Leon Turnbull Photography

This weekend I decided to head on over to Marin County to find some new waterfalls. With all the recent rain we’ve had, I figured this was the best time to seek out waterfalls in the Bay area. The vast majority of waterfalls in that area only flow well right after heavy rains. We did have heavy rains. But the thing is, the last rain was about a week ago. Would I be too late? The answer is yes and no.

My goal for this day: Novato.

I had heard about some new waterfalls in this area, and I figured this was a good time to check them out. Sometimes I like going to waterfalls that I have visited in the past. Sometimes I like going to new waterfalls that I have not visited before. This weekend I wanted to see some new ones.

The name of the first set of waterfalls I found was Arroyo San Jose Falls. I cannot pronounce it (just ask my wife), but I can tell you that this creek holds some gorgeous waterfalls. There are actually four separate waterfalls on this creek, all in the range of about 25 to 60 feet high. The one pictured here is the first waterfall you come to (37 ft. high), a very short easy hike up the creek from the trailhead.

In order to get to the upper ones, however, requires a bit of work. The trail continues up above this first waterfall. It is steep, it is slippery, it is narrow in places, and it has dangerous drop-offs. After last week at Canyon Creek, I was not really in the mind of doing any difficult or dangerous scrambling. But I have come to realize that virtually all waterfalls can be quite dangerous. Even if it is an easy and safe hike to the waterfall (like this first one here), if you do any scrambling around the waterfall (like trying to get to the top of it, for instance), then all of a sudden you are in a danger zone and need to be extremely careful. So … I was very careful of course, as I scrambled up to waterfalls two, three, and four. Number two was the smallest one, and it was fairly easy to get to. Number three was the most difficult, requiring a steep, dangerous, descent down to the creek. I almost didn’t go down to it, but finally found some branches to hang onto, to guide my descent. Number four was the biggest one, 55+ ft. high. All of them were quite pretty, though not all easy to photograph. And the creek was flowing fairly well too, a week after the rains, but it was not “rushing”, and I was hoping that it would be flowing a little better than it was. That is the trouble with most of these Bay area waterfalls. You really need to get to them the next day after a storm. Still though, this one was sure pretty nice.