THE HORSE’S TAIL
I am just taking a short break from Oregon waterfalls to bring you the latest from northern California. On Friday evening after work, I took my son and went up for a quick hike back to Horsetail Falls, the 790 ft. monster you can see from Hwy 50, if you are not driving that is – cuz if you are driving and look too hard, you might end up in the ditch. You know what they say, don’t text and drive. Also don’t gaze at huge waterfalls and drive. Anyway … the temperature in Sacramento was 100 degrees on Friday. Up at the trailhead it was 81 degrees when we started. Not too bad actually. I was thinking it might be a bit warmer than that. Surely it would cool off quickly once the sun went behind the mountains. That is what I told Jadon anyway.
Obviously I have been to Horsetail Falls many times before, but I still feel I have not completely explored all possibilities here for photography. It is such a very diverse waterfall with so many different elements. There are two reasons why I like coming to Horsetail Falls in the summer. Firstly, the mosquitoes are tame. There are never too many of the little buggers here and on this day we were not bothered at all. If you go to other areas of the Desolation Wilderness, such as Wrights Lake or up at Lake Tahoe, you will be devoured and left wanting. Not so at Horsetail Falls. Secondly and most importantly, it is essentially the ONLY waterfall in the Sacramento area that flows in the summer (or flows very well at least). But even so, I admit I was surprised at how strongly it is still gushing right now. There is much more flow this year then when I was here in mid July last year. Shocking really, considering this is the second year of our drought. Jadon remarked on this right away, and he was right. I had to look back at my pictures from last year before I could remember (old age, you know).
Jadon also said there were a lot more other hikers compared to last year. Well, that is something I surely have no idea about. I will take his word for it though. The really odd thing though is that three separate people commented to me, asking if we were backpacking. No folks, really, it is only my camera bag! Do I really carry so much gear on my hikes that I look as if I am backpacking?!?!? The funny thing about it is that I don’t think anyone has ever asked me that before, and then on this day, three people ask me in a row. It must be a conspiracy or something. But Jadon also said my camera bag looks like it could be a backpack. Well I suppose all that camera gear is sure heavy enough, I may as well be backpacking.
Because the creek was flowing much higher than I expected, I could not get to the spot where I wanted. I probably could have gotten down there but it would have been too dangerous for Jadon, so I decided to skip it and just take pictures from the usual location. Actually, although this composition is very similar to the one from last year, it is slightly different. This year, I went down on the ledge to get closer to the falls and a slightly better angle. Last year, I felt it too dangerous to go down there, but this year I felt perfectly safe about it. It is odd, and I am not sure why. I don’t think the rocks would have been any more slippery last year, but that is what I felt in my mind. Nonetheless, I was very careful to not get too close to the edge. Which is exactly what some other lady did when I was down there photographing the waterfall. She came up behind me and went right down to the very edge of the creek to take a quick snapshot. Really? One little slip is all it would take, and she would have been swept down the creek and over the last waterfall. Bye bye birdie.
When we got back down to the car, I checked the temperature. It was 79 degrees. It had cooled off a whopping 2 degrees for our hike back down. We were sweating galoshes by the end of the hike. Oh well. We had lots of fun at Horsetail Falls.