Leon Turnbull Photography

I was not intending to come to this particular waterfall, but sometimes that is just how things roll with me. I was hoping to drive up on Foresthill Rd and at least hoping to get to Beacroft if not further. As I drove through Foresthill, I found that it had snowed the previous night as far down as the town. That is about 3500 ft. elevation! I was pretty surprised about this. If there was snow this far down, then getting to Beacroft would certainly be impossible. I did not even try. I turned around and started thinking about Plan B. I seem to be going to Plan B a lot lately.

Plan B would be to go back to Big Mosquito Falls. I have been wanting to get back to this waterfall when it has good strong flow and try to get down to the bottom of it. It has been awhile since I was here last, but I wondered if I could even get to this waterfall. As I drove up Mosquito Ridge Rd I came once more into the snow. The turnoff is at about 4500 ft. elevation, and there was quite a bit of snow. The road goes downhill from there, but it is a steep downhill, and I was worried about getting into a jam way out here in the middle of nowhere. I am sure I could have done it, but I decided to walk. It was less than 2 miles, so it was not a problem to walk it. Besides, I needed the exercise anyway. That is what I told myself anyway.

Getting down to the bottom of the falls was an issue. It is steep enough anyway, but with the wet snow, the path was very slick, and a tad dangerous. I took it very slowly and very carefully, and I made it down to a great viewpoint of the waterfall. From the top of the ridge, there is no good view of this waterfall. But down at the bottom, the view is spectacular. I did not go all the way down to the bottom of the falls, as I was sure I would not get any better view.

I had wanted to go further downstream, but I decided against that as well. The sun was out, and the hike so far was longer and more difficult than initially anticipated, and there was a lot of poison oak, so I decided to leave that adventure for another day.

Nonetheless, on the drive back home, I did find one new waterfall for sure, perhaps even two. However, I could not get to them. I will have to try that another day as well. More adventures ahead for the Waterfall Madman.

See the latest video from Codfish Creek Falls, and please watch in HD:

Here is yet another shot of Devil’s Falls, from a couple weeks ago when it was flowing well. Since then we had a couple weeks of ugly dry weather. The spring people may have liked it, but certainly not I, especially this year when we are in such dire straights for snow and rain. Thankfully, it is back to winter this weekend, and we have another storm which will hopefully bring a few feet of snow into the mountains. March normally brings the end of our wet weather, but I am praying it will continue well into April this year.

This year I have been trying not to watch the long range weather forecasts. I hate getting my hopes up and then being so disappointed. On Monday two of the three weather forecast models were predicting we would be getting 12 inches of rain through the end of this weekend. That got my hopes very high. Then the very next day, it was cut back to 4-5 inches. Argh, I hate that so much. This is precisely why I have been trying to keep from watching the forecasts this year. Just trust that the rain will come. God will provide all we need. Yes, the rain is coming.

On Monday I saw another very long range forecast which also got my hopes up. There is a very strong El Nino forming in the Pacific Ocean. It is much too early, and this is exactly why I don’t want to get my hopes too high, but if this comes to fruition, it will indeed be the answer to all our prayers, and finally spell the end of this incredibly nasty drought in California next winter. Keep praying people!

Please enjoy the next installment of Waterfall Madman: Episode 8 – Table Mountain waterfalls. Please watch in HD:

When I heard from a friend last weekend that the Foresthill Rd was open already, I was in shock. How strange is this? There should be 5-10 feet of snow on the road up there right now in a normal year, but with the meager 12 percent of average snow pack we have this year, that means there is no snow on the Foresthill Rd. This is probably a record for the earliest the road is open. Yet the creeks do have water in them from the small amount of snow that is melting and from some recent rain (though it will not last very long). I was not even thinking about Foresthill until last weekend, but that changed quickly. I figured I had better get up to my favorite area before all the water is gone.

