately, the descent wasn’t quite so steep as coming up. But it wasn’t all gentle and flat either. In fact, there were no flat spots on the trail the entire hike. I was either going up or going down. What a crazy hike! After a couple miles of hiking, I got to the turnoff for Wagon Creek. Here was another killer steep ascent up a ridge. Then at the top, it had a killer descent down to Wagon Creek. Holy macaroni! There was quite a bit of snow on the ground, and as I made the descent to Wagon Creek, I was following in bear tracks in the snow, heading down to the creek to get his morning drink? Hmmm … aren’t these guys supposed to be hibernating now? Fortunately, they were not fresh tracks.
Wagon Creek is nestled in a steep little gorge. I could see the waterfall from the lip of the gorge, but how to get over to the waterfall? I started bushwhacking up towards the falls, looking for a descent route to the creek. I found one, and was able to make my way down to the creek without too much difficulty. But I still could not make my way up to the falls on this side of the creek due to all the brush. It seemed easier on the other side, so I hopped the creek, and climbed up the bank on the other side to find this nice overlooking ledge of the waterfall. The waterfall was flowing ok for this time of the year, about what I expected. It would of course be a rushing torrent in the spring, but it may be a lot more difficult to get to the falls in the spring as well.
After enjoying the waterfall, I made the long slow hike back up and down and up and down the mountain. The uphill parts weren’t too horrid (except for a couple of them), and I thoroughly enjoyed the downhill sections. But that very last steep descent, I had to take quite slowly, as the steep downhill is very hard on the old knees. All in all, it was an enjoyable November morning hike.
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