Leon Turnbull Photography

Small but pretty. That is my assessment of this waterfall in the upper reaches of American Canyon Creek. I was hoping and expecting to find a bigger waterfall here, twice the height of what I found, which was this little 14 ft. falls, so I was certainly disappointed but it is still quite a purdy thing. Getting to it, however, was incredibly difficult, but fun.

The hike started off very well. I found a trail that I did not know even existed. It followed along the creek leading almost all the way to the falls. Almost but not quite. It certainly would have been impossible to get even close to this waterfall if not for this unknown trail, which apparently horse riders know all about but not hikers. There was a lot of horse poop I had to carefully tread through. However, about a half mile downstream of the falls, the trail came to a creek crossing and then continued up and away from the creek into a private farm. There was no path continuing up the creek. I tried both sides of the creek, to no avail. It was just too brushy, and all I got was soaking wet and tired. There was only one way to go: Wade straight up the creek bed.

On went my water shoes. It started off deep, a little pool I had to wade through in which the water went up to my thighs. Not a good sign, but after this pool, there was no more really deep stuff. But there was prickly brush along the creek bed, and a few little cascades I had to climb over. Not too bad, though it would have been impossible if the creek flow was high. I felt like I was wading up the creek in the middle of the jungle, and wondering if any crocs, huge snakes, or big cats were lurking in the shadows waiting to pounce on me. In particular, I was freaked out about the latter of those three things. I made decent progress, however, until I got to the end of the road. The prickly brush all of a sudden got incredibly thick along the creek bed with no way to get through it. I could glimpse the waterfall through all that brush just ahead. If this was the beginning of the hike, I would not have even attempted this, but it was right at the end, and I could see the falls. I just “had” to trounce through this brush. My scratched up legs did not thank me later. I had to get over some prickly brush, crawl up on a big rock, then down, then up a little mini waterfall, then through more awful prickly brush, then over a very slippery log, then through more prickly brush, and finally I was in a small pool at the base of the waterfall. Whew! There was barely enough room in this little alcove to take a photo of the falls. It was a pretty little spot indeed. Just too bad the waterfall was not bit bigger. But it was fun.