I had to be in the Bay Area on Saturday afternoon for my daughter’s dance show. I had two choices for hiking: (1) I could leave early with Journey and hike in the Bay Area in the morning, then wait around all day until her dance show started. (boring), or (2) I could hike near home in the morning with Journey, leave her at home, and drive to the Bay Area in the afternoon. Option 2 seemed like the best idea at the time. I should have known better, especially as I drove to and back from Auburn and everyone seemed to be driving extraordinarily slowly. Very slowly. Well below the speed limit slowly. This was a bad omen for my drive to the Bay Area. I allowed 3 hours for the drive (twice as long as it normally takes), and I barely made it in time for her show. I had just a couple minutes to spare. Traffic was ridiculously bad. Oh I hate that drive. At least I made it.
Anyway, back to the hike. I hiked this trail 14 years ago with my dog Kaya. We saw a couple bears that day. I did not see any this time with Journey, although I did see fresh bear poop. Also, last time I parked at the ASRA headquarters (free parking). Well now they have removed all the public parking there so I had to park at the Robie Point trailhead (also free parking). This would be a longer hike now and I wasn’t sure if I had enough time to make it so Journey and I ran down the trail as much as we could (only on the non-muddy sections). We passed one girl whose bum was rather brown from slipping in the mud. (I hope that is what it was from anyway – just kidding). We made it to the waterfall with plenty of time to spare.
Black Hole of Calcutta Falls is 40 ft. high. It is a very gorgeous drop right alongside the trail. Journey was being very silly and was rubbing up against me and my tripod as I took photos. She was in a very funny mood. I love it but she also wouldn’t co-operate for me to take photos of her. So silly.
After this we continued hiking down to Tamaroo Bar along the river. There were a lot of people out on the trail: runners, hikers, dogs. It was a bit overwhelming, frankly. I prefer hiking when no one else is around. It is more peaceful. But Journey had a fabulous day. If you go down to Tamaroo Bar you will notice a bunch of big barrels strung out on a line above the trail. They seemed to extend halfway down the mountain. You will wonder what the heck they are there for. Well, the truth is they were put there by cavemen 100,000 years ago for their drinking water which they needed to store because it was a desert back then. Ha, well I am kidding obviously but my point is you should not believe everything you read or hear on the internet. Do your own research and verification. People will believe anything, it seems to me sometimes. Why would anyone believe birds evolved from huge dinosaurs when there is absolutely zero proof? (just a small example). In actual truth, the barrels are leftover from the old Auburn dam that failed in 1986. That was before my time here in California. We had a beautiful morning hike in Auburn State Recreation Area.
Two days later and I was back at Table Mountain once more. No Journey this time because I was planning to do some difficult scrambling.
Once again I got in between the rain storms. It was somewhat sunny when I started out, but the rain was on its way. There were quite a few cows out in the field but they left me alone this time. That is the way I like it. No stress. A relaxing and beautiful morning on Table Mountain. I even saw a coyote out in the field running amongst the cows.
I arrived at Ranch Falls (aka Long Falls). The water flow was significantly reduced from two days prior. It was only two days! This was a bit upsetting. It was almost not worth it now but my plan was to go to the bottom of Ranch Falls, something I’ve been wanting to try for a long time now.
My first attempt was a dud. I chose a path that was way too steep and cliffy. I could almost get down but it was just a bit too steep. I retreated back up the mountain. That is when I noticed a cow had come down the cliffs after me. I guess it wanted to see what the heck I was doing? What are you doing down here, cow? It scrambled back up when it saw me coming. My second attempt was much better. This route was not bad at all. Even Journey could have made it. The only problem? Poison oak. It was everywhere and it was unavoidable. Even though I washed thoroughly when I got home, I still got the itch. In my eye as well. That is the worst. My wife is like, you idiot! Why do you go hiking in these places where you know there is poison oak? Ummm, well I just can’t help it! I need more. I haven’t found what I’m looking for.
I mean, take a look at the photo. How could you not want to come here? Ranch Falls. What a beauty! 157 ft. high, a stunning tiered waterfall. I am sure people have been down here before but I do not know of anyone that has done it. It is an amazing spot. Now I just had to climb back up the mountain through all that poison oak. I arrived back at the car just as the rain was starting. It was a fantastic morning on Table Mountain.
I tried to get out in between the storms this weekend. One forecast said it would be cloudy all morning. The other said rain all morning. Which would it be? Neither! It boggles my mind why they can’t get the forecast correct two hours into the future. I arrived at the Table Mountain trailhead and it was sunny. Well not quite. Table Mountain was on the edge of the clouds, Oroville was clear. So it was still clouded over but I would be hiking to the west where there were no clouds. Would I make it in time? That is the question.
