Leon Turnbull Photography

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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It was kind of a lame weekend for me, no new waterfalls to report. You can’t win them all. The hike I really wanted to do was all snowed in. It was only about 5000 ft. in elevation, but the road had too much snow to continue. With this ridiculously warm month, I was surprised I could not drive up this road at least partially. Anyone want to buy me a snowmobile? I could have used one this weekend. I did not have a very great backup plan. I finally gave up all hope and went to Traverse Creek Falls.

I didn’t really have much desire to go back to Traverse Creek Falls again, but well I was in the area, and had nothing better to do. It is an easy hike, but there are some steep parts. Someone had cut the rope on the first descent. Fortunately, it is not the worst of the steep sections and a rope is not really needed (if you are careful, which of course I was). The second rope at the brink of the falls is still there. Good thing because it is much more treacherous there.

The waterfall was in Double Mode, but just barely. It is almost back to Single Mode after a month of no rain. I expected it to be in Double, but was hoping for a bit more oomph on that second segment. It looks like we may be getting some more of that much needed oomph in March. There is good news, rain is finally back in the forecast. El Nino may be making a comeback. Pray it is a big comeback. Anyhow, I think I got a somewhat different shot of the falls this time, and was standing in the middle of the cold creek to get it.

Whenever I am at Traverse Creek I always bring a garbage bag to pick up trash. In past years there has been a horrible problem here with idiots leaving behind their garbage, but the last couple times I have been here there has been very little to pick up. I was almost ready to declare Traverse Creek “problem” free. Not quite. This time around it seems we are back to square one. I picked up a whole bag of trash. Mostly beer cans, I guess, but a lot of other stuff as well, conveniently thrown into the bushes where all the poison oak is located. If I get poison oak from picking up trash … I will be very unhappy (to put it mildly). I also found a box for a mini cross bow, just left behind at the top of the falls. Really? If you are going to bring something like that on your hike, why wouldn’t you unpack it out of the box at your car? And leave the darn box at your car! If you don’t want to do that, then why can’t you take the box back with you? You packed it in, you can pack it out! Some people’s children. I did have a lovely morning.

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Nice little roadside waterfall here, a very pretty one, 48 ft. high. Normally this creek is dry when I drive by here, but this time it was flowing rather nice. I wish I had more time to explore because I think there could be other falls on this creek, but I had to get out to a different hike. No time to waste.

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This past weekend I returned again to Moore Creek to further the exploration of that awesome little gem. It is a killer long drive (especially so in winter) – and took about 20 hours to drive it, give or take about 20 hours. I was expecting to find snow from the recent storm, and indeed I did, but fortunately the road was clear of snow, but not clear of potholes. I do believe they plow this road in the winter, at least partially. That is good news because I thought I might not even make it all the way out there, in which case it would have been a big waste of time and gas. Fortunately it was not (a big waste) and I had another fantastic day.

I photographed six waterfalls on this newest adventure: 4 new ones and 2 re-shoots, (plus I re-visited all the waterfalls again on the creek), and yet I still have not completely explored this amazing creek. Indeed, I think I will have to come back at least three more times in the future to complete the exploration of this area. When I do that is the million dollar question, I don’t have much desire to do that long drive again soon, but I imagine I will probably be back sometime in the spring if we get any decent snowmelt this year.

With snow on the ground, I saw that I was following another set of prints up to the waterfalls. It was definitely not Bigfoot. Whoever it was must have been there in the last day or two. I followed the prints the entire hike, to all the falls, and following my GPS route fairly precisely. That’s how I know it was not Bigfoot. Does Bigfoot have GPS? But who was it? A fan of waterfallswest? Please let me know if it was you!

Some interesting tidbits: The creek was flowing a bit stronger than last time I was here, not much but definitely noticeable. Oh yeah, it was also a heckuva lot colder than last time (not that I fell in, or anything like that). I saw that someone had cut down the zipline at the campsite area beside the 21 foot falls (pictured above). Was it the mysterious person whose tracks I was following? Or someone else? It was still distracting, nonetheless, because it was still attached at the top of the falls on the other side of that fast flowing creek. I looked around a bit more at the campsite area. Other things I found: a bunch of interesting wood carvings (what else are you going to do if you are living there all summer?). I did not see any river otters this time, but I did see a bobcat. A big old boy, and I got a good look at him too (from my car and no pics unfortunately – I suppose I should have my camera ready at all times when I am driving, eh). All in all, it was a great day again in the Sierra Nevada.

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