Leon Turnbull Photography

So some of you may wonder why I almost always hike alone. Well there are many reasons but here is one … Often I strike out on my hikes and do not find any waterfalls. It happens fairly often because I am usually hiking in places where people rarely (if ever) hike, and trying to find new waterfalls that very few people (if any) have ever been to before. I run into countless obstacles: confounding brush, raging rivers, impassable snow, death defying cliffs, crazy sasquatches, you name it. I would hate taking anyone on a hike and end up not getting to any waterfall for whatever reason. If they told me they didn’t mind I wouldn’t believe them. Even if I knew them and that they really didn’t mind I still would feel bad dragging someone out on a difficult hike and not finding any falls (and that has happened more than once). It’s better if I go by myself and do all the dirty work for you.

Take this past weekend as a good example: my initial plan was to go on a new hike somewhere up Foresthill Rd. The Tahoe NF website does not keep up with their road condition status very well at all but I thought maybe I’d be able to drive up there since there has not been all that much snow yet. I did not even make it to Mumford Bar before I encountered too much snow to continue. The big problem was that the road was completely ice, the temperature was about 20 degrees. There was no chance I’d get anywhere near I hoped to. Plan B was to try hiking down into Humbug Canyon where I thought there might be a waterfall. I was not certain but I figured there’d be at least a small one. I actually did not think I’d get even anywhere close to the creek. It just looked far too brushy on Google Earth. Worth a try though. As it turned out getting down to the creek was easy (well, as easy as a 1500 ft descent can be). I found a very old trail which pretty much went all the way down to the bottom. Was it an old mining trail? I think it must’ve been. At the bottom, however, all I found was a big cliff dropoff  and no waterfall. Not even a small one. There was perhaps a ten footer and a couple smaller cascades. That’s it. No way to get down all the way to the creek either without killing myself. No photos taken. It was definitely not worth killing oneself for a 10 foot waterfall.

Here is another shot of Canyon Creek Falls from last month. She’s a beauty.