In 2023, of course, we had a huge winter in California. You might think that I would have gone to Yosemite National Park quite a few times last year. I did not go once. It is probably the first year ever that I did not get to Yosemite. To be true, I had 2 or 3 solid plans to go there but they all fell through for one reason or other. This year I will rectify that mistake. I have already been to Yosemite once (Eleanor Creek Falls – an amazing trip). This past weekend was my second visit and I have at least one more trip planned in the near future (backpacking permit is already in hand).
It was the Memorial Day weekend. I had no reservation to enter the park. You need a reservation. I HATE this new rule. You need to plan your trips well beforehand. I am not one to plan so far in advance, normally. I will come up with my weekend plans just a few days ahead of time. Where I go depends on many things, including the weather and what I feel most motivated to do. Oh I think I will go to Yosemite this next weekend. Not! I do not have a permit! Well, of course you can still go to Yosemite without a permit. You just need to enter the park before 5AM. That means getting up at some ungodly hour. That is a big problem as well but that is exactly what I did this long weekend.
After church on Sunday I drove to Yosemite. My plan was to do a hike in the evening to a couple new waterfalls, sleep in the car outside the park, then get up at 4AM to drive into the park and do a second hike.
These first two waterfalls are inside the park but you have to walk in, not drive in. It is about a 4.5 mile hike one way. There is a trail but it is long gone. Obliterated from recent fires and brush regrowth. There are many downed trees you have to climb over. It is very difficult. I was really worried about stepping on rattlesnakes. It is about the right elevation and with so much brush and downed trees it seemed prime location, especially beside the creek. I saw none, thankfully. It also seemed prime bear territory. I saw none of those either. Just one deer. The hike really wore me out. Was it because I am out of shape? Or was it just due to all the downed trees and bushwhacking? Probably both. The first waterfall is pictured here: Upper North Fork of South Fork Tuolumne River Falls, 44 ft. high. I knew beforehand this would not be a great waterfall as I have seen photos of it. It is a nice little cascade but nothing too exciting. I expected the lower falls to be much better, however. On Google Earth it looked to be a real nice one. Google Earth lied. It was worse than the upper falls and hardly worth taking a photo (though I did).
I got back to my vehicle after dark, very tired, bruised, and beaten. But I got two more Yosemite waterfalls under my belt. Could I get one more tomorrow? Stay tuned…
This May is our 25th wedding anniversary. If you remember last year I mentioned we were going to take a trip to Iceland. Unfortunately that fell through. My wife had a serious illness last year and she is still not recovered enough to the point where she can hike again. There is not much point going to Iceland if we cannot hike at all so we are delaying that trip for now. Instead, we decided to take a weekend trip to Shelter Cove, a place where neither of us had been before. My wife loves the ocean so it was a perfect getaway. We took our puppy Journey as well. It is a dog friendly place and she had a lot of fun running on the beaches.
The road to Shelter Cove is one of the worst I have driven. Twenty miles of head spinning, very slow going, very windy, losing your lunch type of roads. I only wanted to drive this road down and back out once and once only (but of course I drove it twice). There is little to do in Shelter Cove. Very few stores and shops. There are three beaches. We spent a lot of time on the beaches and Journey loved it. We saw a lot of wildlife: sea lions, seals, pelicans, deer, elk, and even a whale (in the far distance). We had a view of the ocean from our hotel room and could see the seals on the rocks below us. In fact, the seals were out there on the rocks the entire day, not moving at all (they were alive – I went down to check – what a life they must have!). It was a very relaxing weekend. Just what we needed.
I did have hopes of seeing at least one new waterfall in the area. The first morning I had severe pain in my neck, mostly caused by not having brought my own pillow from home. Journey was not feeling well that first day either so we decided to just sleep in. The second day we were both feeling better so we got up very early and went on a hike. We hiked all the way down to the ocean, a 1300 ft. descent. There we came across a large herd of elk (including some big ones) and they were blocking our path. They would not let us by them and in fact started to come towards us. Probably they were just curious (of Journey) but I did not feel comfortable walking by them and there was no way to get around. We had our breakfast and then hiked back up to the car.
