PARADISE LOST
When I was down at Paradise Canyon Falls in January I noticed a waterfall in the distance dropping into the river. I was certain that it must be the bottom of Mile Hill Creek. It looked to be a good decent drop and it looked like it would be pretty easy to get to by hiking along the river bed. A future return trip was inserted into my brain.
Fast forward to March. The rain continues. The creeks must be flowing as high as they were back in January. I thought. That return trip to Auburn was extracted from my brain. Here we go.
This time I found a good place to park for free. I was quite happy about that. It added about a mile round-trip to the hike. No problem. As I hiked down the trail I saw that all the little creeks were not flowing nearly so well as they were back in January. At least half as much flow. I was not so happy about that. Big problem. I got down to the river and started hiking along the river bed towards the waterfall. As I suspected it was very easy even though the river was extremely high. I easily made it to the waterfall. It was NOT Mile Hill Creek. It was in fact just one of the small unnamed creeks. One of those small creeks that had half as much flow as back in January. I was not very impressed. I did not really want to take a photo but decided to take one anyway to share with you. It will not likely be going on my website even though it is 24 ft. high. Continuing on to Mile Hill Creek was out of the question because of the cliffs so I retreated back to the trail and up to the car, arriving well before sunset. There was a couple standing around in the bushes. Not doing anything. Just standing there. What in the all out heck were they doing? So weird. Let’s go home.