American Canyon Creek Falls
The weather man did it to me again … sorta. The forecast was supposed to be all overcast and cloudy for Saturday, nothing doing for any type of sunrise. I figured if it was going to be overcast, then I should go waterfallin. I wouldn’t really have to worry too much about getting up too early, as the sun would not be a factor.
So my plan was to just go on an easy close-by hike to a local waterfall. American Canyon Creek in Auburn. It is one of my favourite hiking trails in the area because it is not killer, but it is still a pretty good workout. And the waterfall is a very pretty one too, as you can see. It is not a big one, but it drops through a tiny narrow rock gorge, into a large emerald green pool, and it is just so very unique.
It was extremely foggy on Saturday morning, perhaps the foggiest I have seen it here in a long time. But when I got into Auburn, I got above the fog, and the sky was clear with a beautiful sunrise brewing on the horizon. What happened to overcast skies? I was just a little late to go find a nice vantage point for the sunrise so I continued with my original plan for American Canyon Creek. The fog in the valley was fortunate, because the waterfall would be down below the fog layer, and so the sun would not be a factor for photographing the falls.
The parking at the trailhead has room for 3 cars only. And I was pretty surprised to see 2 cars there when I arrived at 7:30AM. And the 2 cars took up all 3 parking spaces! Argh! I had to squish my big SUV in beside them somehow, which was a bit interesting. Indeed, it was interesting to see any other people on this trail, especially so early. But I saw quite a few joggers on the trail during the day. I guess it is a pretty popular running trail, but I don’t think I have ever seen anyone on this trail before, or at least not so many people.
Anyway, they were just all jogging off somewhere into cougar-land (I’m not kidding about that), so I had the waterfalls all to myself. My first stop was Lower American Canyon Creek Falls, which is one I wanted to definitely get back to because I was not happy with my shots of that falls the first time I was here. After visiting the lower falls, I came back up the trail to this waterfall. The creek flow was on the low side, though it was about what I expected it to be. Since the gorge is so very narrow, the waterfall is actually a bit nicer when the flow is lower like this. It is somewhat difficult to get the right vantage point to photograph, as there is only one spot to shoot from, and it requires a lot of finagling of the tripod to get it steady enough to shoot, and then standing on slippery rocks on the side of a hill. Such is the life of the waterfall hunter.
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