I was disappointed since I’ll probably not ever be back there (though maybe I will someday). On the drive home I thought I should get at least one waterfall so we stopped at 50 ft. Dora Falls. It is one of the prettiest waterfalls you will ever see. It is a short hike and all three of us went up to see it. I was very happy to find that it was still in shade and good to photograph. I did not expect that since it was almost noon when we got there. It was a perfect relaxing weekend in Shelter Cove.
On the night when everyone else was getting aurora borealis pictures I went waterfallin’. I suppose I should have gone north but I did not have time for that, plus by the time I learned about the aurora I had already planned this epic trip. It was supposed to be epic anyway. It did not turn out that way.
I was going to go backpacking, however there was a fallen tree partially blocking the road on the way to the trailhead. I did not feel comfortable driving past it. I turned around and retreated back to the Donnell Vista point. Now what?
Well first things first. I went down and took photos of the waterfalls dropping into the reservoir. Fouquet Falls was flowing so I finally got a photo of that one (it was mysteriously dry last time I was here). I did not want to drive all the way back home so my new plan was to sleep in the car and do a morning hike. I have slept at the vista point before and it did not go well but there was nowhere else. All the other side roads in the area were snowed in. The vista point was the only place I could think to park. I hoped no one would come by in the night but it was not to be. It was grand central station in the middle of the night. I could not sleep. When a dog started barking, I said enough is enough. I am outta here. At that point, I remembered another road I could try: Clark Fork Road. There would not be anyone down there. Why didn’t I think of this three hours ago!!!??? I drove down to the river and there was no one there. Finally, peace and quiet! I slept well the rest of the night. I’m just mad at myself for not thinking of it earlier. I lost a good three hours of sleep.
In the morning, I decided to try Niagara Creek Falls viewpoint again. I did this hike 13 years ago and found a view of the falls but not a very good one. This time I was determined to go further. I made it a little more than last time but not by much. I was soon blocked by cliffs and very heavy brush. It was impossible to go any further. I think this view is just slightly better than the previous one. Niagara Creek Falls is an incredible waterfall. Someday I will get a better view of it. Promise.
If you know what this waterfall is you are probably thinking, what the actual heck? I visited this waterfall in Dec 2018. I came to the top of the falls but there was no possible way down to the bottom. I could only see it from a side view which was not very good. Since that time I wondered how I could see it from the bottom. There must be a way. Somehow. I came up with an idea. A crazy idea. A mad idea. I would raft to the end of Lake Eleanor from Frog Creek. Yep, it is a mad idea all right. But I am the Madman, am I not?
Five and a half years elapse. It was finally time to put my idea into action. It would be an adventure. A mad adventure. I picked up my permit, drove to Lake Eleanor and hefted my heavy bag complete with inflatable raft onto my back.
As I hiked up towards Frog Creek the first thing that comes into view is Kibbie Falls. It looked absolutely massive. I have never seen it so big. Uh, this could be a problem. My plan had been to cross Frog Creek and camp on the other side so I would have a much shorter distance to raft to the end of the lake. When I came to the Frog Creek crossing, I realized that was not happening. It was uncrossable. Frankly, it made no sense. The creek should be much lower than when I was here last time and was able to cross, but instead it was a lot higher. Why? I talked to someone at the campsite who said there was torrential rain here the previous day. Could that be the reason? I don’t know but it doesn’t seem right. Anyway, I decided to camp at Frog Creek and raft from here in the evening. I found a really nice spot to setup camp, very secluded, away from the main camping area, and right near the mouth of the creek.
