This is the fourth waterfall on the beautiful Middle Fork San Joaquin River, 30 ft. high.
June has been awfully hot, much too hot to go hiking, and there is no end to the heat in sight. I’ve been taking it easy at home on the weekends lately. I don’t imagine July or August will be any better. The waterfalls are already done for the year. What am I going to do all summer? Stay home and get fat? No no no.
This is number three of eight significant waterfalls on the Middle Fork San Joaquin River (above Devil’s Postpile – there are more below). That is just one awesome river. This falls is about 40 ft. high. I have pictures of some of the others but unfortunately not all. A long story but essentially I thought I was going to be back on the river the next day in better light, but we changed our planned route, so there are two falls that I missed getting pictures of. Anyway, enjoy this beauty. And I hope you are enjoying the hot weather. I sure am not!
It has been SLOW going processing all my photos from our Eastern Sierra trip. I seem to be so busy with stuff and have no free time. Well, this is Lower Mammoth Creek Falls, about 30 ft. high. It is a bit nicer than the upper falls and more of a straight drop.
I did go hiking this hot weekend but I struck out, and it ended up being more of a scouting hike for next time. The rivers are all very low now, and it is only mid June. They have dropped dramatically in the past week of hot weather. Waterfall season is officially over. Over and out. It is going to be a very long summer.
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This is Lower Garnet Lake Falls, about 30 ft. high. Three fantastic waterfalls on the same stream, so close to each other. I think I hit it at peak snow melt for this year too. In a normal year there would be a lot more flow of course, but for this year, this was about peak flow.
This one is by far the most spectacular waterfall we saw on our Eastern Sierra backpack, and I was not expecting it at all!
From Garnet Lake Falls, we continued hiking downwards to the MF San Joaquin River. It is only a half mile, but you lose about 600 ft. in elevation. It is steep, but going down is pretty easy. There is a trail but it was difficult to follow because of snow cover and because it is just not very clear in places, so of course I just continued to head straight down through the woods when the trail was temporarily lost, knowing we would get to the river before too much longer. Jadon did not at all like “not being on a happy, maintained trail”. During these times, he was constantly searching for any remnant of such trail.
The creek from Garnet Lake descends steeply, as you might imagine, losing 600 ft. in a half mile. And thus, you might imagine, there are waterfalls. The big one here I am calling Middle Garnet Lake Falls. I suppose one could possibly think of the entire stream from top to bottom as one huge waterfall, but really it is not. There is distinct separation between them. After the first falls at the lake outlet, the stream levels out for quite awhile (still descending, though), until it reaches this middle section where it drops vertically and huge. I estimate this middle falls to be about 150 ft. high, and it was easy enough to get right up beside it from along the “trail”. It was an amazing and glorious sight.