Leon Turnbull Photography

It was my last backpacking trip of the season. I suppose that is not saying much because October 1 marks the start of the new season! The new waterfall season that is (the only season that matters). Indeed, we may have our first storm of the season next week. Anyhow, it will no doubt be awhile before my next backpacking trip. Winter is coming. The weather has been splendid the entire month of September (for backpacking), and this was my third trip of the month. This time around: Carson Iceberg Wilderness. I think I have hiked in this Wilderness before, but not backpacked. My goal: to reach mysterious Carson Falls. I have only seen a couple photos of this waterfall before, and they were not good ones. They made it seem like Carson Falls is pretty much un-viewable, and I would not have been surprised to find it that way. Instead, I found glory. But before that…

I arrived at the trailhead on the Eastern Sierra Nevada side, and was hiking by 8:45am. A tad late, but not bad. A sign at the trailhead indicated that bears in this area are habituated to humans, un-afraid, and eager to get your food by all possible means. That is not a good sign.

After climbing up 500 ft. to the top of a ridge, the views open up tremendously. The landscape is magnificent. The fall colors are already starting to shine (it is still very early in the Fall season, but they are already close to peak). The scenery is much different here than say, Ansel Adams Wilderness, but still astoundingly beautiful. The beautiful yellow and orange Aspens really upped the ante of the beauty. It was stunning, and I took a lot of video, which thus slowed my pace considerably, but I was not too concerned. Until…

Once I crossed Silver King Creek, the trail to Carson Falls heads off westwards. I did not see any trail westwards. According to my USGS map, it should be immediate after crossing the creek. Not so. I bushwhacked a bit, eventually getting back on the proper trail. I realized I should have continued up Silver King Creek a bit more to the marked trail junction, but how would I know that based on my map. From here, the trail goes all the way to the East Fork Carson River. Again, my map showed a trail down to Soda Springs Ranger station along the river, but there was no such trail. I continued on the main (obvious) trail, but this new route would add a lot of mileage to my trip that was not planned. Finally down at river level, I stopped at Poison Creek to filter some water. Thankfully, the water was clear and not poisonous – if it was poisonous, my Sawyer squeeze handled it nicely. Here, I met the only other backpacker I saw all weekend (except I did see some horseback riders the next day). He was an older guy, he was not very talkative, but he said he came from Wolf Creek and would be camping somewhere along the East Carson River. I think it is quite a trek coming from Wolf Creek, so he must be doing good, and he was a lot older than the geezer writing this blog.

After crossing the East Fork Carson River – which I rock hopped across – though it was a bit hard to do that – the trail was once again lost to my senses. Eventually, I found it again and continued up the river … until I lost it again … until I then found it again. As you may be able to tell, the trail is not all that well traveled. Not many people hike this section of the trail, I think especially from Soda Springs to Carson Falls. Once on the trail, it was easy to follow. It is just those few times where it was very indistinct or missing. In other words, this section took much longer to hike than anticipated. In addition to this…

There is a 2 mile section along the river here which we shall affectionately call “Bear Alley”. I saw more bear scat along the trail here than I have seen in my entire life combined. Maybe not quite. If not, then it is very close. I am not kidding. Every 20 paces, bear scat. Every 10 paces, more bear scat. The closer I got to Carson Falls, the more prevalent it became. Every 5 paces, more bear scat. Most of it was not fresh, but some of it certainly was. This was not made by one bear. A family of bears. Angry momma, and her five adorable children. Let’s not forget perturbed papa bear. And probably grumpy grandpa bear too. You would think that with all the bear scat, I would see some bears on this trip. No such luck. I was looking for them. I was hoping to see one, but I did not see any bears, or any other wildlife either. I think I saw an eagle, but it was too far away to be certain. Nothing else was seen (not counting birds and squirrels).

As I approached closer to Carson Falls, the trail once again disappeared. Actually, it just seemed to end very abruptly and succinctly. Now what? It was late in the day, too late to go back. There must be a way to get over to Carson Falls. I started to bushwhack over towards it. Nothing doing. After a long bit of searching, I finally did find the proper trail over to it. It was very easy to miss it (I did miss it!), and again, my map showed something very different than actuality.

I hoped that there would be a campsite close to Carson Falls with access to the river, but I was not certain. It seemed pretty cliffy in that area, but fortunately, I found a great spot a short distance above the falls, and yes, one and only one spot where I could get down to the river. No bear scat in the immediate vicinity of the campsite. Awesome. It was 3:30pm when I arrived. I had hoped to get here by 12:30pm, and then do another hike in the afternoon up to Golden Canyon. There was now no time for that. I was way too tired and it was way too late. I wisely just stayed at Carson Falls for the rest of the afternoon and evening.

After setting up camp and making dinner, I proceeded down to the waterfall. There was a steep path to the bottom, and I started down it, but quickly balked. This was way too steep and dangerous. With a rope, it possibly would have been do-able, but I had no rope. I did not think I’d be able to see much from the bottom anyway. Instead, I climbed up onto a large protruding cliff overlook. This was not “too dangerous” except for the big huge drop-offs, but it provided a glorious view of Carson Falls, and I could see all three magnificent tiers of the waterfall (mostly). I really really really enjoyed this waterfall. It is very beautiful. At higher flows, it would be even more spectacular, but in late September it was still glorious.