Difficult
This morning I went on a hike back up on Ice House Rd. This is my third time already up there on Ice House this spring, and I plan to be going up there many more times. It is one of my favorite hiking areas in the greater Sacramento area. There are so many areas to explore, and many waterfalls to find. This is what I was doing this morning: exploring to find new waterfalls. And I found one indeed. But it was certainly a difficult one.
When I was up at Jay Bird a couple weeks ago, I had initially planned to explore into Round Tent Canyon. But there was still too much snow at the top of the canyon. I could have snowshoed in, but it would have been a difficult 9 mile snowshoe hike, and I did not want to do that at the time. I returned here this morning, two weeks later, and most of the snow was gone! I was able to drive in on the road a half mile, but then got stopped by a snow mound. I would have to hike the rest of the way, but that was fine. I would not need snowshoes, so it would not be too difficult. At least the first part of the hike was not difficult, anyway. It was certainly a pleasant hike along the road paralleling Round Tent Canyon. The creek, starting out as a small little stream, picked up speed as it continued on, getting more water along the way from side streams and melting snow. The steepness of the canyon also picked up steam along the way, getting steeper and steeper, and much steeper. I was definitely wondering if I would be able to get anywhere near a waterfall, if indeed there was even one.
I had no idea, really, if there was a waterfall in Round Tent Canyon. After examining my topo maps, it looked like there “might be” a 50 foot high waterfall in there somewhere, at a certain spot. As I got down to that certain spot, though, it required getting off the nice mellow road, and getting down and dirty in the midst of the forest. The terrain was now very brushy, very steep, and very difficult. I had really hoped that the terrain would not be so brushy, as I had quite a ways to go still, down to the waterfall. No such luck on that one. I persevered however, and came down to a spot which was close to where I anticipated a waterfall to be, and found just a small 20 foot waterfall. I looked downstream, and saw the terrain seemingly flatten out, so this must be the only waterfall down here after all.
I made my way down the steep mountain to try to get to the bottom of this 20 footer. It was as messy as anything I have ever seen. Huge trees fallen all over the place at the base of the waterfall. There was no way I could get up to it to take a photo. It looked though, that I might be able to get up to it if I crossed the creek. I did not bring my water shoes, and I really did not want to do this, so I debated amongst myself, and finally decided that I should cross since I came all this way and this was the only waterfall down here. After crossing, I found that I was able to get up to the falls, but I was too low! I could only see the bottom 10 ft. section, and could not see the top of the falls from this spot. There was no other viewpoint. I crawled under the huge logs spanning across the creek, which is something that kinda freaks me out. What if the logs all of a sudden collapse on top of me? I have the same issue when driving and I get stopped under an overpass or something. What if there is an earthquake when I am under there? Anyway, I buckled up my courage and crawled under there to take a photo anyway. The logs did not collapse, and there was no earthquake.
So after all that shenanigans, I crossed back over the creek and started my climb up the mountain. But fortunately, I took a closer look at my map, and I realized that I was not really even close to where I had thought the waterfall should be. I had better continue on downstream to see if there might be yet another waterfall down there. When would I ever be back in this canyon? Never. So more difficult cross country and bushwhacking brought me down to yes, the 50 ft. high waterfall that I anticipated getting to in the first place. Indeed I measured it to be exactly 50 ft. high, though it looked to my eye that it was actually quite higher than that. It was another steep descent down the mountain, and I could not get all the way down to the bottom due to a sheer dropoff, but I crawled up on a rock on the side of the cliff, and was able to take this photo of it. Getting any closer or a better angle would have been far too dangerous.
After that it was just a matter of climbing back out of the canyon and back to the road. It was difficult and it took awhile, but I finally made it back to the road. Thanks to my GPS that works so well under tree cover, it would have been almost impossible to find my way back otherwise. Maybe. Once back on the road, I made the long, slow, (and easy) journey back to my vehicle parked near Ice House Rd. It was a crazy day, but I was so pleased that I found this new waterfall deep within Eldorado National Forest.
More info on Round Tent Canyon Falls:
http://www.waterfallswest.com/waterfall.php?id=1663