Leon Turnbull Photography

I took Monday off work and headed up into the mountains.This particular place was not where I wanted to go on this Monday morning, but it is where I ended up. There was more snow on the ground than I expected from the “small” storm. Well, it’s not like more snow fell than they were forecasting. There was only a couple inches, and that is not a problem for driving in, except the road I was going on was very steep, and as I drove higher and higher, it got steeper and steeper, and icier and icier, and that would mean it would be more and more harrowing to drive back down it later. So I gave up and went to Plan B.

Plan B was the Upper Truckee River, which of course I have been to before. This time, however, I would go much further than I had ever been before. Where no one has gone before. Not even Jean Luc Picard.

Well of course the weather forecasters were wrong again. It was supposed to snow more in the morning, and not break until the afternoon. That would give me all morning for hiking to multiple waterfalls in good light. Yeah right. The sun was already breaking before I even started my hike. I barely made it to this waterfall in time, and when I got to the upper falls, it was in full sun. I only took this one photo all day long.

From the upper falls, it would be another 1.5 miles of hiking to get to my planned destination. That should be easy. But it took forever! It seemed like I was in a time warp and not making any progress. My legs were moving, my body was getting tired, but I was not going anywhere. There was some brush, there was a marshy area I had to go around, and there was a decent sized lake I found that was not marked anywhere on my map, but it wasn’t really all that difficult and it should not have taken so long. I thought of turning back plenty of times before I finally got to the spot where I would need to cross the river. There were plenty (actually hundreds) of fallen logs in this area, and on some of them perhaps I could have crossed, but they all seemed to be either far too slippery or far too unstable, or both. I eventually decided to just get on my water shoes and wade across. On the other side I kept my water shoes on and continued trudging through the snow. You might think that I would get frostbite very quickly by doing that, but I had on my neoprene wet socks, and they kept my little toes quite warm. It was not too far up to the falls from there. Except that there was no waterfall! I was so certain there would be another waterfall up here on this river, but it was not to be, not even a small one. C’est la vie, as Jean Luc would say. You win some and you lose some. It was still a very fun hike through the fresh snow in the mountains, and exploring new places. Time to go down, cross the river, and back to the car. It was much quicker going back down, following my tracks in the snow. The big question is, will we get any more of it? Or was this the last gasp of winter? I sure hope not.

The snow is melting! The waterfalls are flowing! Of course, the trouble is there is not very much snow to melt this year, less than 20 percent of average, possibly the worst year ever! So in other words, the waterfalls will certainly not be flowing for long this spring. Get up and at ’em now, folks!

I’ve had this one on my list for awhile, but I’ve always dismissed it because it seemed like such a long drive and such a long hike. Well, there is no time like the present, and I decided to go for it.

It is a very very long drive out to the trailhead for Picayune Valley, which is past French Meadows Reservoir (which, by the way, was only about a quarter full – really awful). Before I got there though, I discovered that my maps did not get loaded into my GPS. Ugh! If you remember, this happened before when I went to Middle Big Kimshew Falls. Well I realized at that time, the reason was that my memory card died. So I got a new memory card, and all was quite well after that. This time I am not sure what happened, though the problem seems a bit different. It might be my GPS that is dying now. I sure hope not because I really love my GPS. Anyway, no maps means great difficulty in knowing where to go. The waterfall is along a well maintained trail, though, and I was pretty sure I could get to the falls, “if” I could find the trailhead. That was a big “if”. If the trailhead was signed, then it would be no issue, but I did not know if it was signed, and if it was not, then I would be utterly lost. So good news, the trailhead was signed. All is well, and I began my hike.

Right at the trailhead is a creek crossing. Without a map, I was not sure if this was the river or not. The trail is supposed to follow along the river and I should not cross it here, but it did not look like the river. Yet it was sure flowing like a river! In fact, it was Talbot Creek, which I did need to cross, and it was flowing strong. Too strong to rock hop across, so I had to shed my boots and wade across. Well that is good news and it would mean the waterfalls would be really good as well, but I was already quite late starting, and I was concerned because Picayune Valley Falls would be in the sun early, and it was a 4.5 mile hike to get there. So I booted it. As fast as I could hike. About 3 miles in, there is a crossing of the Middle Fork American River, and it would have stronger flow then Talbot Creek of course, and I had been worried that I would not be able to cross it at all. Yet it was strange because I could just rock hop across the river. That is because there were some huge rocks in the river that I could get across on. No need to get the feet wet again.

