It was not my intention to do the exact same hike that I did in 2018 but sometimes things do not work out as you expect.
I wanted to return to Mt. Shasta. The biggest problem I was anticipating was smoke. Mt. Shasta was getting a double whammy. Smoke from the Park Fire as well as smoke from a fire in Oregon. It was caught right in the middle. The air quality was hovering between yellow and orange all week long. Not good. I did not want to drive 5 hours to the trailhead and then realize it was too smoky to hike. However, on Friday it seemed as though it might be clearing up for Saturday. I decided to take a chance.
I swear the road to Northgate trailhead is much worse than it was in 2018. I don’t remember it being that bad at all. It took a full hour to drive 8.5 miles. You do the math. The last 2 miles especially were extremely rough. I did not feel comfortable driving it, not so much due to the clearance, but mostly because I was afraid of getting a flat tire on all the very sharp rocks. Nonetheless, I made it to the trailhead successfully. I was shocked to see there were a couple low clearance cars here including a small Kia Soul. What the heck? There is no way on God’s green earth you should be driving a low clearance car to this trailhead. Maybe you could do it six years ago (indeed, I did see some small cars on that trip), but not anymore. If this small Kia did not bottom out multiple times on the drive to the trailhead and back I will eat my dirty socks. (not really, but I think it would be a safe bet).
Good news. There was no smoke! My entire hike was smoke free. That was a big relief to me.
Now as for why I wanted to return here, the first reason was this: (1) Coquette Falls. But Coquette Falls is dead, isn’t it? Yeah … you are right, it is dead … HOWEVER … I saw a photo that was taken from Sept. 2023. It was of Upper Coquette Falls and it had water. I pondered this for a long time. How is this possible? Is it because of the huge snow year we had in 2023 and it was flowing from regular snow melt? I am certain this was the case. I was last here in August of 2018, a drought year, and of course Coquette was dry. Since 2024 was an average snow year and since I was going more than a month earlier than the photo, I thought perhaps it was possible Coquette would still be flowing. When I came across a small stream along the way (dry six years ago) and it had decent water in it I thought I just might be in luck. Surely Coquette Creek is much bigger than this small stream. But alas, Coquette was completely dry. It was a bit disappointing even if it was not too surprising.
The second reason was this: (2) Whitney Creek waterfalls. My actual plan was to cross Bolam Creek and continue to Whitney Creek and camp there. HOWEVER … I was dead tired by the time I reached Bolam Creek. I could not continue any further. Is this hike really so difficult? It is only a 1500 ft. elevation gain and that section was all on trail. The elevation tops out at 8500 ft. so I don’t really think it was the high elevation that was getting to me (though perhaps a bit). I think I am just too much out of shape but also I had a very heavy pack and was carrying 5 liters of water as I anticipated not being able to filter water from the creeks. It was another 3 miles to Middle Whitney Falls where I was initially planning to camp. I am sure I could have made it there but then it would be an additional 2 miles and 1000 ft. elevation gain down to Whitney Falls and back which was the primary reason I wanted to go over to Whitney Creek. There is absolutely no way I would have been able to do that. Also I wanted to explore further UP Whitney Creek and there is also no way I could have done that either. I only had one night to spend. Thus, it seemed pointless to continue to Whitney so I decided to camp at Bolam Creek again and have an enjoyable afternoon.
The nice thing is that it was a very cloudy day so I could get all my photos of the Bolam waterfalls early and have a relaxing evening and even sleep in. First up was Bolam Creek Falls, 92 ft. high. As you can see the water was very dirty. Chocolate sauce! Yummy! It was definitely very interesting and quite different from six years ago and I’m not just referring to the chocolate water. I think a lot of that was caused from rain up on the mountain. It was a lot dirtier than last time I was here so I think it was more than just glacial melt. In addition to this the waterfall seemed different. It was more of a straight down plunge. It was more graceful (even with the dirty water). One thing that was very different was the blue-green color in the rock beside the waterfall. That was not there six years ago. A large chunk of rock had broken off revealing that blue-green color underneath. My geologist brother-in-law thinks it is some sort of hydrothermal alteration and magmatic flow. Finally, I think there was more water flowing six years ago so that could mean there is not as much glacier melting now (or left). Bolam Creek Falls was certainly very fascinating to see this year.
