Leon Turnbull Photography

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.

I was hoping my son would come along on my hike this weekend, but he was sick so he wimped out. I was sick too, but I am not one to wimp out so easily. I don’t blame him though. He was sicker than I was. In a way, it’s a good thing he didn’t come. The road to where I was planning to hike was blocked by a huge tree fallen across the road. Well that pretty much settled it. Plan A was out of the question. I could have still hiked to the waterfall, but it would have been 12 miles round trip, and I was not up for a long hike. Plan B it is then.

I drove into Lassen Volcanic NP. It was extremely windy and extremely cold. The thermometer was at 20 degrees. There was a large group of people getting ready to hike up Lassen Peak – at least I assume that is where they were going; it is somewhat popular in the winter to hike up there and ski down. But the snow was complete ice today, and with the awful cold and wind, it didn’t seem like a smart thing to do. Especially the skiing down part. That would be suicide.

Well after using the facilities, I drove back out to the Brokeoff trailhead where I found another early morning riser, this crazy one was planning to hike up Mt Brokeoff. My destination, however, was down, not up. There was quite a lot of snow at this elevation (6500 ft.), and of course it was all ice. I got on my snowshoes and followed the stream downwards, and with the snowshoes on, it was easy enough. There was just one unmarked drainage I had to cross that gave me a lot of trouble. Firstly, the slopes along the creek were steep and icy, and I could not find an easy way down to the creekside. When I finally found a spot to get down, I couldn’t see any way across the creek without getting wet, and I did not want to get wet in this icy cold weather. I took off my snowshoes and with much difficulty, I rock hopped across successfully. On the way back up later, I tried to bypass this creek crossing by going straight up, but it led in a wrong direction, so I eventually had to cross it again anyway, and also with much difficulty. However I did not take my snowshoes off on the way back – crossing on a big log with my snowhoes still on. That was highly entertaining (for the squirrels watching me). That little unnamed creek sure gave me a lot of troubles … but I shouldn’t be too upset with it, because it added quite a lot of flow to my waterfall.

And downwards to the waterfall. When I came to the steep section near the falls, the snow disappeared. That was good because there is no way I could have descended that part on icy snow, period. But without snow, it was easy to do. Unfortunately, I had my winter boots on instead of my hiking boots, and they have worse tread (why didn’t I wear my hiking boots – that was stupid, Leon), but I made it down successfully, without going over the cliff, and that was tricky because the cliffs are crazy steep around here, and the ground crumbly. You sure don’t want to get too close to the edge, but fortunately, there is a fabulous viewpoint of this waterfall that does not require too many crazy cliff hugging maneuvers. And it was gorgeous! I was not expecting to find such a beautiful vertical drop, and to top it off the flow was quite decent (thanks partly to my unnamed creek nemesis). I measured the falls to be 103 ft. high, which makes it the highest vertical drop that I have yet found in Lassen Volcanic NP (Kings Creek Cascades is a bigger falls, but is not vertical). I have to say this is perhaps the most beautiful waterfall in Lassen I have seen, and yet this is another one that no one seems to know about, and I did not find any trace of path or human activity down here. It is an unnamed stream, but it does have good flow in the spring. Winner winner pumpkin eater.

After hiking back up to the snow line, I continued on across the ridge over to West Sulphur Creek. I wanted to see if I could see the upper falls from this side of the canyon. I was not planning to do this initially, but I realized I was pretty close and so I decided to go for it. It was easy enough hiking over to the cliffs above West Sulphur but there is no view of the falls from there, so once again I had to find a way down.  I took off my snowshoes again and went down down down. Eventually, I did find a view of that waterfall, but the bottom of it was obscured. Perhaps if I went all the way to the bottom, I could find better views, but there was snow down there and it would have been dangerous, and both the upper and lower falls were already in the sun anyway. I will have to save that one for another time. It was a very marvelous and very cold day in Lassen.

Wow. What a find this one was. Happy Valentine’s Day to me!

I actually wasn’t even planning to go here. As I was falling asleep on Friday night I changed my mind to come here instead of my original plan. I figured the other one would be a waste of time with probably not even any waterfalls. Good choice Leon. I love it when a plan comes together.

The trail (logging road) starts at about 7000 ft. There was snow on the ground but not much, so I figured I wouldn’t need my snowshoes. Of course there should be 8 feet of snow right now, not six inches. Sigh. As I descended there seemed to be a bit more snow but it was hard and easy to walk on. Actually it was completely icy in places which made the steeper parts a bit treacherous to walk on. I wish I had brought a sled. That would have been fun. Instead, I just walked along very gingerly, hoping I would not slip on the ice and slide 100 ft. down the mountain. I didn’t, but there were a couple “almosts”.

The last part of the hike is off the road with a big descent down to the river. It was steep but a piece of cake really. No snow. No treacherous terrain. When I got to the river all I could say was WOW.

I arrived first at the upper sections of the waterfall – Middle Fork Cosumnes River Falls (shown here). You can see this upper part on Google Earth but it doesn’t look all that big. I wasn’t expecting to find much here at all, a 30 ft high falls at most. What I found was a 322 ft high falls. Yes you heard that right. These upper two tiers are 200 ft. high, with two more tiers below (120 ft.). It is all one gigantic waterfall. Of course, you cannot see all four tiers in one shot. But that is all right. I spent a long time here taking many photos from all sorts of angles and spots. I could not get right to the edge of the water, as it was too treacherous. One bad slip and I would be at the very bottom of the falls (in pieces). Who knew this waterfall was here? No one that I know of. It is not documented anywhere, yet it is such a major waterfall. Needless to say it was a tough climb back up the mountain, over a thousand feet back to the car, but it was well worth the money. I saw two more waterfalls as well today (more to come about that later).

My wife thought I should name this Valentine’s Falls because I found it on Valentine’s Day (and the name Middle Fork Cosumnes River Falls is just way too boring – those are her words, not mine). Valentine’s Falls sounds good to me. Does it sound good to everyone else?