When I finally arrived at the falls, I found it still in shade. I was very tired from the fast paced hike, but I made it! I worked my way down to the bottom of the falls, and it was absolutely gorgeous! Picayune Valley Falls is 41 ft. high, consisting of multiple segments. So very pretty, and I am glad I finally made it out here. It is certainly worth the long drive and hike! I was stuck with the single viewpoint shown here, the creek was flowing too strong to cross, and I could not get closer because the rocks were complete ice. It was a beautiful “spring” day in the Sierra.

Well it’s not much, but this is what I got to this weekend. Yet I do think it would be very very pretty at higher flows, and I would not hesitate to return here in the future, if I know the creek is flowing well. This is East Panther Creek Falls, 25 ft. high.

The trip had a very shaky beginning to say the least. I was stopped for speeding. I was only going 15mph over the speed limit, and going down a hill. My big SUV picks up speed very quickly going down hills, and I do not like to press the brake so frequently. I had not been speeding on the drive thus far, but at this particular moment, I was not paying attention to my speed, and there he was waiting at the bottom of the hill. Dog-gone-it! When he took my license and registration back to his car, I started praying fervently. Please Lord, let this just be a warning, I cannot afford a big expense like this. Well in less than a minute, he came back to the car and told me he was just giving me a warning. Wow! How amazing is that! Thank you Lord, and thank you Officer! Now Lord, how about another miracle and please send us more rain next week! That was my next prayer. It is a bit interesting because two days ago, the weather forecasters were saying “increasing confidence” for us getting rain next week, and for the rest of the month as well. Then just yesterday I looked at the forecast and all the rain was completely gone from the forecast. Are you kidding me? I was totally depressed in seeing that Friday, and even more so as I headed out hiking Saturday morning. And yet, when I looked at the forecast Saturday afternoon? The rain is back in the forecast for next week! It doesn’t seem like it is going to be very much rain, but I hope this is another answer to prayer.

I anticipated there being quite a lot of snow at 6000 ft. when I started my hike. They had a foot or more of snow on the I-80 corridor last week, but down here the snow was all gone. It seemed like they got a lot less here, only about two inches or so, and most of it had melted. I should have checked this area before I came, but I did not think of doing so. Why would I think they had so much less snow in this area? Well I guess I wouldn’t need my snow shoes. As I hiked along, I first came to West Panther Creek, and it was barely a trickle. No snow to be found. East Panther Creek is about the same size drainage, so things were not looking very promising, yet when I arrived at that creek, I saw that it did have quite a bit more flow, and there was more snow around as well. It was not very great though, I was anticipating this creek to have a lot of snow melt happening today, and would be flowing quite well. Not even close.

I was not sure there was a waterfall on East Panther Creek, just hoping that I might find something. I started hiking up the canyon, and the going was very easy at first. Before long, however, the terrain got very brushy and much steeper, as the walls of the canyon closed in on me. I had to cross the creek multiple times, and climb up through the brush and through the creek to keep going forward. I somehow lost my bear spray along the way as I battled my way through the brush. I was going to look for it in earnest on the way back, but I decided to go a different route. Speaking of which … my wife just told me about a water bottle she forgot at a certain place and had a friend go pick it up for her, so she bought her flowers as a thank you. Really? A bouquet of flowers for a water bottle? The lady did not have to go out of her way at all to go get it. Geepers, that is too nice. Well … I guess what I am trying to say is that if you come up here and find my bear spray and return it to me then I will buy you a bouquet of flowers. Or if you’re a man, perhaps a case of beer would be a better option.

I finally made it up to where I thought there would be a waterfall, and voila, it’s a waterfall! It was 25 ft. high, just making it above my 20 ft. limit. And it was a pretty one. As I said, I really want to come back here when the flow is better, but coming up along the creek bed at high flows would not be do-able. I thought about it and decided it might be better to go back by climbing to the top of the ridge, hike back along the ridge, eventually getting back to where I started. No creek crossings necessary. And it worked pretty well. It did get a bit brushy, but all in all it was a much better route. I shall return.

