Last week my friend Rob and I went on a walk along the Rubicon River in search of a waterfall. We were not able to get to the waterfall, but we did find these pretty flowers overlooking the river so we just had to stop and scramble down to shoot them. No waterfalls perhaps, but at least the evening wasn’t a total loss.
After work on Thursday I headed back up yet again to Ice House Rd. I knew it would mean getting home late (which is difficult since I need to get up early for work) but I couldn’t go out Friday (hockey game) and I had other hiking plans for the weekend, so Thursday was my best option.
I brought my bike with me. When I was up here two weeks ago the road was still snowed in. Even though the elevation is lower than Bassi Falls (which was open) snow seems to really linger on this road. I figured if it was still snowed in I could bike the rest of the way to the trailhead. I thought it might be as there was still a lot of snow along the side of Ice House Rd as I drove up, but the road to the trailhead was thankfully clear (but I am sure if I came the prior week it would not be – I timed this one perfectly).
Even though I could have hiked all the way I decided to bike the first part (and I’m so glad I did). It is a three mile one way hike, the first two are along a dirt road. It is uphill all the way but it is very gradual so it is quite do-able on a bike. Nonetheless it is a tough climb on a bike and would have been much easier hiking (but a lot longer, and coming back down on the bike was so fast and quick).
At the end of two miles you need to get off the bike and hike through the forest the rest of the way to the waterfall. At first the going was very easy but then the manzanita brush got a lot thicker. There was a bit of a path through the brush so I kept going. There was also quite a bit of snow still around, so I was able to walk on the snow over the brush (much easier than going “through” the brush). It took an hour to hike this mile through the forest and I arrived at the waterfall a bit later than anticipated. It was a beautiful and large cascade which I measured 251 ft high. Finding a good point of view to photograph it was difficult. Ideally I should have crossed the creek but I was not prepared for that. Plus I was out of time. It was 8pm, sunset was in half an hour. I quickly took some shots than literally ran back down through the forest, arriving back at my bike by 8:30. The bike ride back down the mountain was a breeze and I got back to my car just before it got dark. It was a great evening adventure (but I was sure tired the next day at work).
More info on North Fork Big Silver Creek Falls:
http://waterfallswest.com/waterfall.php?id=655
I was not intending to go to Grouse Falls again but my plan A did not pan out. There is still much snow at higher elevations. Most roads above 5000 ft or so are still inaccessible. I thought that perhaps I might be able to now get to the Beacroft trailhead on Foresthill Rd but I could not even get close to it driving. I need to figure out a way to get into these areas early in the season. Anyone want to donate their snowmobile to waterfallswest.com?
Well I decided to just drive out to Grouse Falls so as not to go home empty handed. Grouse Falls is at a much lower elevation but even so there was a slight bit of snow along the road. It is such a long long drive out to Grouse Falls and it is such a short short hike. It is almost pointless to go there. Except that the waterfall is utterly spectacular. A 504 ft high masterpiece in the middle of nowhere. The North Fork of the Middle Fork American River canyon. Such a beautiful canyon out here in nowhere land. The Beautiful Land. But so inaccessible. I suspect there are other waterfalls in this remote canyon too, but how to get to them?
In the past I have gone down to the bottom of Grouse Falls but was not prepared to do that on this day, so I just enjoyed the view from across the canyon. It was early evening, and the light was in and out from behind storm clouds creating rapidly changing conditions. I liked this shot with a bit of sunlight touching the waterfall and cliffs.
More info on Grouse Falls:
http://waterfallswest.com/waterfall.php?id=318
Part II of my grand master weekend trip to Yosemite and beyond was to drive down to Shaver Lake and finally get to Stevenson Creek Falls. Bryan Swan and Dean Goss (world-waterfalls.com) have been hounding me for years to go see this one. And for good reason. It is perhaps the last major major waterfall in CA that I had not yet seen. I’ve been wanting to go here for years but it is a very long drive from Sacramento. This year I finally made the effort to see this 950 ft. high monster.
