PAYING THE PRICE
This weekend I went all in to discover two brand new waterfalls in the very upper reaches of Chambers Creek. It was an epic adventure. It was a killer hard adventure. It was a madman adventure.
I started my hike at 9:30am. Not too early. Not too late. I was not in a hurry, and I took much video as I climbed up the mountain. Most people think it is a very difficult hike just to the main waterfalls on Chambers Creek. That was just my half way point on this day. It is a 1700 ft. climb to the main waterfalls. I felt good, and I was not tired as I arrived at the bridge. From here, I had another 1600 ft. to climb up the trail.
This section started out well, but in the the last half of it, the trail became very brushy and overgrown. It is still easy enough to follow, but it was just very annoying. The last time I was up here was about 19 years ago. The trail was not overgrown then. I wonder how many more years, and it will become in-navigable. There was no poison oak, but there were ticks. I got a few on me, but I plucked them off before they did any damage.
As the view opened up, I could see the waterfall in the distance. Well, just part of it. Most of it was hidden. How would I get down to it? To be honest, I thought it unlikely I would make it. The terrain (like most of Chambers Creek) is steep and cliffy. At 5300 ft., I hit the snow line. I expected there to be some snow (as I saw on the satellite images), so I had brought my spikes, but I did not need them. The problem was postholing through the snow and breaking my leg. I took it slow, and soon left the snow behind as I descended down to the waterfall, 500 ft. down. If you are adding up the numbers, that makes a total of 3800 ft. elevation gain for the day. Yikes! I was tired but I still felt really good before I started the descent down to the creek. This section, though, was killer. I encountered the crazy brush. The brush just got worser and worser as I descended closer to the falls (is worser a word? it should be a word). It was very difficult to battle through it, but battle through it I must. I was too close to turn back now. After a great deal of effort, I finally saw the ridge I wanted to get to. Until this point, I could not even see it because of all the brush, and yet, there was still a huge mound of the stuff to get through before I could get there. Finally, I reached the ridge overlooking the waterfall. I could not see the waterfall. Well, I could see it but it was obscured because of trees in the way. Well this sucks. I had to descend more, down the cliff. I used my rope to get down, and shortly arrived at a much better viewpoint, with a clear view of the falls.
Upper Chambers Creek Falls is a real beauty, 145 ft. high in two large tiers. I took photos and ate my lunch, and examined my injuries. My legs were completely scratched up and in pain from scrambling through all that brush. (you say I should have worn long pants – well that would have been actually smart). I definitely paid the price on this hike, and it was much tougher going back up. I also made another stop at a second waterfall along the way (pic coming soon). When I finally got back to the trail, it was 4PM. Now I was spent. I still had 4 miles to hike and 3300 ft. to descend. At least it was all downhill. I arrived back at the car a bit before 6PM, just as it was getting dark. It was an awesome day in Plumas National Forest, but I will not ever be back to see this one again.