Leon Turnbull Photography

This was a bit of a surprise and I was definitely happy to find this new waterfall. I was not sure there even would be another waterfall in Mexican Gulch; I suspected there might be one, but more often than not, I find nothing instead of something.

I almost found nothing again. I could see the top of the waterfall as I descended from the road down into the gully. As I got closer, I got a good look at it and realized it was just a small, unworthy waterfall, only about 15 ft high at most. I was disappointed, thinking I had struck out yet again. At that point, I almost went back up the hill. It would be pointless to continue, however, at the last moment, I decided to descend all the way to the creek to get one more look at it from below. It was not difficult to go down, and if it was difficult I certainly would not have continued any further. When I reached the creek I was in for a big surprise. There was a lower tier that I could not see from above. This totally changed the dynamics of this waterfall. What at first seemed to be a small, boring, unworthy 15 ft. waterfall, now became a very pretty, two tiered waterfall, 25 ft. in height. Awesome! The Madman strikes again.

This waterfall would be quite amazing at high flows I am sure. Mexican Gulch is a small stream, but I really thought it would be flowing much better than it was. I certainly would like to return here at some point, when I know the creek will be rushing very strong. If we ever get out of this drought, that is.

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Here is a new waterfall for you and me. But is it a surprise? Certainly it is not an unknown waterfall. It is located right beside the road on the way down to the ever popular Devil’s Falls. But I had never before stopped to photograph it, or even consider it as being a worthy waterfall. At least to say, I have only once before been down this way when it is flowing well, and that was many many years ago. It is on a very small drainage and needs a lot of rain to be flowing well, and usually if it has rained a lot, I have many other places to attend to, I never go down to Devil’s Falls area. But it does in fact qualify as a worthy waterfall for my website. You may have not considered it before if you have seen it, but it is actually on a named stream (Quail Trap Ravine), and is certainly over 20 ft high (it is 40 ft high), and it does flow throughout the winter season (though it does need much rain to flow well).

So anyway with all that in hand, I wanted to make a point to get a good photograph of the waterfall when it was flowing well. This weekend seemed like a prime time to do so.

It is a crazy, narrow, steep road down to Devil’s Falls, with humongous dropoffs. I hate it. There is no where to park at Quail Ravine at all, so I parked back up the road and walked down to it. It is not a particularly photogenic waterfall, and it could have used a bit more flow. The upper section, however, seemed a bit more photogenic from roadside. But could I climb up to it? As I examined the ascent up the rocks, it seemed to me quite possible. To go up. But coming back down would be another matter entirely. What the hey. I went up. I took my photos of the photogenic section of the falls. I turned around. I thought I might be trapped up there forever like a quail in Quail Trap Ravine, or die trying to get back down. I am kidding, but it definitely was tricky getting back down, and I had to use my rope to make the descent safely. No problem though.

On to the next waterfall. I did find a second new waterfall as well, which was more of a surprise find. It was not one I knew about, only suspected of its existence, but not overly confident of said existence. Well it does exist, and I will share the details very soon. It definitely made me a happy camper to find another new waterfall in the area.

I then made a stop at Devil’s Falls before I headed back up the crazy narrow hill. Devil’s was flowing very well. The rain in the past week has been very good. Folsom Lake has risen from 30 percent to 37 percent with the latest series of storms, but the real bad news is the snow pack, which currently is at only 15 percent of normal, and only one month left in the snow season. Even if we get a couple more big storms, we are still going to be in a terrible struggle to get through the summer.

Down at Yankee Jim’s bridge, it was a madhouse. This location is a prime takeout and put in spot for kayakers on the North Fork American River, and it seems every kayaker and their dog was out on this day. As I crossed the bridge, a slow car cut in front of me with a trailer of kayaks and headed up the hill. Although it is steep and narrow, there are plenty of spots to pull over to let someone pass. Is it not common courtesy to pull over when you are going very slow with a trailer and someone obviously faster than you is behind you? I mean geepers, come on, just have some courtesy eh. Darn kayakers, how rude. Ok, end rant. Carry on.

The first waterfall I went to last Saturday was this one I had never been to before, called: Catamount Falls. It is a really nice 45 ft. high cascade and definitely a sweet looking waterfall, and quite easy to get to.

Except for the poison oak. I was absolutely positive I never touched any poison oak on my hike, and because of that, I never bothered to scrub down when I got home. Next day: my entire body is covered with poison oak rash. Oh crazy stupid waterfall hunter! I must have picked it up going down here to Catamount Falls. There was certainly oak around, though I was pretty sure I had avoided it all. Apparently not! Ugh. Well, it was worth going down to this waterfall, but next time I will be sure to scrub off the oak when I get home.

This is a fairly recently “discovered” waterfall on Table Mountain, not by me. I would have come here much sooner, but the drought prevented me. This waterfall has a very small drainage and needs a lot of rain before it will be flowing. We just have not had that in the last couple years. This weekend we had enough to get all the waterfalls flowing, so I made a point of getting down to it this time, finally.

