Leon Turnbull Photography

One of my primary goals for this year was to get to the bottom of Beatson Falls. I only know of two others that have done it, and they both describe their horror stories: huge cliffs, horribly steep terrain, poison oak, whatever else you can think of. Well, I could not let these usurpers get the better of me. I am the only madman around here. I’m kidding of course. Both of them are good friends.

Anyway, this past weekend seemed like a good time to go. We have had very little rain this winter and I have not felt that it has been worth it to visit Table Mountain this year, but this past week we had a couple inches so the big waterfalls at least should be flowing quite decent. The flowers would be out. So would all the people. I figured I had to get up at 4AM to accomplish my goal of getting to the bottom of Beatson Falls on time. I did not think I’d be able to do this, but I did. I arrived at the trailhead at 6AM. There were already people here!!! I have literally never seen this before. I knew there would be a lot of people on this Saturday but not like this (and it was much worse later). I have been to Table Mountain before sunrise many times before and I’ve never seen a single soul. Only the killer cows are out this early (and they don’t like being disturbed before sunrise – believe me).

It is difficult hiking on Table Mountain in the dark. There is no trail, or so I thought. A lot has changed on Table Mountain since I was last here two years ago. My route to Beatson takes me to the bottom of Hollow Falls. I’ve always gone down to Hollow Falls on the west side of the creek and so that is what I did this time of course. I found out later there is now a very good trail down to the bottom of the east side of the creek. It would have been much faster. Well, it took quite awhile to get down to Hollow Falls on the west side in the dark, much longer than I expected. From there the new trail continues all the way to Beatson Falls. I did pick up this trail easily in the dark but by now it wasn’t so dark. I arrived at the Beatson Falls viewpoint at 7:30AM, thirty minutes late and past sunrise. When I arrived there were no people around but there were two killer cows standing at almost the exact place where I needed to take my photos of Beatson Falls. I could not get by them and I did not want them to charge at me right off the cliff (or vice versa). I gently coaxed them to move away and up the mountain. Thankfully, they listened to me. Just call me the cow whisperer.

I took my photos of Beatson Falls from the viewpoint. Now what should I do? There was certainly no possible way to get to the bottom of Beatson in less than 30 minutes (which is what I needed to do in order to beat the sun). It would be pointless to go down there now. I decided I should just cut my losses and head on back to the trailhead. At least I got a photo from the viewpoint.

But wait! What is this coming on the horizon?

Part II is coming soon …