It is about a 400 ft. ascent from Bolam Creek Falls back to camp. I really struggled climbing up. I was so tired. When I returned to camp it started raining so I hung out in my tent awhile and chatted with my wife (I had cell service). After the rain stopped the sun came out and I made my dinner and enjoyed my evening. More to come …
It has been much too hot to hike this summer. There will be those loudly exclaiming it is all caused by global warming even though last year was a below average summer and next year probably will be as well. It is true that this July may end up being the hottest July on record but let’s not forget we have had many very hot summers in the distant past as well. The second reason I have not hiked this summer is because I have been injured and in much pain. I already mentioned hurting my neck in early May. It is still not healed. Since then I had a lot of pain in my arm, which I think was related. Then I had pain in my leg, which I think was not related. It was so painful I could not even stand up or walk. My sister said I am getting old. That is her professional diagnosis. She is a physical therapist. It is only this past week that I have started to feel better. My leg pain is completely gone. What the heck was wrong with it anyway? My neck is still not healed but it is much better. It is finally time to get hiking again!
I have been wanting to take Journey to Horsetail Falls for quite some time. It is the perfect summer hike. It is not very difficult. The waterfall flows strong in the summer. There are very few mosquitoes. I have never had any issues with them on this hike. Maybe a few around dusk but that is all. This time: zero mosquitoes. Not even one. At the last minute, I managed to talk Nekoda into coming along as well. I had to bribe her, saying I would buy her pizza afterwards. That works for me.
My weather app said it would be 78 degrees for the maximum temperature this day but when we arrived at the trailhead it was 88 degrees. That is too hot to hike, especially for Journey. The most we ever take her on a hike or walk is 85 degrees. Any more than that and it is too hot for her paws on the pavement (or in this case, on the granite rock). Nonetheless, we started the hike anyway. It would only be cooling down as we climbed up the mountain. The trail starts out with quite a bit of a climb and Journey was not too excited about it. It was hot. I think she wanted to turn around and go back to the car. Eventually the trail flattens out. She drank water and rested and then she was good for the rest of the hike. There are plenty of spots along the trail where she could dip her paws in the cool running creek.
We arrived at the waterfall. The nice thing about having Nekoda with me is I could have her watch Journey while I went around taking photos. I did not have to worry about Journey slipping and falling into the rushing waterfall. This is the 13th time I have come to Horsetail Falls (not counting the times I went further up the mountain). I always like to try to find different compositions of the waterfall whenever I come here. There are so many different options. As I look back at all my photos I see that this composition is not one I have captured before. I like it.
As we started our hike back down the mountain a man was coming up to the falls. He waved his arms in the air and yelled out “HAALLLOOOOOO”. If a certain episode of Seinfeld is coming into your mind right now, you are not far off. He had no shirt on, a long beard, and long hair braided in a ponytail. I said to Nekoda, “That must be Wild Willy”. We continued down the mountain. Journey was very happy now that she had rested, ate a big snack, and knew she was on her way back to the car. We decided to take a detour and stop at Lower Horsetail Falls. When we got there, lo and behold, Wild Willy was already there (talking to a friend). I said to Nekoda, “Did you see him pass us? I did not see him pass us. How could he be here already? It is not possible”. Nekoda said, “He is MOUNTAIN JESUS. He is a miracle man”. Yes. That is it! “HAALLLOOOOOO” he said again to us, waving his arms in the air.
Normally the Waterfall Madman is always the last one off the mountain at Horsetail Falls. Not today. Mountain Jesus was the last one off the mountain. It was a “miraculous” day in the Desolation Wilderness.
