Leon Turnbull Photography

Winter is over. Spring is here. It’s the end of the world. (in my view, anyway). Everyone, media and otherwise, is saying that El Nino was so awesome this year, El Nino saved us, El Nino filled all our reservoirs, El Nino gave us a such a large snow pack, El Nino made a huge impact on our drought, El Niño this, El Niño that, blah, blah, blah. Well what do you think? To be honest, I am disappointed. I was expecting a lot more from the super big El Nino. Let’s be very clear: El Nino *did* make an impact on our winter in California. If we did not have El Nino this year, we would have had another awful year, and I am very grateful to God for sending the El Nino to give us drought relief and a decent winter. Nonetheless, we still have serious drought. Southern California had a horrible winter again. El Nino is supposed to make a big impact to southern California, and not so much in the north. In fact, it was the opposite: the north fared much better than the south. What are the numbers? We finished the winter with 125% of average precipitation in the north (less than 100% in the Southern Sierra Nevada). The snow pack results are worse: 97% of normal in the north, 88% in the central, and 72% in the south. So basically, we only had an average winter in the north, and a below average winter in the south. And yet I still hear people complain that we had too much rain this year in California. Are you kidding me? I would have hoped that we would end up well above average from a super El Nino in both the north and south. It gives me trepidation for the future. Next year we will be either ENSO neutral or have a weak La Nina, so does that mean we are back to the drought?

Well enough of that, on to better news …

I knew there was another waterfall above Burstarse Falls. But how could you get up to it? If you think you know the way yourself then you will be disappointed, but if you want to know the proper route, then you will find it on my website.
http://waterfallswest.com/waterfall.php?id=upper-burstarse-falls-890

It is a killer climb, very steep, very difficult, very brushy, very crumbly loose rocks, and very cliffy. Did I miss anything? I really did not think I would get anywhere close to the falls. The total elevation gain on the hike is well over 2000 ft. and unfortunately I could not get the view of the waterfall that I wanted because it was too cliffy. No sense in dying just yet. I scrambled around for quite a while, and finally found a side view of the waterfall from the edge of a cliff to get this shot. Well, better this than nothing. It is a sweet looking waterfall slide for sure, 102 feet high, and the view from here is hard to beat with the Crags looming above you and an amazing view of the canyon. It did feel like I was at the end of the world.

It was a tough climb down the mountain, and I was dead tired when I got back to the car but I didn’t break any ankles on those loose rocks (it was close).

The next day, Easter Sunday morning, we were in church service, my kids were sitting in between my wife and I. I was sitting there rubbing my eye like crazy as it was very itchy. My wife is waving at me from the other end of the pew, as if to say what the heck is wrong with you? I’m like, huh? By evening, the verdict was in: My eye was all puffed up. I had poison oak in my eye. Oh crikey! I have only had poison oak in my eye once before, which was probably about 8 or so years ago. That was in both eyes, and it was so bad I had to go to the doctor. At that time, my daughter was very young and thought I was an alien from another planet. She would not go anywhere near me. Thankfully this time, she is older and wiser, and knows I am not an alien (or perhaps I have done well fooling her). Nonetheless, how did I get poison oak? There was no oak on this entire hike that I saw anywhere. I’m thinking it might have been on a different hike. That same afternoon, my wife, brother-in-law, and I went on a short geocaching adventure, and we did see poison oak. I absolutely did not touch it, but it was very “ripe”, just oozing with urushiol oil. At the time, I joked that all I have to do is look at the stuff and I will get poison oak. I seriously think that is what happened. The fumes in the oak leaves must have just wafted up to my eye. Invisible wafting oils? You no doubt think I am crazy, that is not possible, which is what my wife and brother-in-law think, but the only other alternative is I got the oak from the hike in which there was no poison oak. Either way, it is not fun. Oh and at the same time as all this, I have a mysterious bite on my back. It is all puffed up like a tick bite, but there were no embedded ticks, and I did not see any of them on my hike either. Invisible wafting ticks? Most definitely not fun.

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It was not quite the shot I envisioned. But it was not too bad.

I was up at the speck of dawn, before 4 AM. It is a long drive up to the Castle Crags trailhead, and I arrived about an hour before sunrise. The weather report hinted of partly cloudy skies, but it was pretty iffy, about a 50% chance. There were some clouds around, but nothing, nada, at the trailhead. I sent up a little prayer, in fact I was pretty much praying for clouds the entire drive. I did not particularly want (actually had no desire whatsoever) to make a long hike in the dark with no prospect of a decent sunrise. So I started my hike in the dark anyway. Surely God would not let me down this morning.