On Monday, I had an epic all day hike planned out. It was going to be awesome, and I would have a brand new waterfall in the bag. However, by Friday afternoon I had serious doubts about this epic adventure. From my initial calculations, I figured this new waterfall would be in the shade by about noon. That would be perfect, giving me plenty of time to get down there and back out before dark. When I re-calculated on Friday, I realized that was incorrect. It would actually be in the sun much later, possibly until as late as 4PM. There is no way I could wait down in the canyon anywhere near that long, I would be hiking back in the dark for certain, and I definitely did not want to hike all the way down there and not be able to take a good photograph of the waterfall. This is really important in my world, and I plan all my hikes to be able to arrive at the waterfall destination in good lighting conditions. If the lighting is bad, I will not even take any pictures. Besides all this, but I had doubts about my back. On an all day hike, I would have to carry a lot more water, and also a lot more gear. My backpack would be a lot heavier, and I did not think my back could handle such a load on a such a long hike (it would be 3500 ft. of elevation hiking back out of the canyon). Also, I wasn’t even sure about my route. It would be crazy steep. Could I even make it to this waterfall?  All these doubts overwhelmed me, and so as I got into bed that night I made a final decision and opted for Plan B. I still want to try to make it to this other waterfall someday, but I will have to figure out a better plan on how to do it.

Plan B was a much easier trek back to Tadpole Canyon, where I have been 3 times before. On the last time there, I noticed another waterfall in upper Tadpole Canyon. I did not have time to check it out then, but I vowed to return. And so I did yesterday. It is a strange waterfall, but a very pretty cascade. I say strange because it is bigger than it looks. Up close it seems more like 20 ft. high, but it actually is 41 ft. high. (I measured it). There is an upper 13 ft. section you cannot see from the base of the falls (in this photo), and the bottom section that you can see here is 28 ft. high. Anyway, it is certainly very pretty. And also very hidden away. I suspect very few others ever knew this was here. You would not see it if you were on the normal route along the Iowa Hill Ditch. For some reason, the last time I was here I hiked a much higher route, and that is when I saw it. Lucky me. And lucky you, cuz now you know about it too.

Speaking of strange, I learned later that when I was here, there was a drunk that put his car into the ditch on the other side of the road immediately opposite the Beacroft trailhead. It is so odd that I did not see it when I drove here, and when I left two hours later, I saw nothing also. I wonder also that if I had gone on that epic hike as initially planned, I would be driving up past here earlier in the morning, and perhaps I would have run into the drunk coming down the hill. Perhaps God’s angels were keeping me safe by giving me all those doubts on Friday. You gotta wonder.

This is Flag Falls on Table Mountain (not Cow Falls). I thought it was interesting to have the cows in the field above them.

I saw a heck of a lot of cow bones on my way out to Flag Falls. It was definitely very eerie walking through this one particular wooded area, thinking that a mountain lion was going to ambush me. I did see a coyote in this area. Coyotes are ok. Mountain lions are not.

I went back to Codfish Falls this weekend hoping to find some new waterfalls and hoping the creeks would still be flowing well after the rains of a couple weeks ago. Nada to both.

I did shoot one new-ish waterfall, that being Jefferson Canyon Falls which is right beside the road. But it was not flowing very well and I was quite bummed about that, so I probably won’t share that photo, but I do have it on my website here.

I was happy to see that the State Parks removed the stupid pay kiosk here. It was so stupid to have to pay $10 to go on a one mile hike, especially considering how bloody awful the road is down here. If I’m going to pay that much for parking they sure as heck better fix the stupid road (did I mentione it was stupid). Maybe someone at the State Parks finally wised up. Or maybe they just took the kiosk out for the winter. I sure hope it is the first thing and not the second thing. I also hope they removed the kiosks at the other places where there should not be any (like Knickerbocker, and the Confluence).

It is an easy hike out to Codfish Falls and I arrived early, before the sun got to it. The creek was flowing ok but not as strong as I expected. More rain please!

I didn’t really have any desire to return to Codfish Falls, but I wanted to explore further upstream, thinking there might be another waterfall up there somewhere. So after shooting Codfish Falls, I went up to the top. There is a trail up there, and surprisingly it continues all the way up the canyon. The bad thing, however, is that it is completely overgrown with poison oak. The oak was unavoidable. I made sure to scrub down when I got home, but I am sure hoping I do not get the dreaded rash. I went all the way to Little Codfish Creek, and beyond that until I got to the place where I thought there might be a waterfall. No waterfall was found, except for a five footer. I thought about continuing further, but I also kinda wanted to see if I could get up Little Codfish Creek because I think there might be a waterfall on that creek as well. Unfortunately, there is no trail up that canyon, and it just had far too much poison oak to make an attempt, so I turned and went back down, but I really need to figure out a way to get up there. Someday.