Leon Turnbull Photography

I have always wanted to visit Canyon Creek Falls when it is at crazy flow. All guns blazing. Off the charts bonkers. Check one off the bucket list now.

On Friday the big Pineapple Express rolled on through northern California, whetting all our appetites (literally). We received 5.6 inches of rain in the Sierra foothills. Unfortunately, the snow levels were really high this time, so that means the snow was melting on top of the rain. That raises the river levels exponentially. On Friday night, the North Fork American River peaked at a whopping 20,000 cubic feet per second (in other words, a lot) – it was under 1000 before the rain started. When I woke up on Saturday, it was still at 19,000 but dropping fast. I scooted on up the hill as fast as allowed by the law, and arrived at the trailhead by sunrise.

It is a fairly easy hike, but there are some steep parts. With the ground saturated and wet, it was very slippery and muddy. I fell one time, getting my clothes thoroughly mud baked. After that, I was extra careful on the steep parts. I did not want to put my back out again. Also, I did not want to slide right off a cliff. That would not be out of the question, if I was not paying attention. I paid attention.

Arriving at the viewpoint … and WOW. This is the absolute best I have ever seen the Big Waterfall, which is 144 ft. high. The view of the North Fork American River was stunning, the river was roaring below me, unnamed waterfalls cascading down every mountain. It is difficult to know exactly what the river level was at because there is a delay from the time it takes for the water to reach the gauge at the North Fork Dam, but I believe it was in the range 16,000 to 18,000 cfs. Last time I was here, it was around 6000 to 7000 cfs, so that means Canyon Creek had about 2 to 3 times the flow as last time. Absolutely amazing. If you have never been to this viewpoint before, you need to add it onto your list too.

So now … what about the rain and snow situation and El Nino? It is the end of January and we are halfway done with winter. After this latest storm we finished January at 122% of average rainfall. The snowpack is 117%of average for Central Sierra, 120% for the North, and 107% of average for the Southern Sierra. Folsom Lake is at 54% capacity (average for this time of year), Shasta is 52% and Oroville is 43% – and these will rise more this week from the rest of the rain runoff. So that is all good, right? Or is it?

Certainly it is good when compared to the last four years. I’m not going to complain. However, everyone is talking about El Nino this and El Nino that, but what are the facts? The fact is we have only had 1 or 2 El Nino storms all this winter. Almost all the storms we have had have come from the Pacific Northwest. Not that it is a bad thing, but southern California has been very dry thus far and I certainly would have expected (and hoped) that by the end of January this super strong El Nino would have had a much bigger impact than it has, and we would have even more rain than we have had up to now. What about February? That nasty old ridge is building in this week, and the long range forecast is indicating that we are going to have a dry February, at least for the first couple of weeks. So even though we are above average for now, by the middle of February we will probably be back below average. They are already talking about releasing water from Folsom reservoir. That would be a huge mistake if they do that now. Bottom line … we need to keep praying for rain and an end to this ugly drought.