Leon Turnbull Photography

It has been almost two months since I’ve last hiked. The last one I did was Lake Aloha in the beginning of July. It is now beginning of September. I have been planning for a long time to go to Mt. Shasta this summer, but the fires have put a wrench in my plans. The smoke! The smoke has been horrible throughout the state. Hiking when the smoke is so bad is not smart, and I had to postpone my trip to Shasta because of it, but finally the delta breeze came and blew the smoke away (momentarily). Then the delta breeze stopped a day earlier than it was supposed to and the smoke returned. Should I postpone yet again? I was certain it would be worse the next weekend (the long weekend), so I decided to continue with my plan. Did I make the right call? Yes, I did! It was a fantastic weekend. There was definitely a lot of haze up on the mountain, but the smoke was not bad at all.

The road up to the trailhead is much worse than I remember it. I came to a spot where I could not go any further, even in a four wheel drive. My tires were just spinning in the very soft dirt and I almost got stuck. I backed off and parked by the road and decided to walk from there, about a mile from the official trailhead. I was not the only car that could not make it up. There were quite a few hikers on the trail, all going up to the summit of Mt. Shasta. This is the trail that people use in the late summer to summit the mountain, but I think it is quite sketchy at the top. No matter to me. I had no plans to do that. I was just going up to a little more than 10,000 ft. That was hard enough.

It is a 2000 ft. climb up to the place where I planned to camp. I found a secluded spot well away from the trail and other hikers. When I arrived at camp, I still had no idea what I wanted to do. I was extremely tired from the hike thus far and it was still another 2000 ft. climb to the upper falls; it was also already much later in the day than I anticipated. I setup camp, made my lunch, and tried to rest. But there was no time to rest. If I was going up, I needed to go up now. It was 3:30pm. I only had 3 hours to get up to the falls and I figured it would take that long to reach it. I decided to go. I would never have another chance to do this hike. I just prayed the waterfall would not be dry.

From the camp, the trail does not mess around. It climbs all that 2000 ft. in less than one mile. It is very steep, and the ground is very soft dirt. It is quite difficult to get any traction. The going is very slow but I did not feel that the high elevation was bothering me. 4100 ft. of total climbing today and I felt pretty good. My hike tomorrow would actually be a lot harder and it was at lower elevation (stay tuned). After 10,000 ft. elevation, I needed to get off the main trail and traverse over to the waterfall viewpoint. Across the volcano. The hikers coming down from the summit must have wondered what I was doing, and where I was going. All these people going to the summit and they have no idea there is a waterfall here. Most of them probably don’t even know about the main Mud Creek Falls, because you cannot really see it from the trail. They definitely would have no clue about the upper Mud Creek Falls. The traverse across the volcano was pretty sketchy. The ground was very soft and unstable (worse than on the trail). It was steep. I was worried about triggering a landslide and falling to my death. I prayed there would be no earthquake while I was out here. Imagine 100 tons of dirt and rock falling on your head from above you.

I made it to the waterfall viewpoint. It was about 5:45PM, so I had made very good time. Now I had to wait 45 minutes for the sun to go behind the mountain. I could hear the waterfall (it was not dry!), but I could not see it because the sun was right in my face. I sat down and waited. I ate my dinner, enjoyed the glorious views, watched an eagle soaring above me, and chatted with my wife (I had cell reception). It was so quiet. The only sound I heard was the waterfall and an occasional wind gust.

Finally the sun went down behind the mountain and I could see the waterfall. I had hoped it would be flowing a bit better but it was not bad. It is late summer, after all. All the flow in the creek is coming from the Konwakiton Glacier melting above it. You can also see the Mud Creek Glacier from here. I was a half mile away from the waterfall and this is the closest possible viewpoint. I have only seen one other recent photo of this falls, and it was from further down and much further away. I don’t know that anyone has ever been to this viewpoint before me. It is certainly not very easy to get here. Upper Mud Creek Falls is about 320 ft. high. In the other older images I have seen, over half the waterfall is covered by what looks like a large landslide or perhaps a dirt covered snowfield, making the height of the visible waterfall only 100 ft. high. I had thought this was a permanent fixture but when I was here, that was gone and I saw the full height of the falls. How fascinating.

I took my photos and traversed back across the mountain to the trail and then I booted it back down the hill. I was pretty much sliding down the soft dirt in the steep parts (which was probably not the safest thing to do), but I made very good time and got back to camp right at sunset. It was an amazing day in the Shasta Wilderness and there was still one more day to come.