On Black Friday (after my morning hike) I had to drive my daughter back to her university in the Bay Area. I hate driving to the Bay Area because the traffic is always bad. I despise traffic. I would rather sit at a Starbucks for two hours (waiting for traffic to subside) than sit in traffic for two hours. It was pretty good on the way there and we made good time but I could see that it was horrid going back the other way. There is no way I was going to drive in that mess to go back home. I would take Journey on a hike instead and then drive back in the evening.
It had only been five days since the Bomb Cyclone but I was sure that all the waterfalls in the Bay Area would be back to just a trickle. The only one I thought might still be good is Cataract Falls which is the perhaps the biggest creek in the area. The problem is that Google Maps was saying the lower road was still closed. That meant I had to drive all the way around to the top of the waterfall and hike down from there. That is a lot of extra driving but I thought I had time for it. I did not realize, however, that they lock the gates on the upper road at sunset. That meant I did not have very much time after all. I figured I would just hike down as far as I could and then whip back up to the car before sunset.
There were only about 10 cars or so at the trailhead, however there were a ton of people on the trail. Where were they all parked? I passed well over 50 groups for sure. Journey had to be on leash for the entire hike. She still very much enjoyed it though.
I made it down to the big waterfall (shown here) and stopped. I would have to boot it back up the trail and did not have time to photograph any of the other cascades (except one other). That did not really bother me because the creek was not flowing very well anyway. I want to come back here when it is flowing much better. For sure I will do that when I can drive to the bottom and also first thing in the morning (when there aren’t very many people). I learned that much today. I also learned not to trust Google or Apple Maps. On the way back up I passed a ranger who told me the lower road was indeed open after all. That explains where all the people came from. Ugh. At least Journey had a good hike but she was quite tired afterwards. I got her a hamburger because she was such a good girl. The drive back home was not too horrible. It was a quick but lovely hike in Marin County.