Well … where should I begin? I injured my neck. Over the last month or more I have been in incredible pain. I have not been able to sleep well. The pain has gone down into my shoulders and arms now. I am 99% sure it was injured when I was rafting to Lake Eleanor Falls. It was quite windy and choppy and I had to work very hard at the paddling to the waterfall and back. That was around May 1. After that trip, the pain started but it was not very noticeable at first. It did not even occur to me it was caused by the rafting. I was still able to hike. We went to Shelter Cove on our anniversary trip. I made the big backpacking trip to Kendrick Falls. I was taking pain killers but I had no problems on that trip. The neck kept getting worse and worse. It was not getting better. I could not hike any longer. I had to go to the doctor. That is always a big ordeal. He just said go get an x-ray and come back in a week. So I did. Then he basically said I have arthritis in my neck and should do neck exercises. Humm …
Only in the last week has my neck finally started to get better. I feel like it is finally healing now. I wanted to get out hiking one last time. It is going to be 180 degrees or something ridiculous next week and for the week after that as well. The apocalypse is here. This would be my last chance to hike for the summer. If my wife and mom find out, they will say I am stupid for going hiking! There will be a fallout. Well my wife did not say I am stupid but my mom might when she reads this.
I decided to go to the Eastern Sierra for the day. Almost all the waterfalls there face towards the east (which should be obvious, it is the “Eastern Sierra”), and that means they all get very early morning sun. I did not have any desire to get up at some God awful hour to drive out there for sunrise so my plan was to hike in the evening. I would arrive at about noon, eat lunch at the Whoa Nellie Deli (which is not called that anymore, sadly) and wait around for five hours until evening. I intended to go on a different hike first but when I arrived I discovered my planned route was all blocked off with fencing (private property). I could have gone to this particular waterfall via a longer route but then I would not have had time to do the second hike. I did not think it was worth it, so I just went to the second one instead: Chouinard Falls.
I have wanted to try this one for some time. I thought I could get down to it from above, from the highway. It is steep and dangerous. The rocks are all very loose. Once down the rocky section it becomes very brushy. The mosquitoes were out in force. Wait. Why are they out? Wasn’t it supposed to be windy today? Why isn’t it windy? What happened to that wind anyway! Well, it was pretty windy up on the highway but down in the brush, not so much. Dang those blood thirsty buggers! I made it over to the waterfall. The top tier is shown here, 46 ft. high. There is a second tier about the same height but I could not get down to it. It was just too cliffy. I thought I’d be able to do it, but it was a no go. I was shaking as I took photos and had to be extremely careful near the cliff edge. It was a tougher hike than I expected and it was over 9000 ft. in elevation. I was definitely feeling the effects of the high altitude and was out of breath and feeling wheezy. I was also expecting a lot more flow. According to the Mono Lake website it should be flowing at 140 cfs. This is certainly not 140 cfs. Apparently I misread the information. I thought the 140 was the intake to the powerhouse, but actually I think it was the outflow from the powerhouse (even though it says intake). Ugh. I still think it should have been better flow than it was.
I returned up the steep rocky slope to the car and drove home, arriving at about 11PM. I had to get up for church at 6AM since I was playing in the early service. Not much sleep for this old man but coffee helped. It was a nice day out in the Eastern Sierra before the apocalypse arrives next week.
After resting at camp for 5 hours, I had one more hike to do in the afternoon after going to the upper Kendrick Creek Falls. Below Edith Lake is Lower Kendrick Creek Falls. It is a 500 ft. descent. I did not realize it was such a huge descent, I thought it was more like 100 or 200 ft. but when I looked back up from the bottom, I thought, holy crap, I have to climb back up that? Being so tired as I am? It turned out it wasn’t as bad as it seemed. But it seemed bad. Again, it was a lot of walking down very steep granite rock to get down to the lower falls. There was also a massive wall of brush that I had to find a way around.
Lower Kendrick Creek Falls is 49 ft. high. There was no way to get up close to this one unless I crossed the creek but the creek was not crossable. I photographed it from further back, the best I could do.
The next morning I was up at 4AM. I had to hike 15.5 miles all the way back to Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. That is 7 miles of difficult off-trail hiking, plus 8.5 miles on-trail hiking. Elevation gain would be 1800 ft., all of it at the beginning on the off-trail section. I estimated it would take 12 hours to hike all the way back, so starting at 5AM I would get back to the reservoir at 5PM. The off-trail section took 1 hour longer than anticipated but the on-trail section (all downhill) was much quicker, so I actually got back at 4PM, one hour ahead of schedule. Not too shabby.