The weather forecast said there was zero percent chance of rain. If there is zero percent chance of rain then why is there a massive thunderhead across the lake heading straight in my direction? It did not look very pleasant. I got all my stuff ready to throw into the tent just in case and I waited. The clouds broke up before they reached me and it turned out to be nothing. There were still other menacing clouds around, however. There was also wind. Wind would make rafting to the end of the lake very difficult, especially coming back with a head wind, but the forecast said that the wind was to die down by 6PM. I decided to continue my plan with the rafting after I ate my dinner. It took about 45 minutes to get to lake end. It was very hard even though there was a tailwind going there. The lake was quite choppy. It was almost like paddling in class 1 rapids. Maybe. Coming back was no better. The wind did not die down so I had a headwind but it only took about 5 minutes longer on the return trip. It was difficult both ways.
Eleanor Creek Falls was absolutely incredible. Very high flow. A spectacular cascade, 110 ft. high. There was no good place to land the raft so I had a difficult time getting out. I could not get a good hold on the rocks along the shore but finally I managed to step out onto a submerged rock ledge and drag my raft out of the water. Then I had to climb up the huge boulders to find a viewpoint of the waterfall. It was an amazing spot. I was ecstatic that I finally made it to the bottom of Eleanor Creek Falls.
When I got back to camp everything was all wet from water splashing into the raft. My daypack was soaked though of course I had all my important stuff in dry bags. My clothes were soaked. Thankfully I had an extra shirt and extra jacket with me. I did not have extra pants or extra underwear. My hiking pants were still very wet in the morning so I wore my sleeping underwear until my pants dried and I went commando. Too much information, Madman! LOL. Next time I will know to bring extra pants/underwear and somehow keep my daypack dry. There will be a next time. I was quite nervous before this trip because it was a lot more than I have ever done in the raft before but I was quite happy with the result.
I did not sleep well so I got up later than originally planned. I have had a sore neck for some time and can only sleep on one side. It is quite uncomfortable in a sleeping bag. I took my time hiking back, stopping for a coffee break in the sun alongside the lakeshore, trying to photograph Kibbie Falls, and stopping at the dam waterfall to take some photos as well. I was home in time for the Canucks game. It was a crazy adventurous weekend in Yosemite National Park.
After work I took Journey and drove up the hill. I’ve wanted to check this place out for awhile now and it finally seemed like the time to do it. It is partly off trail but I did not think it would be too hard or steep for Journey.
I had loaded the route and map into my GPS but for some reason it did not load properly. Thankfully there was cell service here so I downloaded the map into my phone. If there was no service I’m not sure if I would have been able to find the waterfall. It’s always good to check your map before you leave the house (obviously I did not do that!).
This area is all part of the massive Caldor Fire of 2021. All the trees were scorched. We found a parking spot and started hiking down the logging road. There were already mosquitoes out. I had heard this from another person recently as well. This is crazy to me. It is only April. At least they were not biting yet. Anyhow, I think that Journey did not really want to hike today. She was going slow and stopping and I felt she wanted to go back to the car. She had been playing hard with mom all day long so she was probably quite tired to begin with. Nonetheless, I encouraged her to continue on. When we came to the large snow patches on the road, she perked up notably. She wanted to run in the snow! She was so excited. She loves the snow!
Eventually we came to the off trail section where we would go down to the river. It was not difficult. The last part was a bit steep but Journey did fine. We came to the waterfall. I was quite disappointed. I really thought this one would be a lot nicer and a lot cleaner. I have a feeling it was a lot nicer before the fire. It is a 30 ft. cascade, but not very interesting and hardly worth taking a photo. I did take a photo of it though. What do you think?
Journey ate a snack and then we hiked back up the mountain. It was a bit tough and we were both tired when we got back to the road. At least I was tired. I think Journey had gotten her second wind and was happy hiking back down the road. She knew we were on our way back. We arrived at the car just after dark and drove home. It was a lovely evening in the scorched Eldorado National Forest.
