Leon Turnbull Photography

Friday evening’s adventure saw me off to Lake Tahoe after work. Why you ask? Waterfalls of course. But the waterfalls are not flowing anymore you say? Not exactly. There is actually still a bit of snow in the mountains but definitely the creeks are on their way out for the year.

My plan: Cascade Falls. You can see the waterfall from Emerald Bay Road before you get to the trailhead, and I examined it closely before starting on the hike. It was looking a bit meager from a distance without a doubt, but I decided to go anyway. Up close and personal, I thought it would be decent enough. And it was.

The trail was busy with plenty of other hikers, as expected. But no one would be thinking of going down to the base of Cascade Falls. Right? I had never been down to the bottom before, and this was my primary goal for the evening. How hard could it be? The waterfall only drops off a sheer 149 ft. cliff. No problems, right? Well of course, it would be a rather big problem if I went down to the bottom from the top of the cliff, but there is another way, my friends. And as it turned out, it was fairly easy. Also, fairly difficult. It was easy in the sense that it was not very steep and certainly not dangerous. It was difficult in the sense that it took quite a while and there is a lot of manzanita brush to negotiate. The “trail” winds its way down through the brush, down down down, almost all the way to the lake, then finally cuts back to the waterfall. The low flow in the waterfall allowed me to get up very close to it, which I certainly could not have done at higher flows. It was certainly quite decent.

So when I was here, I witnessed more full fledged Darwinism at work. Why does this always seem to happen at Lake Tahoe for me? Some dufus with three bushels short of a full load decided to scale down the sheer cliff beside the waterfall. I thought I was about to witness his certain destruction, and even tried to video it (but I messed up on that part – ugh). One missed step and he would have been done for, but he made it down the cliff safely. I expected him then to go over to the waterfall, but he disappeared and I did not see him again. He must have just gone back up the cliff in a spot where I could not see him, but that makes no sense at all. If you are going to risk your life and limb to scale down a sheer cliff (and not to mention when there is another easy path down to the bottom), why on earth would you not even go over to see the waterfall? I don’t get it. I suppose it is quite possible he was an expert climber and this was all child’s play to him, but I have seen too much stupidity in my lifetime.

Anyway, I decided to follow his lead, and went straight up the cliff to get to the top of the waterfall. Just kidding!!! I did go to the top of the waterfall though (the normal way), and then beyond. What I found next will amaze you. I am kidding again. Well, it might amaze you. Or surprise you. It did surprise me. But you will have to wait for my next post to find out what it was. Hint: it is probably a waterfall.

Here’s a different angle from Upper Burnett Canyon Falls. I have not been out hiking in a couple weeks now, and am desperately running out of photos to share. Hopefully, this weekend will be different and I will get some new pics. But it is starting to get warmer this week. And I’m sure the mosquitoes will be out in force, also. Sigh.

This is the lower falls on South Fork Bailey Creek, just outside Lassen Volcanic National Park. In total it is 122 ft. high, however you cannot get a clear view of all of it in one shot. This is the upper part, and it continues below this point for a bit and a bit. It is certainly a big beautiful cascade. I was pleased to find the creek flowing so well, I think it pretty much dries up in the summer, but there was still quite a bit of snow up on Lassen and Brokeoff when I was here, and it was melting profusely.

After going to West Sulphur Creek I continued on to Mill Creek Falls, hoping to get there before the sun started blazing down into the canyon. I figured I had enough time to hit up both West Sulphur Creek waterfalls and get to Mill Creek on time. I figured correctly.

With rope in hand, and after getting down to the crazy waterfall on upper West Sulphur, I figured getting down to the base of Mill Creek Falls would be a cakewalk. I figured wrongly! I made my way from the overlook at Mill Creek down to a large rock, just above a 7-8 ft dropoff. There was no good foothold from here and even with a rope, it was just too much of a dropoff to continue down the rest of the way. The entire bottom area was all misty anyway from the spray of the falls, and I would not have been able to get a decent shot from the bottom, so I decided to just shoot from the rock. This is further than I have ever gone before down here, although it certainly would have been awesome to make it all the way down. Just a bit too crazy for my blood. Somehow, Mountain Goat Rob made it all the way down without a rope. I don’t know about that guy. He is a bit nuts. Will I ever try this another day? I don’t know, though I am sure I will be back to this waterfall again. It is a beauty, and it was flowing stronger than I have ever seen it before.

