Leon Turnbull Photography

I was not planning to come here at all this year but a late season April storm messed up my plans. I guess I should say it just delayed my plans a bit because with 2-3 feet of new snow on the ground I would not be able to get to where I wanted to go this weekend. I decided to drive down to the Central Sierra for the weekend instead. The waterfalls here should be flowing very well, I determined, and I had not seen them before. Humph.

It is a five hour drive to Balch Camp and I arrived a bit before noon. I drove up to Patterson Creek Falls to check it out first. I would be returning in the morning to take photos but I just wanted to see it and also see if I could get down to the lower falls. I was very disappointed in the flow of the creek. It is a small drainage but with recent rain and snow melt it should be flowing a lot better than this. I was expecting a lot more. Sigh. I tried getting up closer to the waterfall but found it impossible due to very thick brush. A roadside photo is the best you can do here. Brush and poison oak were the major themes for the weekend (and perhaps, my life). The poison oak here is HUGE. In fact it was so big I did not even think it was poison oak at first. Poison oak does not get this big, does it? Ah well, tell that to my itchy body when I got back home.

I retreated back down the hill to Dinkey Creek. I wanted to backpack a short distance in to the creek and then hike up to a waterfall on Dinkey Creek. It was supposed to be a VERY EASY HIKE. There is a well defined trail on Google Earth. In fact it was supposed to be so easy and short (only a mile) I wondered if I should even do it. (I usually like hiking longer when I am backpacking).

The trail started out ok but it was already overgrown.  The grasses were very long, above my knees. At least I could follow it (so far). Thankfully there were no ticks. It could have been disastrous if there were any of those buggers. Everything changed pretty quickly. The trail down to the creek was now completely overgrown with a huge amount of brush and deadfall. This is an easy hike? It was not even worth the effort to go down especially when I would have to hike this four times (I would have to come back up to continue to the waterfall). I decided to retreat and hike straight out to the waterfall and camp there. I was not very sure there would even be camping at the waterfall but maybe that trail would be better. Again, it was supposed to be a very easy and well defined trail. Again, it was completely overgrown and very difficult. How did this trail get so overgrown in such a short time? It makes no sense to me. I only made it half way to the waterfall and I was spent. I tried to continue but I was too tired. It was not getting any easier and if there was no place to camp ahead then I would be in trouble (plus, there was no way I could get to the other waterfalls in the morning if I had to hike back on this horrible trail). I decided I would retreat and just sleep in my car at Patterson Creek.

I slowly hiked back to the car and then drove up to Patterson Creek where I made my dinner on the rocks by the creek, and slept in the car.

Patterson Creek Falls is 925 ft. high in two tall tiers. It definitely needs to be seen very early in the spring. At least I got to one waterfall on this trip. Would I see more in the morning?