I parked at the trail starting point overnight. I had a bite to eat and went to bed at 8pm. I was so tired, I dropped off almost immediately and slept about ten hours. No one disturbed me. Sometime during the night it started raining. Hard. And kept raining. I was thinking I did not want to hike seven miles in the pouring rain. Did I make this very long drive all for nothing? The only reason I came down here was to see this waterfall. Would I have to go home empty handed?
Around 6:30am the rain stopped and I decided I had better get going if I am going. I did not know if the rain would start up again, so I asked God to keep the rain away at least until I got to the falls. He listened to me (perhaps a little too closely).
I started hiking down the paved road called the Million Dollar Road. It would have been much better to bike this road, as hiking seven miles on pavement is not fun for the feet. Otherwise it was a pretty easy hike. Along the way I saw a couple other waterfalls that I did not know even existed, and the views of the San Joaquin River canyon were stupendous especially the further I hiked along. If I had to guess, I would say the road is called the “Million Dollar” road cuz that is how much it cost to build. In my view, it was an awful expense that should never have happened, there should only be hiking trails through this canyon. But at least S.C. Edison allows the public to hike/bike their expensive paved road, and it leads right by an incredible waterfall.
I could see the spray from the falls from 1.5 miles away. I am not exaggerating (though I could not see the waterfall until I got right up to it). I kinda figured this was a bad omen in terms of being able to photograph this monster, and I was correct.
The road goes right in front of the bottom of the waterfall and there was so much water it was crashing over onto the bridge and road. I could not even walk up to the bridge, I was literally blown back by the spray. Trying to cross the bridge would have been certain death, and unfortunately the best views of the falls were on the other side. I could only see the lower part of the falls from this side, and I got very cold and very wet trying to photograph it. I was bummed but there was nothing to do but hike back.
As soon as I started back the rain started up again. Hard. And hail as well. I was soaked from the spray and now I was getting colder and wetter from the rain. I was a cold wet dog (again) by the time I got back to my car. But on the plus side, God did hold back the rain until I got to the waterfall, just as I asked Him. Next time I think I’ll ask Him to hold the rain until I am done hiking. Haha.
I was very tired on the long drive home despite the ten hours of sleep. It took me two full days to recover from this short trip. I definitely overdid it this weekend, 20+ miles of difficult hiking and a heckuva lot of driving was just way too much. But it was a fun trip for sure.
More info on Stevenson Creek Falls:
http://waterfallswest.com/waterfall.php?id=1348
I went up Ice House Rd again, on the evening of “Rapture Day”, driving all the way to Loon Lake (if indeed there was going to be a rapture, I wanted to be “caught” doing what I loved – haha). There was still quite a bit of snow up there and ice on the lake. Still too much snow to do the hike I had planned so I drove back down to Bassi Falls.
There was no snow at this lower elevation so I was optimistic that I would be able to drive all the way into the trailhead. And indeed I could! A lot of other people also seemed to have the same idea this weekend. There were a lot of people hiking back up the trail as I hiked down to the falls but there was no one else at the falls once I arrived, so I scoped out my spot to wait for the sun to set as it was still early in the evening.
Bassi Falls is a spectacular waterfall in the spring when the snow is melting and is one of my fav waterfalls in the Sacramento area and also very easy to get to. I come here at least once per year. As I waited I took some video of the falls, not something I normally do, but may do (should do) more of in the future, now that I have HD on my new camera (I posted the video on my waterfallswest facebook page).
Another family arrived at the waterfall, a photographer with his wife and two kids. The wife ran up to the top of the falls while the kids ran around like gangbusters playing in the creek with no supervision, while the photographer took his pictures. With the creek flowing so crazily, I didn’t think this was particularly safe as the kids were even crossing the creek. I guess it was safe enough where they were doing it but I don’t think I would want my kids crossing there. Something easily could have happened and he was too far away to help. Just my opinion. Later the wife came back down and then they were supervised more closely. Anyway, they stayed quite awhile but then left just before the light on the waterfall got nice, which happens just as the sun dips below the ridge line, and only for a very brief time. If he would have waited ten more minutes, he would have had a nice photograph. I’m just sayin.