Leon Turnbull Photography

Here are your March 1 weather stats: Rainfall is at 221% of average for this date for Northern CA, 221% for Central, and 210% for Southern Sierra. We only need 12 inches of rain to surpass the wettest year on record. That seems like quite a bit, but I think it will happen, though perhaps not by April 1. The snow pack is at 161% of average (North), 193% (Central), and 204% (South).  It is going to be an incredible spring waterfall season this year. We have one official month of winter left and although it is starting off slow, there is a storm in the forecast this weekend and perhaps more in the next couple weeks. Some of you folks may be all done with the rain for this year, but I am not. We still gotta beat that all-time record. Ha ha.

My first hike of the day last weekend was to Kehoe beach. It is a short, easy hike down to the beach. It was very muddy, however. I thought that would mean the waterfall will be flowing fabulously. Not quite.

It was all so stinky! You can smell the cows all along the hike and on the beach even up to the waterfall. I did not see any cows at all. There is a ranch above the beach, I suppose that is where they all are, but I did not see them, I just smelled them. It was not horrendously awful, but it was not the typical ocean smell that we all know and love, and the reason we all like the ocean so much.

I also saw coyote prints on the trail to the beach, and they looked very fresh, but I did not see Mr. coyote unfortunately. I did see cormorants, and pelicans, and of course seagulls.

The waterfall was not flowing as much as I expected, even though it was only one week since the last big storm. We definitely will need more rain in March if I am going to do that other ocean hike at the end of the month. Anyhow, it was a lovely (albeit stinky) morning hike to an ocean waterfall.