NEED A MIRACLE
As of March 1, the rain fall in California is at 59% of normal (north), 38% (central), and 27% (south). The snow pack is at 20% of normal (northern CA), 27% (central Sierra), and 22% (southern Sierra). Pretty darn pathetic. This is not counting the big storm we had this weekend. That storm will up those totals a bit, and there is more rain in the forecast in the next couple weeks. But will we get a miracle March? It remains to be seen, and I am hopeful and praying, but we need a heck of a lot more big storms.
This weekend, I wanted to go up into the snow and do some snowshoeing. My thought was to hike to Grouse Falls in the snow. However, there was a lot more snow than expected. There was snow in the town of Foresthill, and quite a lot. Driving down Mosquito Ridge Rd was pretty dicey. (with huge dropoffs along the road, don’t forget). I could not drive as close to Grouse Falls as I had hoped. I probably could have done the hike, but it would have been a much longer hike than I wanted to do. So instead, I drove back down to the bridge over the North Fork of the Middle Fork American River, and hiked the trail up the river from there. It is something I’ve always wanted to do but hadn’t done yet (there are no waterfalls, which is probably why I haven’t hiked it). Unfortunately, the trail was much shorter than I thought it would be or hoped it would be. After 1.5 miles, the trail ended. So I hiked back, drove to the Auburn Confluence and hiked the short mile to Black Hole of Calcutta Falls.
It was raining when I started the hike, but by the time I got to the falls, it was sunny. I waited and waited for the clouds to come back, and when they did, I took some photos, and hiked back to the car, just as it started raining again. An interesting thing about this waterfall is there is a new bridge over the creek here. I have not been to the waterfall in four years, and there was no bridge back at that time. When I saw a photo of the waterfall recently, with the new bridge in the foreground, I was utterly confused. At first, I thought it was a different waterfall that I had not known about before! I even went on a hike awhile back on another trail, thinking the falls must be on that trail somewhere. Well I finally I figured out the waterfall was indeed Black Hole of Calcutta with a brand new bridge. So weird. (btw, I did not take a photo of the new bridge – but I did take a photo from the first hike I did along the river)