The answer is cows. Huh? You heard me. Cows. The cows this day were the worst I have ever seen them on Table Mountain. It started off all right. Journey and I made it down to Hollow Falls. I took a quick photo and we continued on. There is a new fence up blocking the official trail to Crevice Falls. I didn’t understand why there was a fence but I think I was about to find out. We came upon our first cows right in the middle of the trail. It was a narrow section and there was no way around them. I yelled at them to get a move on (mooov-on), and they started running away down the trail. At this sight, Journey thought the chase was on! She wanted to run after them. She really tried. She is so silly. We finally came to an open spot. The cows had stopped but now we could go around them. A couple of them started to charge us. I yelled at them to stop. We were caught in between two groups of cows. They wanted to get to their friends. To gang up on us. One of them started mooing very loudly. This alerted more cows in the bushes that I had not seen and they started running away down the trail. Journey felt this would be a good group to chase as well. We came to the Beatson crossing and the cows were again blocking our path. I thought if I could get across the creek we might leave them all behind. Since I could not get to the normal crossing, I crossed a bit earlier and started climbing up the hill. Again, more cows. Again, we were caught in between them and both sides started charging towards us. Again, I yelled at them. Once at the top of the hill we were finally onto wide open land. There were more cows up here as well, to my chagrin, but we were able to go around them. Well around them. Well off the main trail. By this time I was quite stressed. The cows made me stressed. I felt like going back but there was really no path back except through the middle of them. We continued and finally arrived at Crevice Falls.
The sun was out now. I was able to take some photos of Crevice Falls before it got too bright. Now what should I do? I was not planning just to go here to Crevice Falls, I had an additional spot I wanted to try, but with the sun being out now and with all the cows, I just did not feel like going any further. In addition to this, I had decided I would go back the long way towards Phantom Falls since all the cows seemed to be congregating along the Crevice Falls trail. It would be a lot more mileage. I should have done that. However, when I got back to the Beatson crossing, there were no cows along the Crevice trail. Maybe they had all mooov-ed on? I decided to take a chance. Eventually we caught up to them and this time it was even worse. They were blocking the entire path. There was no way around them and they were not moving away when I yelled at them. We had to climb up the hill, through the brush and poison oak, and then back down to the trail once we got past them. I think I avoided touching the oak but Journey definitely touched it, so I hope I don’t get it from her. I was tired of all the cows. Journey was tired of the cows as well. If you know her, she would never get tired of seeing cows, but she was, so this tells you just how much and how bad the cows were today.
Finally we made it back to Hollow Falls where we had our lunch. It was a crazy day on Table Mountain.
As of Feb 1, our California stats do not look so good. Snow pack is at 60% of normal (north), 53% (central), and 35% (south). Rain is at 77% (north), 51% (central), 43% (south). It is up quite a bit from Jan 1, but clearly we are still far behind average. The Southern Sierra in particular is in dire straits. We need a huge February and March to catch up. Having said that, voila! We have two monster storms hitting us this weekend. The first one was not really so big, actually. We just had 2.5 inches of rain in the foothills. I had wanted to go back to Oroville but they only had 1.5 inches. But the Bay Area? 4 inches of rain. Hmmmm, should I go back to Marin County one more time?
I asked my daughter if she wanted to hike with me. Shockingly, she said yes. Usually she wants to rest on the weekend because she is dancing 5 days per week, but for some reason she wanted to hike this weekend. And this would not be a particularly easy hike either.
I wanted to return to Big Carson Falls because I did not have a very good photo of it. Plus it should be absolutely rocking with all the rain. In fact, I was a bit worried we would not make it. There are three big creek crossings and after 4 inches of rain I thought they might be at flood stage.
I picked Nekoda up from her dorm at 7am and we got out to the trailhead by 7:30am. There is just one single parking spot so it’s a good thing we were there by sunrise. It was a Big Chilly morning for us to see Big Carson Falls but we warmed up quickly. It is a 700 ft. climb up the mountain and then a 600 ft. descent down to the creek and waterfall (and reverse that on the way back). The creek crossings were pretty tame. We rock hopped the first two without much difficulty. The third crossing I had to wade across but you don’t even have to do that one in order to see the waterfall. I went across to get a better photo angle but Nekoda did not bother with it. I was a little surprised the crossings were so easy. I have been down at this creek in the past when it has been uncrossable and I was expecting similar conditions after so much rain.
Big Carson Falls is 56 ft. high. We chilled out at the base of the falls enjoying it very much. It was gorgeous and flowing much better than the last time I was here. I was pleased. I think Nekoda was pleased as well. She thought the hike was a bit too hard though. She asked me which of my muscles were sore after the hike. I told her none. I don’t think she believed me. We ended the day with a pizza lunch. It was another magnificent morning in Marin County.
This is of course the famous viewpoint at Little Phantom Falls with Phantom Falls in the background.
It is funny how this view has significantly changed. When I was last here the only way to see it was to climb out on a very dangerous rock outcrop with a huge dropoff. I chose not to do it that time because the rocks were very wet and slick. Also, the view of Little Phantom Falls by itself was only obtainable by crawling through poison oak and to the edge of a cliff. Now … ??? They have cleared away all the trees and poison oak and now anyone and their chihuahua can easily come to see Little Phantom Falls with the view of big old Phantom Falls in the background. Is this a good thing? You be the judge. You don’t need to climb out on the scary rock anymore although you still can do it. I did not this time because I had Journey with me but I’m not sure you would get a better view even if you did climb out on it.
