SIDELINED
We received a much needed two inches of rain this week. This made me excited. Perhaps waterfall season is going to start here, finally. On Saturday, I made my way down to my favorite little waterfall, American Canyon Creek Falls. It is only 15 ft. high, but it is a charmer, and such a unique little thing, piping through an extremely narrow channel in the rocks. I love going here every year, and it is usually one of the falls I go to first thing in the season. It might be the last one I get to this season, as well.
It is an easy hike down to the waterfall, but you do lose 1000 ft. in elevation. When I got to the first creek crossing, I was a bit disappointed. American Canyon Creek was barely flowing. That two inches of rain did almost nothing to the creek level, and it was certainly the lowest I have ever seen it. The good news is that this waterfall does not need very much flow to look really nice. This is one reason I like coming here early in the season. In fact, if there is too much flow in the creek you may not be able to see it at all.
In order to see the waterfall, you need to cross the creek again at the base of the falls. This is very tricky or impossible at high flows, but definitely very easy at low flows. The water color in the pool today was a murky green, sometimes it can be a stunning vibrant green color, but I think it needs a bit more water flow for that. So … in order to create something a bit different than usual, I tried to create some long exposures, this one was two minutes long, I did some longer ones but was not happy with them. It really tries your patience taking such long exposures, but I had no where else to go.
After shooting the falls, I continued on down to the river, just for something to do. I did not find much, except for ticks. I have never ever seen so many ticks so early in the season. This is really bad news, and I think it means it is going to be a horrendous year for ticks.
Somehow, while down by the river, I tweaked my back. Oh my goodness. I don’t know how I did it either, I was not doing anything too strenuous. But now I had to climb 1000 ft. back out of the canyon with a tweaked back, and carrying a heavy pack. It was a SLOOOOWWW hike up to my car. In fact, I think it was a miracle I made it, by the time I got back home I was in agony and could not lift a thing, let alone stand up and walk. Next day it is still really bad. Just when waterfall season is beginning too. What bad timing. With Thanksgiving week coming up, I had three hikes already planned for next weekend. I might not get to do any of them now!
In other bad news, I lost my belt down on the trail. I took off my long pants for the hike back up with the belt attached to them, and tied the pants to my pack but did not secure the belt. I knew it but with my bad back, I did not want to stop and secure the belt, but I thought it would be ok. Guess what? It was not ok. Ugh.