MILLER TIME
Out for a stroll this weekend, and I was up at 3AM. Ouch. I arrived at the trailhead at 5:30AM. This is the world famous and extremely popular Rubicon Trail. The parking lot was jam pack full with cars and trailers. Ouch. I expected there to be people and jeeps on the trail, but not this many. It is summertime. I had actually wanted to come on this hike much earlier in the spring, but this was the first chance I had this year. It was time to go see Miller Creek Falls. It was Miller Time. I managed to squeeze my SUV into one of the only remaining spaces.
Well hopefully I would not see any jeeps on the trail. Yeah right. Going into the waterfall, indeed I did not see anyone, but coming back? Hmph. As for the weather, it was a cool and very pleasant 37 degrees. A nice start to the day, but it would warm up quickly, and with the warmth would come nightmarish mosquitoes. I was hoping to at least get to the waterfall before the mosquitoes came out to play. I did not quite make it.
Along the way, I pass 4 alpine lakes. If lakes can be ugly (can they be ugly?) then these ones were ugly. Well, the third one was quite nice, but the others were just completely covered with vegetation, like a big bog. They were not very scenic. But anyway, I continued on. I could see the creek had quite a bit of water, which was a good sign, as I was not sure how well the falls would still be flowing since it is already summer. Now I just had to get down there before the sun. If I stopped at all, the skeeters were over me. Needless to say I only stopped the one time.
It was a pretty easy hike until I got to the top of the waterfall. From there I could see nothing but cliff. How would I get down? I hummed and hawed, I was running out of time, I just decided to go for it. But carefully go for it, of course. No need to jump off the cliff. There was a perfect little ledge that took me right to the bottom of the waterfall. If it were not there, I don’t think it would be possible to get to the falls. Thank you ledge. Or rather, thank you God for putting it there.
Miller Creek Falls is gorgeous, 54 feet high in total. And there was even more than this one. It is a very awesome little creek and I will be back here someday to explore it fully.
I lathered up in Skeeter juice for the hike back. Unfortunately, I did see quite a few jeeps coming up the trail. The first one was a Ranger, and he asked me where I was coming from. I believe he thought I was backpacking somewhere. I was wearing my big camera pack of course, and many people have mistaken it for a backpack. This Ranger will not be the last to do that. But if I was backpacking, then I would need a permit and I think that’s what he was wondering about. Actually, I did not know if I was in the wilderness or not at this point, and if so would I need a permit even for day hiking? I’ve been asked for them before when hiking in the Desolation Wilderness. I told him I was just on a day hike and down at the waterfall, all the while swatting the mosquitoes away from my face (he made me stop in a mosquito zone in order to talk to me). He let me go quickly, perhaps because he felt sorry for me, standing there swatting mosquitoes. I do wonder though if he even knew there was a waterfall down there.
After that I saw about 10,000 more jeeps and OHVs. I wondered where they all had parked, because the lot really was completely full when I had gotten there this morning. I hoped no one had blocked me in, keeping me stuck there all weekend. How nice would that be. By the time I got back to the car, I was thoroughly annoyed with them all for sure. For each one, I had to get off the road, stop and wait for them to pass, give them a polite wave with one hand, swatting mosquitoes with the other. I guess that is what you get for hiking on the single most popular jeep trail in the summertime, and on the weekend. Shame on me.