After my short hike to Lower Rattlesnake Falls, I got in the car and drove to the next destination. This road was not plowed and with 8 inches of new snow on the ground, that is pretty much the limit that my four wheel drive SUV with low clearance can handle. The snow was rubbing against my car’s tummy, but I made it to the trailhead without any difficulty.

It is a six mile round trip hike to this waterfall, and I had my snowshoes on. That may not seem far but if you have hiked in the snow before you know that it is at least twice as difficult as a hike without any snow. So essentially I was hiking 12 miles today (plus the two already to Lower Rattlesnake). This was no cake walk and I was dead tired by the end of it. It started off totally great, however, and it was just what I needed. A fabulous snowshoe hike on a gorgeous morning with fresh snow all around. It was amazing. But before I even got to the waterfall, I was extremely tired (and I still had to hike back!).

I have wanted to do this particular hike for awhile but kept putting it off. I did not really think there would be much of a waterfall here on the South Yuba River, and I was pretty sure if there was anything here it would be quite a bit under 20 ft. high. It was low priority for me, but this seemed like a really good day to try it anyhow. And what did I find? A small 10 foot waterfall? No! A 26 ft. high falls funneling through a narrow chute between the rocks. It was absolutely marvelous.

And my was it ever snowing! The snow was coming down like gangbusters. I did not spend much time here but by the time I finished taking photographs, my GPS and my hiking pole were completely buried, and my backpack was getting close to being buried. There was now about 4 inches of new snow on the ground, almost a foot total in this storm. Now I was getting worried about my car, driving back along that unplowed road with four new inches (and I still had 3 miles to hike and it was still coming down). I was also very tired, and my feet were wet and I had blisters (no doubt caused by wading through that stream earlier). I was anxious to get going back, so I did not spend as much time here as I would have liked. I think perhaps I could have gotten down closer to it, but it was definitely a bit harry being out on this cliff overlooking the falls. If the ground was dry it would have been no issue, but with wet snow covered ground, it was definitely on the dangerous side of things. On the plus side, I really like how this photograph turned out, it looks very cool with the crazy falling snow.

Well it did take some time, but I made it back to my car, even though my prior snow shoe tracks were almost all covered up. I was definitely trudging back through that now deep snow quite slowly. The drive back on that road was also a bit crazy, but I made it without going in the ditch. All is good. It was a great snow day in the Sierra. Let’s have a lot more of these kind of days, please!

What is all this white stuff? I haven’t seen it in years in California, or it sure seems that way. Well, in truth it was just a very small storm, but very welcome. The snow pack in California is currently at under 20 percent of average for this time of year! This is horrendous, and it is much worse than last year. Even though we have had some rain and the reservoirs “seem” to be doing ok, we have not had the snow, so there will be no melting snow pack this year to help fill the reservoirs in the spring and summer. This is the fourth year of drought now, and it is the worst year by far. But this little storm is something, and we have another little storm coming next week. What about after that? We can only keep praying.

I really felt like getting up into the snow this weekend and seeing a snowy waterfall. It was something I just absolutely had to do. But where could I go, and what would be flowing? Well, it was back to Cisco Grove and Rattlesnake Creek for the third time this winter. It was absolutely gorgeous up in the Sierra with the fresh snow. I arrived at Cisco Grove and found 6-7 inches of white stuff on the ground at 5600 ft. elevation. This was a lot more than I was expecting to find. This storm dumped about twice as much as the forecasters said there would be. I am not complaining! It was a bit tricky navigating my vehicle into the parking space with all that snow, hoping I would not get stuck, but I managed to do it successfully. I was just hoping the plows would not come along and box me in later.

It is a quick short hike up to Lower Rattlesnake Creek Falls, 24 ft. high. I did this without snowshoes, though I really should have put them on. It was a bit tricky getting down to the falls, and climbing up along the rocks to get up close to it, but it was certainly incredibly gorgeous with the fresh snow on the ground. I took my photos and then got back to the car and was ready for the next part of my weekend adventure. Another long hike (with snowshoes), and I ended up finding a marvelous new waterfall; it was interesting, surprising and awesome. Stay tuned, because that post will be coming up next.