The trail starts out with a bang, a 500 foot elevation gain up to the Pacific Crest Trail in a half mile. I made it up in no time at all, in fact it felt like I had only climbed 200 feet. I couldn’t believe I was already at the top of the ridge. The only explanation is that because it was so dark, and I was freaked out about lions hiding in every shadow, and I was so pumped on adrenaline that I did not notice the elevation in the hike. Well I did not see any lions, or tigers, or bears. Or anything at all. All I heard was the sound of fast rushing Castle Creek far below me, and the occasional sounds of little critters in the bushes (which also freaked me out).

So I arrived at Burstarse Creek on time, just before sunrise. I could not find the view that I wanted with the waterfall in the foreground and the Crags looming above. That’s because the view did not exist. I suppose I should have researched it a bit more beforehand but my writeup from the last time I was here said: “you will be able to see both the upper falls and lower falls from the trail (with the Castle Crags in the background providing an amazing backdrop)”. I did find that view but it was obscured and certainly not photo worthy. Nonetheless, I continued up the trail and found a decent shot to take with the Crags and a portion of the upper waterfall. And lo and behold there were a few clouds, and a little bit of color. Not much but thank you, Lord, for this. So it was not the shot I had envisioned, but it was not too bad.

I then proceeded up to the main waterfall, which as I said I have been to before.

So do you really think I came all the way out here again to Burstarse Falls just for a sunrise shot? Think again matey. But to find out what comes next, you will have to wait for my next post.

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I lied to you. So sorry about that. Really. I said that I was not going back to Moore Creek again until spring at the earliest. Well I went back this weekend. I am nuts about this Creek this year for some reason. Go figure. Technically, as of this weekend it is officially spring now, so it is not really a lie. To me, though, spring is April and May, not March, and that is what I had meant. Anyway, I went back. And I found not one, but two more waterfalls on this crazy awesome creek. It was crazy awesome difficult to get there, however.

It is well over a 2000 foot climb in elevation from the trailhead. Wow. For the most part, it is OK because you are hiking on a road or  trail. It’s that last bit though that is killer. I had to scramble up the mountain side along the creek; it was not cliffy but it sure was steep. There was no snow and I really had expected to need my snowshoes for this hike. There was snow last time I was here, and we just had two huge storms, but it is all melted now. It is difficult to know when you are 2000 ft below your destination if you are going to need snowshoes, but I did not take them on the hike. Good decision. My back thanked me. Anyway, I found this 28 foot high waterfall. It was too difficult to photograph from below, due to all the trees and brush so I found a spot to photograph it from the side. Even though I was physically beat, I then climbed to the top of the falls and continued upstream another half-mile. I will never be back here again so I had to finish exploring this creek, and now I can say I am officially done with Moore Creek. I found another 20 foot high Falls upstream, and that one was almost identical in appearance to the first one, just a tad smaller. It also had too many trees and brush at the bottom and I had to photograph it from the side as well. So these waterfalls were not super awesome big ones, and it was way too hard to get to them, but I was definitely happy to have found them. It was much easier going back down the mountain but nonetheless I was dead tired when I got back to the car. I dunked myself in the freezing creek at the bottom to cool off. Refreshing!   It was another great day on Moore Creek. 

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After a very dry February, we have had a wet and much needed start to March in California. A miracle March? The comeback El Nino kid? Well … let’s see … In two weekends, we had 18 inches of rain in the northern Sierra foothills, 8 on the first weekend and 10 on the second weekend. Some areas of course had less, and some may have had more. The overall average amount of rain for March normally is 7 inches, so we are well over that 2 weeks into the month, and have made up for the dry February already. We are above average on rainfall for the year, however the snowpack is still below average, mostly because a lot melted in the warm February that we had. I would really like to see the snow pack go up to well above average before April 1, but I’m not sure it will because the pesky ridge is trying to make another appearance. I only see one more storm in the forecast this month, but we’ll have to see what happens.

Of course I tried to get out in the rain this past weekend, but I really had a tough time of it and was shutdown at every possible turn. Everything and everyone was against me this past weekend, so it seemed. Do you want a recap? 1: a huge landslide blocked a road preventing me from driving past. 2: At a second spot, a tree had fallen in the road preventing me from driving past. 3: A road was gated, so I could not drive down it – I could have and should have walked but decided it was not worth the effort. 4: I was stopped by a cliff that was too dangerous to get past. 5 and 6: The two waterfalls I did find were just very small 10 footers, and I did not even bother with any pictures, and 7: On Sunday afternoon when I went out hiking in the rain after church, I came to a stream crossing that was more like a river. A small stream that normally could be easily jumped across, but instead I found a raging beast that was not crossable. Even wading across it was too dangerous as the flow was too strong, one slip and I would have been down at the bottom of the canyon, and probably into the river and eventually coming out somewhere in Folsom Lake.

