Leon Turnbull Photography

The Apr 1 final snow pack results are in. Unfortunately it is not a joke. Or perhaps it is a very sad joke. The snow pack is just 6% for northern California, 20% for Central Sierra, 33% for Southern Sierra. Most of the snow we had melted in March of course and we had no precipitation. We had a nice April storm but this did not add to the snow pack, it was melted in a couple days. It did help the reservoirs, I suppose. Next winter we are looking at a El Nino, possibly a super (strong) El Nino. That does not necessarily mean we will have a good winter. Remember all the hype for the super El Nino in 2016? We ended up with just an average winter that year.

I had plans this weekend to do a quick overnight trip to visit a couple waterfalls I discovered last year. It would have been awesome if I could have made it.

I expected there would be 2-4 inches of snow from the April storm. There was about 3 inches. It was enough to make the hiking a lot more difficult and tiring than I anticipated. My major worry was where to park my vehicle overnight. I could not drive down the road because of the snow. I did not want to park overnight along the busy highway. There was nowhere else to park. My last ditch plan was to park back at the Peddler station and walk along the highway for a mile. There was an easy path to walk well off the highway. Well, it would have been easy if there wasn’t any snow. Nonetheless, I think it was a good safe choice to park at Peddler.

I did not see any bear tracks in the snow (a bit surprising) but I did see fresh mountain lion tracks. On the second day I saw more fresh mountain lion tracks. And there were older tracks as well, so there is definitely a lion cruising around this area. I did not see him. I suppose that is a good thing.

My planned hike was 6 miles half of which is off trail. The on trail part was easy. The off trail part not so much. There was quite a bit of brush and it was slow going. With over a mile left to go I came to a hard stop. An unnamed creek. Roaring. Uncrossable. This was not even the main creek that I knew I would have to cross (which is a bigger creek than this one). I was not expecting so much flow in this little thing. It is no doubt due to all the snow melting from this last storm. Last week probably I could have crossed this one easily. Not today.

It was almost sunset and I was very tired. I set up camp beside this unnamed creek, ate some food, and went to bed. It was very windy. The wind was battering my tent like there was no tomorrow. It was relentless. My tent held up well. This was the first good test for my new Durston tent and it passed admirably. I had to go out once to tighten one side because it seemed looser than the other side but after that, all was good. Of course I still could not sleep with the wind howling. I prayed to God to let it stop. At midnight, the wind stopped. Just like that. Now considering that the forecast said it was going to be windy all night and that is what I was expecting, I say this is a miracle. Whatever you think, it did allow me to get some sleep.

In the morning I consulted my map. I did not want to go home with nothing to show for it. It looked like there could possibly be a waterfall on this unnamed, uncrossable creek, just a short distance downstream. Off I went exploring. It was brushy but I was able to find a way through it, and before long I found my waterfall!

I am calling this unnamed waterfall West Fork Tragedy Creek Falls. It is the west fork of Tragedy Creek so it makes sense. It is 48 ft. high. It has multiple segments and I took quite a few photos. My trip was not a complete failure after all.

I went back to camp, ate breakfast, and hiked back to the car. I was home by 1:30PM. It was a quick and very interesting overnight trip in Eldorado National Forest.

2 Comments