VACAY TIME
Because of stupid COVID, we cannot go to Canada for Christmas as we normally do. I think this is the first year since we were married in 1999 that we are not going to Canada to visit my family. It is upsetting. We also had plans to go up there this past summer, which of course also got nixed. Those plans were moved to next summer, but it seems unlikely we will be able to go then either.
Anyway, I decided I still wanted to take two weeks of vacation this Christmas. We can’t go anywhere, so I want to do a lot of hiking. I have many hikes planned, possibly including a winter backpacking trip. Brrr.
My first hike was a bust. I have brand new snowshoes and wanted to try them out. I actually had a fantastic snowshoe hike, but I could not get down to the waterfall. It was too steep and dangerous in the snow. I should have known that, I don’t know what I was thinking. At least the snowshoes work well.
My second hike was a bust. I was trying to get to a new waterfall on Cherokee Creek, but it was just too darn brushy. I gave it a good effort, but just could not do it. I was bummed but I had one more hike planned on the same day. Would I strike out completely?
I was pretty sure I could get to the lower falls on Cherokee Creek, even though I did not know exactly where they were located. The issue was going to be if it was even 20 ft. high. I knew it would be close, but I just was not sure. Twenty feet is the minimum standard I use for categorizing waterfalls on my website.
It is a very easy hike and pretty much completely flat the entire way, following along the North Fork Yuba River. I saw a couple other groups of hikers on the trail, or rather one couple hiking, and one family biking. It’s definitely flat enough to bike. I also saw an abandoned tent. I just don’t understand people. You can backpack into a camping area with your big tent (it was big), but you cannot pack it out with you, so you just abandon it? Why???? I find this kind of thing so darn frustrating.
After a couple miles of hiking I arrived at Cherokee Creek. From there you need to go upstream. I figured there would be an obvious path and there was. This is (apparently) a popular swimming hole in the summer. There was one tricky spot in which a landslide destroyed the trail, and (of course) there was a dangerous drop-off. I managed to find a way past this. It would have sucked if this is what stopped me from getting to the falls. I arrived at the waterfall at 4pm. (I started at 2:30 but was taking my time, taking a lot of video and such). I could tell right away that the waterfall was not a big one, and definitely not much bigger than 20 feet. I measured it to be 23 ft. high. It is certainly a pretty little thing.
Sunset was at 4:45pm. This is the time I started back, and I was booting it, hiking as fast as I could. Almost all the hike back was in the dark, but I made good time and got back to the car at 5:30pm. It was a good day in Tahoe National Forest.