Leon Turnbull Photography

For last weekend’s hike, I decided to camp out the prior night at the trailhead. That way I would not have to get up at such a bloody awful hour to get there by sunrise. It is a very long drive from my house.

When I arrived at the trailhead and campground, I saw that the creek I would have to cross in the morning was extremely high, with peak snowmelt happening. The very first thing I did was make sure I could cross it. The water came up to above my knees, it was flowing swift, and it was darn freezing cold, but I was able to cross it safely. Ok good, so long as it does not rise any more overnight. I knew it would be rising more overnight, though.

It was quite cold sleeping in the car, getting down to 38 degrees. Again, I survived. I had a weird dream that our company transferred all of us to a fake company in order to save money and not have to lay us all off. We did not know how that would save money. Anyway, sometime during the night I decided to take a different route to the waterfall. The new route still required crossing the creek but at a different place, above where two forks split. So I figured two creek crossings at smaller flows would be much easier. Right? Sure, why not, you say.

Once again I forgot something. This time it was my hiking pants. Oh come on, madman! What is it with you, lately? I also forgot my hat. Ugh. But the pants is what I was worried about. It was 38 degrees in the morning! Then I got a brilliant idea. I would put my long underwear on underneath my hiking shorts. Who is going to see? There is not going to be anyone out on this trail! I probably would not have even thought of this, except I saw a couple backpackers at Yosemite doing this very thing, or what looked like it. I guess if you wear your long underwear hiking, you do not have to bring hiking pants along and that saves weight backpacking. Is that it? Anyway, it worked perfectly, and no one saw me. Except the birds and squirrels, and I am sure I heard them laughing at me. C’est la vie.

There was snow. I was surprised about this. When I was at Yosemite there was no snow at all below 7000 ft., but here there was snow at 6000 ft. I guess that makes sense because the northern Sierra received more precipitation this winter, but I still thought it was odd and there should not be so much snow. At least I was not sinking in at all. The snow was hard packed. I was following some footprints of a couple that had clearly been here in the past couple days. Did they go to this waterfall? How would they even know about this waterfall? Before long, however, they turned off on a different road and I was alone again. Briefly. I soon realized I was now following a big old bear’s tracks through the snow. Even the big old bear was not sinking in the hard packed snow. But the bear also turned off before reaching the creek crossing. He was a wise old bear. Unlike the waterfall madman. I came to the creek crossing. The creek did not split. There was only one crossing, and the flow was just as substantial as at the other location. Again, I waded across the knee deep, cold, fast rushing creek. Again, I made it across without taking a header into said cold, fast rushing creek.

On the other side, I continued climbing up the road through the snow. No more bear tracks. Now I found deer, coyote, and what I think was a big cat’s tracks. It was fascinating all the animal tracks I saw. But no animals to go along with them. And then all of a sudden there were the two human prints again. What? Where did they come from? They obviously took a different route up here, instead of staying on the main road. I wondered if their route was better than mine, but they still would have had to cross that darn cold creek as well.

When I got to the waterfall however, they stayed on the road. I got off the road and headed cross country. I found this spectacular cascade, and a stupendous overlook of the waterfall. It is 135 ft. in total height, and is a real beauty. I was able to get right down to the bottom, then decided I would try to get to the upper drop as well because that part was obscured from below, so I climbed the rest of the way up the mountain, and was able to get down to the upper drop. From there I decided to keep climbing up the mountain where I eventually found the road again, and the human prints again. I don’t know where they were going, but they did not go down to the falls. They just bypassed the falls and probably had no idea the waterfall was even there since it is not right beside the road. Down the road I went, crossing that cold creek again, and finally getting back to the car. It was an incredibly fun hike, and I think it may have even come close to making up for my shortened backpack trip.

http://waterfallswest.com/waterfall.php?id=talbot-creek-falls-1970