Journey stayed home this weekend. Sad for her but there were two reasons for this: Firstly, my wife Tara is going out of country for 10 days and I wanted to Journey to spend as much time with her as possible this weekend. When Tara is gone all she does is lay down by the door all day and she is so sad. She will not fetch with me or play with me. I can take her on walks but I do have to work during the day. Also it’s going to be almost 100 degrees this week which is going to make our walks a bit too hard to do. Secondly, I knew this hike would be too hard for her. I was down here once before in winter and it was too dangerous. I vowed to return in summer. So I did.
I stopped the car about 3 miles before the trailhead because I had to use the facilities. There were mosquitoes. They were definitely mosquitoes. Ugh. It is October! Why are there mosquitoes? I did not bring any bug spray with me. It is October after all. This makes for an interesting point: at our house we have had these tiny little mosquitoes in our backyard. In October! And they are biting! I’ve never seen mosquitoes like this before. What the heck is this? Well anyway, when I got to the trailhead there were not any mosquitoes. So that’s a good thing. But there were gnats instead. They weren’t too bad on the hike to the waterfall but on the hike back they were quite annoying and I had to put on my headnet. Thank goodness I always bring my headnet with me.
The hike was a lot worse than I remembered. It was very brushy. And very difficult. Journey would’ve hated it. I finally made it down to the creek and now I had to go upstream to the waterfall. It was not easy getting upstream with all the brush. At the end you have to climb up a little waterfall. This is where I had to turn back last time in winter because it was too dangerous. Today, it was fairly easy to do. Technically, Journey could’ve probably done it if we were very careful. But all that brush. I’m glad I did not bring her.
I thought the waterfall would be better than it was, even at low flow. It was still rather pretty. Upper Cherokee Creek Falls consists of two 20 ft. cascades. Both would be great at high flows. But could I have even gotten here at higher flows? That is the question.
I climbed back out of the canyon through all that brush, back to the car, and drove home. When Journey greeted me at the door she knew I was out hiking. She gave me a sad eyes look. Why did you leave me at home, daddy? I’m sorry baby but you really would not have liked it today. It was a quick and hot day in Tahoe National Forest.
