BLACKBIRD
Blackbird fly, blackbird fly. Into the light of a dark black night – Beatles
Black Friday. The Bird is done. Time to hike. It is, as you know, my favorite day of the year to hike. There would be no one else hiking where I was going. Everyone is shopping. Everything is back to normal (it seems) after COVID. I did see a couple hunters, however. That was a surprise.
I have tried this waterfall twice before by different routes and failed twice before. This time around I would be trying the same route as the first time I tried it. Am I such a fool? The first time I went here by this route it was just impossibly brushy. There was no way I could battle through it. It was not even close. So why would I try this again? What is different this time? The Hirz Fire of 2018. That is what is different. The entire area was burned that year. Maybe it would not be so brushy now. Maybe I actually might make it down to the waterfall this time.
The road is horrible. I seemed to have blocked that out of my mind after the first time I went here. I did not remember it at all. It is not really bad (in terms of roughness), it is just a very steep, very narrow road, with literally no turnouts for passing. Pray that you do not come across anyone driving this road (like hunters, for instance). I hate roads like this. It is just very stressful to me. I was literally going something like 5 or 10 miles an hour. When I finally got to the top, I decided to park and walk the rest of the way even though I was still a couple miles from the trailhead. I was done with the driving. I needed to get out of the car and hike.
It was a good decision. I had great views of beautiful snow covered Mt. Shasta as I hiked along the road. I got to the trailhead, which is not really a trailhead, because there is no trail. I had to exit the road and descend back down the mountain about 1200 ft. to the bottom of the canyon (this time not in a car). Good news: The fire did clear out all the brush. It was quite easy hiking down the mountain. The poison oak was growing back already but I suppose that is not surprising. I wonder how long until the whole area is too brushy and this route is inaccessible again? It gets a lot steeper near the bottom but I found a way down that was not cliffy. However, the poison oak at the bottom was absolutely horrific. This section had not been burned in the fire. There was no way to avoid touching it. Ugh!
Once down at the creek I had to cross it and make my way upstream, climbing up the middle of the creek above a small cascade. This was quite tricky. I made it!
North Salt Creek Falls is quite a bit bigger than I anticipated, 51 ft. high, and it is incredibly pretty. This one is a winner, an absolute beauty. I had to stand right in the freezing cold creek to take my photos but it was worth it. Now I had to climb back out of the canyon, through all that poison oak, and back up to the road and my car. I prayed profusely to God that there would be no one coming up the narrow road as I drove back down it. He obliged. It was a marvelous Black Friday in Shasta National Forest.
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