Another Hair Brained Adventure in NFAR Canyon
On Friday night I took off from work early and headed up to Foresthill again. This time to the Beacroft trailhead. But not to go down that crazy steep trail to the river. I was in search of new waterfalls and a new (old) trail.
The Iowa Hill Ditch to be exact, and over to Tadpole Canyon Creek. This old old canal was built a long time ago, but never completed (thankfully!). You can still see (and follow) the ditch along the incredibly steep cliff side of the North Fork American River canyon. In some places, it is easy to follow. But in others, the trail has slid away, it is very narrow, the footing is very loose, and there are huge deadly dropoffs. I am not one for deadly dropoffs. They freak me out to no end. I debated about continuing. It looked ok. But if those loose rocks slipped from under my feet, I would be a goner. No thank you. Instead, I looked for a way up and around this section. It was a hard hard climb up the ridge, but once I got to the top of it, it was easy to traverse the ridge across the canyon, over to Tadpole Canyon Creek, and back down to the old ditch. It was more difficult, but much safer.
It also took me a lot longer to do this route, as I was anticipating an easy jaunt along the old canal over to the creek. I was hoping to get across the creek, and down the cliff on the other side to a huge waterfall on Tadpole Canyon Creek. But I had run out of time. Instead, I settled for this 20 footer. There were actually three small waterfalls here, as the creek tumbled down the hillside, and before it dropped off the cliffs below me. I did not have time to get down to the big one, but I will be back. The creek looked easily cross-able, and the cliff on the other side did not look difficult to get down. We shall see. Stay tuned.
On another note, after my hike, I drove up a few miles to Sailor Flat. The road is now clear to Sailor Flat, but there is a ton of snow up there still. Unbelievable really. The Sailor Flat Road is not drivable, and probably will not be for a few weeks yet. But one could walk from Foresthill Rd if one was interested in getting down to, say, New York Canyon. Count me in for that one.