I was hoping for a good hike but not a killer hike this past weekend, so I chose Antoine Canyon, near Foresthill. This area was ravaged last year by the American Fire and I thought it might be interesting to hike down into it, perhaps it would be easier now after it has burned. Or perhaps harder? Either way, I have never hiked down on the south side of Foresthill Rd before, I always hike on the north side into the North Fork American River canyon. The south side drains into the North Fork of the Middle Fork American River, and is not too shabby either. It won’t be my last time down there for sure.

The road passed right through the burned area, and even though it was very early, there were workers blocking the road and my access. Ummm, can I get through here? I asked. You can “now”, they said, with the emphasis on the “now”. Ummm, will I be able to come back through here later? Who knows, they said, we are getting ready to cut down these burned trees. Yeah, that is quite reassuring, isn’t it. I was actually quite surprised that these guys would be out here working on a weekend, shocked even. I wasn’t sure if I should turn around, I didn’t want to be stuck in there all day, but I decided to take a chance on it. As it turned out, coming back through was not a problem at all, even though they were still busy working.

I parked the SUV and started my hike continuing down the dirt road. I could have driven further on the road, but I wanted to get a decent hike in this morning. I am certainly glad I did that, otherwise the hike would have been too short. I had calculated I had about 1.5 hours to make it down to the falls but the sun was already above the ridge line. Would I be too late? Well obviously I made it in time, otherwise I wouldn’t be too glad about it. I done good in my calculation this time. After 1.5 miles, you need to cut off the road and head down down down to the bottom of the canyon. It started off all right but got steeper as I went along. Much steeper. The last section to the creek was bordering on cliffy steep. One good thing is that I brought my rope, and I used it get down the last part to the creek. No problems getting down there with the rope (without a rope, it certainly might have been a problem). The bad thing is that I did not bring my water shoes. Stupid stupid stupid. This is the problem with having a bad back, and trying to save on precious weight on my hikes: I do not bring along items I think I might not need, and I was not thinking that I would be doing any creek wading this morning at all. However, I ended up down at the creek further downstream than I anticipated. Now I had to wade upstream to the waterfall. The creek was a bit deep in places, and the rocks were super slippery. It would have been very easy if I had my water shoes, but instead I had to wade upstream in my bare feet. I only slipped one time, but in the process, I managed to get my hiking boots (that I was carrying) completely soaked. Ugh.

Well I got up near the waterfall but there was a little cascade and small falls I still had to negotiate. I had to cross the creek again, climb up on a narrow ledge and continue climbing to get above the cascade. It was pretty fun, actually. Finally, I got up to the waterfall. It is quite a unique looking falls, and I think I will definitely be back to this one someday. I think it would be awesome at higher flows. The only trouble is that I would not be able to wade upstream at higher flows. It could be an interesting adventure.

I know that I am certainly not the first one to see this waterfall. There was a miner’s camp here, with a chair, gold panning equipment, and an axe that looked fairly new. Obviously someone has a claim down here. I wonder how he hikes down to it? It is not exactly easy to get down here, but it is certainly a quaint little place. Speaking of gold, when I climbed back out of the canyon up to the road, I saw three cars coming down the road, all filled with older guys, older than me, but not too much older. They said to me, Is that your SUV we saw parked way up the hill? Yes, it is. Wow, you hiked all the way down here, that is awesome, you are an iron man, amazing. (it is only 1.5 miles on an easy dirt road). When I told them I just hiked to the bottom of this steep canyon and back up, they practically fell down at my feet and worshiped me. I am kidding. But they were very much in awe, for sure. Well, it was a tough hike, but I have certainly done plenty of tougher ones. They all had metal detectors, and apparently, they were looking for gold along the hillside. It seemed rather odd to me. There are no streams up here, I would think they would more likely find gold down at the bottom of the canyon. But maybe they know something I don’t, it seemed like they had done this before. Well good luck to them, I guess. I certainly found my gold down at the canyon bottom.