The person who “discovered” it came up with the name Catamount Falls (which, by the way, is another name for mountain lion, and there certainly seem to be plenty of these on Table Mountain). I am surprised the name has caught on as much as it has. My own name for this waterfall was Lower Hollow Falls, which to me makes a bit more sense, but nonetheless I still like the name Catamount, so we will certainly go with this name.

New episode of Waterfall Madman. Please watch in HD:

Another 2 inches of rain on Thursday/Friday, and that means Saturday is a waterfall day. Of course on Friday night I have to get sick. Our whole family is in the dumpsters now. I caught my wife’s bad cold (as did my two kids), and I slept awful on Friday night. Well, I could not let that deter me. If it was not a waterfall day, I surely would have slept in, but we have had so precious few of these days in the past 14 months, I had to get out even if I was puking every half mile. Fortunately, that was not the case. It was just a cold. Of course, I feel worse on Sunday because of it, but that is besides the point.

Another place I have not been to in a long while because of the drought: Table Mountain. In a normal winter, I come here multiple times. There are still places I have not explored here. I did come here once last year, but I cannot even count that time, because the flow was very low, and we only went to Phantom Falls, which was just barely a trickle. This weekend would be a different story. All the waterfalls would be flowing quite well, and they were indeed. It has been so long, and I am so grateful to God for the rain we have had in February – and yet we need so much more. This last little bit of rain pushed Folsom Lake up to 32 percent from 30 percent capacity. It will probably go a point or two higher from the runoff over the course of this week, but average capacity at this time of year is 55 percent. We are all praying for a miracle in March.

My plan of action was to go to Phantom Falls, Flag Falls, and beyond. First up, however, was Hollow Falls and Lower Hollow Falls (aka Catamount Falls). I had never been to the lower falls there before, though it is a very easy hike. Normally I leave Hollow Falls to the end, after my main hike, and by that time it is sunny out and pointless to go down to Hollow Falls. This time I decided to go to Hollow Falls first. A wise decision, madman. The lower falls is a really nice looking 45 ft. high cascade. That one is on a different stream with a very small drainage, and I was happy to see it flowing well. Hollow Falls was rocking. All in all a very good sign. I will be sharing all these other photos soon.

After this it was off to Phantom Falls. The sun was trying to come through, and I thought it would break before I got to Phantom Falls. Thankfully, however, the clouds rolled back in, and we got a couple more showers before the end of the hike, so I was worried about the sun for nothing. I have seen Phantom Falls at bigger flows before, but it was still flowing quite strong, and looking good today.

I crossed the stream at the top of Phantom Falls and continued on to Flag Falls. Why, you ask? I have been to Flag Falls before. Why would I want to go back there? It is such a long hike out that way. Well, I did not actually want to go to Flag Falls, but I wanted to go beyond it. There are a couple other waterfalls out that way on very small drainage streams. One of them looked like it was actually a very good size. However, you cannot see them! I could only get a glimpse of the first one, the very top of the waterfall, before the trees obscured it completely from view. If there were no trees there, it would be a great looking waterfall. The other one I could not see at all. This was such a bummer! They would have been awesome new finds. Someone needs to go cut down those trees beside that waterfall. It would require someone to repel down the cliff, however. Any takers? Ha ha, I’m just kidding of course.

Anyway, after this I did not dawdle. I wanted to get back to Hidden Falls quickly. It is a bit freaky way out that far past Phantom Falls. I’m not kidding. When you continue past Hidden Falls on the way to Flag Falls, there is an area that is somewhat wooded, lots of trees, lots of places for mountain lions to hide. There are a ton of cattle bones around this area. They were scattered all over, I am not kidding. In other words, it is a high activity area for mountain lions, and I was very wary, looking constantly about me. It is a freaky place. Then I saw a big animal off in the distance. I looked closer, and saw it was a coyote! Well, that is much better than seeing a mountain lion. When it saw me, it took off. I think I got video of it, but it was a bit far away, so I’m not sure. Anyway, I got out of the wooded area, crossed over the stream at the top of Hidden Falls, had my lunch at the falls viewpoint there, at which point it started raining again, making for a wet lunch, then I made the long slow journey back to the car. It was certainly a great day on Table Mountain.

With my wife and daughter in San Francisco this weekend for Nekoda’s dance seminar, I had Jadon with me at home. I was not really wanting to go out on a hike, but in the end decided to take him on an easy one up to Colfax. I made a bad choice though on the destination, Bear Falls.

My mistake was in thinking this was a natural waterfall, and thus it should have somewhat decent flow after the recent rains. When I was here in August it was flowing better than this. It seemed to me at that time that it was a natural waterfall and the creek flowed under the canal above it. Wrong. Upon further investigation, I now realize it is man-made, and the flow comes FROM the canal. And thus, even though it had rained recently, there was no flow coming out of the canal, resulting in a lame waterfall.

Ah well, at least I had a nice morning hike with Jadon. Afterwards, we went to Mormon Island at Folsom Lake. That was rather interesting, and even though the lake had risen 10 percent from the last storm, I was surprised to find it still accessible. That may change soon. It seems like we may be getting another big storm next week. Thank God for this! I will certainly be looking forward to hiking next weekend to a non-lame waterfall. Finally!

I did really want to see Bear Falls, however, at decent flow. Another time I guess.