FEBRU-TASTIC!
February was just Febru-tastic! At the beginning of February, we were basically average across the board. As of Mar. 1, here is the update: Snow pack is 147% of normal (northern CA), 154% (Central Sierra), 146% (Southern Sierra). Rain fall is 133% of normal (north), 127% (central), and 122% (south). All is looking good, and the rain looks to be roaring into March. We should end up well above average for the year. But …. I just want to say one thing. Please do not complain about all the rain and snow we are getting! I’ve been hearing a lot of complaints recently. If you live in Lake Tahoe, and do not like the snow, why do you live there!!?? Do you want us to go into another huge drought?? Believe me, another drought is coming. Indeed, my prediction is that it will be even worse than the last one. We have basically four months out of the entire year where we get all (or most) of our rain and snow. (Dec-Mar). No one should be complaining about rain or snow that we get during these four months. We had a horrible start to the winter. Everyone was complaining about the lack of rain and upset about the fires that happened. Now people are complaining about the abundance of rain. Personally, I am praising God for all the rain (and we all should be). It is also important to note that Lake Oroville is *NOT* full yet and is BELOW normal (because they drained it after spillway incident a couple years ago). We still need a lot more rain in March to fill that reservoir. Hopefully we will get it in March.
Anyhow … speaking of rain… it was just a wee bit rainy on Saturday morning. I still wanted to hike, however, since I missed hiking last weekend. Going to Napa was not my first choice. However, everywhere else I thought of, it seemed to be just very heavy rain all morning. In Napa, supposedly, the rain was ending early. Indeed, when I woke up on Saturday,my weather app said it was just cloudy there. The rain had already stopped (supposedly). I decided to go to Napa.
As I drove down the freeway from Sacramento,there was a torrential downpour. In fact, the rain was extremely heavy for the entire drive. It seemed to be getting worse the further west I drove. Is it really not raining in Napa? Visibility was poor. I had to drive slow. It was ridiculous. By the time I got to Napa, it was still raining (not cloudy), but at least it was now just light rain. When I got to the trailhead, it was just misting. So I would not call that cloudy, but it was not rain either. It was really the perfect hiking weather.
I have not hiked to the Palisades before. I have been wanting to go. I heard there is a waterfall there. It should be great today.
It is a good trail. It is a very interesting trail. There is a rock maze along the way which you can walk through, and try to make it to the center of the maze. Whoever did this, must have worked for many many hours. Maybe it was aliens. I am not a fan of rock piles and cairns and such in the wilderness, but this was very cool. The trail is also very long. It is a hard trail. The hike was 3 miles longer than I expected, and the waterfall was much further than I thought. The elevation gain on the hike was much more than I thought (about 1800 ft. in total). All in all, it was a pretty darn tough hike. At least it was all on trail, but I do think I somehow managed to touch some poison oak.
I finally arrived at the waterfall. I was almost ready to give up, since I had been so much hiking further than expected. That would have sucked. I am glad I kept going. It is a very gorgeous 48 ft. high falls. I just wish that tree was not there at the bottom of it. I did go down to the bottom of the falls, which was not too difficult, and was pretty cool, but it was too difficult to photograph the waterfall from the bottom because of all the mist. There was no just good spot. The best place to photograph it was from the top. But here too, it was difficult. The cliffs are extremely unstable. I did not want to get very close to the edge. It was a big dropoff to the bottom of the cliff. Not fun.
It was a long and tough hike back to the car. Six hours total hiking there and back. Was it worth the effort? I would say, yes. It was a Febru-tastic day in Napa Valley.