I dropped my GPS. It was only about a 2 foot drop and not a hard landing, but it stopped working. This was an issue. I had a backup of course but my backup device was not going to show me where all the brush was, it would only generally show me the proper direction to go. Since I was off-trail, I was going to be in big trouble navigating through all the brush. Before I got up to the brushy sections, I tried my GPS again. It was working! It was definitely behaving erratically but it was working again for now. Good news. Now I could navigate through all the horrible brush. It definitely seemed worse going back for some reason. This is a lesson learned for me. From now on I will make sure to load my off-trail routes to both devices. Could I have navigated back with only my backup device? Certainly but I would have been in the thick of the brush and it would have taken a lot longer and been more difficult. Could I have navigated back if I did not have a backup at all (and my primary device was not working)? Definitely not. I would have been thoroughly lost in space.
I got back to the trail at 12PM. It is all downhill from here and I made good time until I came to the final steep rocky section to the reservoir. Oh man, I do hate hiking these rocky steps. Why couldn’t they make this trail properly? My blistered feet were complaining very loudly. It was also very hot. The two days of cooler temperatures were gone. It was about 90 degrees down at the reservoir and I was hiking in the worst part of the day, but I knew it would be like this and I had no choice. I had to get back home this day. I lathered on all the sunscreen I could and sucked it up. I am just glad it was all downhill.
The water levels were drastically reduced from three days prior. When I got here on Friday, Wapama and Tueeulala Falls were massive. (in fact I don’t think I’ve ever seen Tueeulala at such a high flow before). Now 3 days later, they were much reduced. There was one small stream I was counting on for water. It was quite nice on Friday but now it was dry! No more water available to drink. It was only 4 miles to the reservoir and I had enough but I had to conserve. Good thing I had lots of water and soda at the car.
I drove straight to Pizza Factory in Groveland. Mmmmm, that was much needed. It was an incredible 4 days in the Yosemite Wilderness.
I had a good route mapped out on my GPS to the big waterfall. It looked do-able on Google Earth. Indeed it seemed there was no other way to get up the canyon above Edith Lake. From below, however, the route looked like a NO GO. It seemed very steep and cliffy. Isn’t that a little waterfall I see dropping over a cliff? (yes it was). I was not very confident that I would make it up to the big waterfall. But I had to try it, didn’t I?
It was 2.5 miles from my camp with 800 ft. elevation gain, and I allowed 2.5 hours to get up there before the sun would get on it at 7:30AM (yes I started before sunrise). That should be plenty of time. The route was a GO. It was a tough steep climb but it was not cliffy and there was an easy away around that little waterfall. Again though, it would have been deadly if there was snow on the granite rock or if it was wet.
After that big initial climb above the lake the terrain levels out. You can see the big waterfall ahead of you. It looks absolutely majestic but it is still a long way away and it takes a long time to get there. I saw bear scat and deer tracks. How on Earth do these animals get into this remote canyon? Do they go down the incredibly steep granite rock as I had to? I have no idea. The walls in this canyon are incredible and imposing, clearly formed from the ice age some 4000 years ago, as can be seen by the glacial striations on the rock.
I arrived at the waterfall at 7AM with 30 minutes to spare. Oh Glory!
Kendrick Creek Falls is absolutely magnificent! It drops 370 ft. in total, falling off the cliff and continuing into a very large cascade. This one has been on my bucket list for quite a few years now and I have finally made it. The effort to get here was gargantuan but I did it and I was so happy. The wind and spray from the waterfall was very substantial. The upper side of the falls was like a rain storm and impossible to photograph from that side (but very refreshing getting soaked in the spray). The lower side of the falls was a little bit better and I was able to get some shots.
I ate my breakfast and stayed for over an hour, enjoying the view. Then I made my way back down to camp, taking my sweet time. I was very tired (not just from this hike but from all the hiking I did in the last couple days). I rested for about 5 hours in the shade at camp, napping a bit. In the evening I would have one more hike to do and then a huge hike the next day out of the canyon.
