Leon Turnbull Photography

Although I had initially hoped on doing this hike Fri evening, I could not as I arrived too late. But since this was my primary goal for the weekend, I thus had to stay around until Sat evening to do this hike.

There were tons of people at Kennedy Meadows. I could not even find a parking space near the resort and trailhead. I went back to the ” trail” parking area (which is nowhere near the trailhead) and parked. It was early and I was very tired so I tried to take a nap, but it was far too warm to do that. I went out to a picnic table where it was cooler and lay down for about three hours, listening to the nearby campers playing Yahtzee. It was a boring afternoon but still far too early to start hiking. Finally I ate my dinner and drove back down to the resort where there was one (and only one) parking place.

There were many people on the trail and lots of people fishing. I never knew this was such a popular place. But the worst thing by far was all the horse crap on the trail. This is my number two pet peeve (number one is why horses can go on trails in parks but dogs cannot). Horses are far worse than dogs. And why can’t horse owners pick up their crap? Dog owners do. I really really do NOT appreciate having to walk through horse crap on my hike. And this trail was by far the worst I have ever seen. It was constant crap the entire hike (not kidding). Despite this annoyance it was certainly a gorgeous hike along the Middle Fork Stanislaus River. It had an incredible glacier blue color that I have only seen before in British Columbia. It was so beautiful I had an overwhelming urge to jump in for a swim. Of course it would have been far too terribly cold for doing that.

The trail climbs easily up to the confluence of Kennedy and Summit creeks where we find two waterfalls. I went first to Summit Creek Falls which was in shade and flowing beautifully (shown above). Unfortunately I was not alone. Another photographer came by taking pictures of the waterfall. I must say I do prefer having my waterfalls all to myself and usually I plan it so this is the case but this trail is just too popular for that.

I zipped on back to Kennedy Creek Falls but it was still in sun. I estimated that I would have to wait at least one perhaps one and a half hours until it came into shade, and I would be hiking back to the car in the dark. Normally, I would have done this, but I was far too tired to wait and I still had a very long drive home. I did wait around for awhile though and I think I got lucky as some clouds passed in front of the sun, so I may have gotten a decent shot of that falls after all.

More info on Summit Creek Falls:
http://waterfallswest.com/waterfall.php?id=715