Leon Turnbull Photography

Life has been too stressful. Getting out on a backpacking trip this weekend was an essential activity for me. It is still early season, most areas are still snowed in, and those that aren’t snowed in are closed because of the virus, so picking the right place to go is a difficult task. I chose to go back to the Hell Hole.

I have been to all the waterfalls on Grayhorse Creek before, but it was at low flow. I’ve been wanting to go back at high flow for a long time. I would just camp along Grayhorse Creek and go up to see all the waterfalls in the evening. A quick trip, but a good one.

It is a short hike to Grayhorse Creek; I arrived about noon and setup camp on this side of the creek. The views from here are magnificent. Since I had so much time before I needed to go up to the waterfalls, I decided to hike to the end of the reservoir in the afternoon. That meant I had to cross Grayhorse Creek. It was getting pretty close to peak flow for the year, and the creek was flowing very strong (Kyburz on the SFAR was at 1200cfs). I was not sure that I would be able to make it but I was able to cross at 1PM without any difficulty. The only problem I had was that my feet were frozen off by the time I got to the other side. The water was cold! It was a warm day, though, and they thawed out pretty quickly once I got out of the stream. I hiked along to the end of the reservoir and to Hell Hole Falls. I was hiking IN the reservoir, along the river. The reservoir is very low right now, and it is easy and pleasant to do this. The light was bad of course, so taking good pictures of Hell Hole Falls was not possible, but it was nice to do this hike, and the waterfall was flowing pretty good. I did not go up to Kada Falls because that requires crossing Five Lakes Creek, which would have been very difficult to do, and I did not want to take the time and effort to do that. I returned to camp.

Begin Rant …

The trail to Grayhorse Creek is a popular road with jeepers. Their machines are horribly loud and you can hear them for miles. I knew all this of course, so I cannot complain “too much” that there were jeeps down in the reservoir. Had I known there would be so many, however, I would have chosen a different place to camp. Are we not supposed to be under quarantine still? There were at least two large groups here, and they were absolutely NOT social distancing. On my way back to camp, I had to pick up their beer cans that they threw out in the middle of the reservoir. I know it was them because the cans were not there on my way out. A couple other things I noticed on my drive out to Hell Hole: At Stumpy Meadows reservoir, the boat ramp area is closed yet I saw at least 15 cars in there, and they had just pushed the closed sign out of the way. In the town of Georgetown, I saw at least 30 motor bikes, and the bikers were just hanging out and definitely not social distancing. These small towns don’t seem to care about the rules, their restaurants and non-essential stores are open, yet they do not want the rest of us going there. Georgetown is just one example I have seen (Tahoe, Mammoth Lakes). I have been responsible and following the rules. Recently, I have seen a couple people post their hikes in Lassen Volcanic NP (which is closed). So you can hike into Lassen by back roads and that is ok? No it is not. The park is completely closed. I could hike into Yosemite if I wanted to, in fact I have a great route that I really really want to do, and I am sure I would not see anyone in the park, but it is illegal to go there. The irresponsible people are ruining things for the rest of us.

End Rant …

Back at camp, I made my dinner, relaxed a bit, and then headed up the mountain. My first stop was (lower) Grayhorse Creek Falls. With the creek rushing so fast, it is impossible to cross and impossible to wade upstream. That means the only way down to the falls is via a very steep and cliffy traverse. Rope is a necessity. I anticipated this beforehand, and I brought my rope with me. Normally, I hate to bring rope on a backpacking trip, it is just too much extra weight; this time, however, I brought both my water shoes and rope, and I needed them both. I would not have gotten to this first waterfall without the rope. Even so, once I got up to the falls, I found a huge tree fallen in the creek, literally blocking half the waterfall from view. So I had to settle for a secondary view of the falls, on a scary ledge, and even this view was partially obscured by trees.

I continued upstream to the multitude of waterfalls. Waterfalls coming out of the ying yang. I even found a new one that was not there on my previous trip up the canyon. (picture coming later). As I hiked up the canyon I came across the local resident. He was following the stay at home order. A big, beautiful, brown-colored bear was standing on its hind legs, looking down on me. He was huge. As soon as I saw it, he scampered up the mountain away from me, too fast for me to get out my camera. Oh, how I wish I was prepared with my camera.

It was 6:45PM when I finally got to the uppermost waterfall. This was much later than I wanted, but there were just too many waterfalls to photograph! I was pretty sure that I had been up to this uppermost falls before (pictured above). I remember the little trail going to it, but when I looked back at my previous photos, I could not find a picture of this one. That is very strange, and I don’t remember what happened. Anyway, I took some photos this time. It was now 7PM, and I hurried back down the canyon. It is a long descent, and finally got back to camp just before dark.

I had a good night except for one big problem ….