Not only all this, but I was almost killed driving home on Saturday. I was stopped on the highway at a red light, waiting for it to turn green. Why are there stop lights on the highway, I never understand that, and there should not be, but nonetheless, there is, and it is very easy to see this one from a mile away at least. The weather conditions were perfectly fine and there is no excuse to not seeing it. I am just setting the stage for you. I was sitting there waiting for the green light, and waiting and waiting for well over 1 minute, and wondering why it was not changing for so long. I happened to look in my rear view mirror, and all of a sudden I see a car coming up behind me doing about 70 miles per hour. He swerves to avoid me, missing me by just mere inches (not exaggerating), goes through the red light (thankfully no other cars were coming), spins out, and ends up in the ditch. There was no damage to him or his car. I was more concerned about damage to me or someone else. If he had hit me at 70 mph what would have happened to me? And how on earth could he not see the red light from a mile away? What was he doing? Texting? Talking on the phone? Drinking? All of the above?

So anyway, as you can see it was definitely not my weekend. Oh yeah, did I mention that it took me almost a full hour to drive through the town of Marysville because of some stupid parade?? Even so, despite all this, clearly God was protecting me in all my situations, especially on the drive home. Next weekend I am entirely sure will be much better. It has to be!

On the plus side, the only plus side, I did see a coyote and a bear on Saturday, the first ones of the year. Considering it was a cold, rainy day in the middle of winter, I sure have to wonder why Mr. Bear was not sleeping!

Here’s a photo from Lower White River Falls, Oregon, from January. Enjoy.

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Rain rain on my face. It hasn’t stopped raining for days. My world is a flood. Slowly I become one with the mud. (Jars of Clay)

What a crazy, difficult, and fun adventure! It was well worth it to find this gem. I will have to  say this is my find of the year thus far, a magnificent 100 ft. high waterfall. Yet another new discovery from waterfallswest.com. You are welcome. You gotta come see this beauty.

It was the beginning of the end in northern California this weekend. Well, more to say, the beginning of a huge storm to get March rolling on the right foot. We picked up 6 inches of rain in the foothills so far this weekend, with another big storm today. Certain areas of the state had up to 10 inches already. We could get up to 20 inches of rain by the end of next weekend. That would be incredible if it comes to pass, but at least we should have a good chunk over 10 inches.

The snow levels were high to start with on Saturday, so that means the creeks are overflowing with rain and snow melt. I headed up to higher elevations on Ice House Rd, hoping to find some amazing waterfalls. I found one.

I woke up to a bit of a break in the weather Saturday morning, which made hiking a lot more pleasant. The rain would be starting up again though, by 10am or so, and in the afternoon, there was supposed to be crazy big winds, and the snow would be starting. I wanted to be off the mountain before that happened. I thought I should have lots of time, this should be an easy hike. Have you heard that one before?

I was able to drive up the road a bit further than I expected, but finally hit a snow wall. Walk from here. I did not need my snowshoes at first, but figured I would need them later, so I carried them along the way. They are heavy for my aching back, so essentially I carried them in my hand the entire distance. So my back was ok, but my arms were sore by the end of it! I did use them though, so it’s a good thing I did that.

After about a mile, I had to get off the main road and follow another road through a campground area and continue following the road up stream. This is when things got difficult. As I said, it should have been an easy hike. However … the snow was all melting from the warm weather and rain, there had been a couple inches of rain so far, and all the unnamed side creeks were going nuts. There was literally a river running down the middle of the road. Not kidding. I had to cross numerous side streams, and some of them were quite difficult to cross without getting wet feet. In other words, I got wet feet. (trying to cross a stream on a slippery, flimsy log is not a good idea). And if that was not enough, the whole area was a swamp fest! Trying to negotiate around all the flooded area was a nightmare. It took a lot longer to get up to the falls than I expected.

By the time I finally got up there, the rain was just starting up again. I just barely had time to take some photos. Unfortunately, I could not measure this beast because the battery died in my laser range finder, but it is about 100 ft. high. There is an upper section and a lower section as well. Absolutely magnificent. The hike back was wet, needless to say, and by the time I got back to the car I was soaked through and through, and cold, and hungry.

I had initially entertained the idea of going to Bassi Falls after this hike. That creek was very very full when I passed by it. It would be awesome, but it is much harder to hike Bassi Falls in the winter than the summer, and I was just dead tired after the first hike. Plus, I did not have any dry jacket and it was raining pretty good by the time I got back down there. Ah well. I had a fabulous day on Ice House.

http://waterfallswest.com/waterfall.php?id=rocky-basin-creek-falls-658

 

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