Leon Turnbull Photography

Hwy 70 past Oroville along the north fork Feather River is waterfall haven in the spring time. It is so beautiful with the rushing river, blooming flowers, and waterfalls falling everywhere. Many of the waterfalls are on unnamed streams, and some of them are more spectacular than others. Camp Creek Falls is one of the more spectacular ones, dropping about 300 ft. in a flurry of foaming water.

Camp Creek is hidden back from the highway. You need to know it is there in order to find it. You can catch a glimpse of the top of it from Hwy 70 if you are looking very hard. But in order to get up to it, you need to go on a back road, a windy, very rough, and very narrow dirt road, which leads to the Camp Creek powerhouse. The powerhouse is at the bottom of the falls, but unfortunately no view of the falls can be had from down there (plus, the access is closed off to the public). Before you get down to the powerhouse, though, the road crosses a bridge over the creek at the top of the falls. From there, you can make your way down the very steep terrain to get a look at the waterfall.

Camp Creek Falls reminded me a lot of Lower Foresta Falls in Yosemite. A narrow rough road, leading to a bridge crossing at the top of the falls (with some of the waterfall flowing above the bridge, but most of it below). Wildflowers abounding along the road, and a difficult scramble to get from the road down to see the falls.

The waterfall is an amazing display in the spring. I can’t believe I didn’t know about this one before now. It is arguably the best in the area (though Chambers Creek Falls is perhaps a notch above it, but not by much). The section shown here is not the entire waterfall, it is only a 146 ft. section from the bridge. There is more of it falling below this, but it seemed to be too difficult to get down any lower, and I was out of time anyway. The sun was coming up and I wanted to get to one more waterfall before it did.