Leon Turnbull Photography

Ventana Wilderness hikers are a different breed of human. They are immune to poison oak. Horrendous amounts of ticks and crazy bush whacking do not bother them. You have to respect that. Any of these three things and I would turn back. I am not worthy. But I keep going back to Ventana. There are many waterfalls there I still have not seen. I encountered all three of these nasties this time and I did not turn back. I probably should have, though.

I initially planned to do this trip a couple weeks back but I postponed it due to weather. That was smart because the rivers would have been twice as high two weeks ago. As it was they were barely crossable. The problem, however, was that I put my back out the weekend before my trip. I don’t know how. It has been fine for six months and then all of a sudden it goes out. By the time my trip was to start the back was still not healed but I was not going to delay my trip again. It was probably not a smart decision. Ventana or bust.

My planned hike was going to be a very difficult one. Most of it would be off trail with tons of elevation gain and loss, and plenty of difficult bush whacking. Also the road was closed about 4 miles before the trailhead due to a wash out. I parked beside the road and walked the 4 miles in to the trailhead, then continued on my planned route. The first part was on trail but I quickly realized this would not work. My back was starting to really hurt and I still had 2000 ft. of elevation to climb. All this before I even reached the off trail section. I knew I would not be able to make it so I decided to turn back. There was an easier hike I could go on instead which would be (mostly) all on trail. I think this was a smart choice although I really had hoped to do the harder hike this year. It was not to be.

This waterfall was found by a certain Ventana Wilderness expert and the location he gave was a mile or so down river from the trail (ie. off trail). HOWEVER … as I hiked down the trail to the river I passed by a waterfall. It looked exactly like the photo I had seen of this so called off trail waterfall. I was 95% sure it was the same waterfall. I took a photo (shown here). The location was not anywhere even close to the marked spot. Nonetheless, I decided to go down river anyway and check out the other location. At first it was not too bad. I had to cross the river 3 or 4 times. The water was up to my knees or thighs but it was easily crossable. I was about a quarter mile away when all of a sudden the route became extremely difficult. I should have turned around (because of my back), but I tried to press on anyway. Soon afterwards I came to a spot where I definitely could not continue. There is no way anyone could have gotten by this section. Could they? I retreated and found a spot to camp by the river. There was a turtle bathing on the rocks in the sun. I also saw plenty of lizards and newts. My back was not happy from that excursion. I set up camp, ate my dinner, and went to bed.

I will rename this waterfall Lost Valley Falls. It is 20 ft. high exactly. It is on an unnamed creek. The next day I would continue my trek, supposedly an easy hike on an easy trail to another beautiful waterfall. Yeah right, this is Ventana Wilderness. Nothing is easy. Stay tuned …

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As of April 1, the snow pack in California is at 190% of average (north), 233% (central), and 298% (south). Precipitation is at 133% (north), 184% (central), and 213% (south). April 1 marks the end of the winter season so anything we get from now on is bonus precipitation. I’m sure you are all hoping we don’t get any bonus precipitation. Now that it is spring it does not bother me that people say or complain they are done with the rain. I just don’t like it when people say that in winter (especially in a drought). As for me, I say let’s get on with spring already!

Saturday, April 1: I was wanting to go hiking in the snow this weekend so I had plans to do a couple hikes. The first hike I was expecting to be fairly easy with no snow. Ha! When I arrived at the trailhead I found snow on the road. Not too much. I decided to put on my snow boots instead of my hiking boots. Good choice. I also decided to leave my snowshoes in the car. Bad choice.

As I hiked down the road, downhill, losing elevation, the snow was getting deeper and deeper. This is illogical. There was now about 3 feet of snow. I was only at 3000 ft. elevation. I suppose I should have known better but I was not expecting so much snow here. It was too late to go back to the car to get snowshoes. Snowshoes would be nice. Fortunately I was not sinking in too much, just about 6 inches (mostly). As I continued, now climbing back up in elevation, the snow was about 4 or 5 feet deep. I started sinking in a lot more. About 12 inches. Now it was very tough going. The second hike was canceled. At least I am getting the snow hike that I wanted.

I hoped to see two waterfalls on this creek. I decided to go to the upper one first. That one should be easier. To get down to it you have to get off the road and descend the mountain down to the creek. It was steep. It was treacherous in the snow. I had to be very careful, taking just one step at a time. Near the bottom it got very cliffy. One wrong step and I would be toast. I could see the waterfall but I could not get to it. I also could not find any place to take a photo of it. I will have to return someday when there is no snow. Maybe then I can get to it.

Back up at the road, now I was quite tired. It was a cloudy day though so I figured I should try the second waterfall. I did not have much hope. I was certain the lower falls would be much steeper and cliffier than the upper falls. Also brushier. Well, the snow was a lot softer. I was sinking in a lot more, making it quite difficult, but it was not cliffy. I made it all the way down to the creek and up to the waterfall fairly easily. Middle Cherokee Creek Falls is a very pretty little thing, 27 ft. high.

I retreated back up to the road and hiked back to the car…

Then it happened…

I was attacked by a wild boar…

Well that has never happened before…

Okay okay, I was not actually attacked. However, it was huffing at me and was running towards me. I thought it was going to attack me. Then it stopped. Thankfully! At first I thought it was a bear because it was big and brown and huffing. Then I saw it was a boar, not a bear. I have not seen a wild boar before. I am not actually certain it was wild because there was private property in the area, but if it was tame then why would it attack me? I think I will just say it was wild. It sounds a lot better. My wife did not believe me when I told her this. She thought it was an April Fools joke. It certainly would be a good joke but it was real, believe me. And I have video proof of it. When I post my video of the hike in a few weeks then you can see and believe as well. Ha ha!

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When I was down at Paradise Canyon Falls in January I noticed a waterfall in the distance dropping into the river. I was certain that it must be the bottom of Mile Hill Creek. It looked to be a good decent drop and it looked like it would be pretty easy to get to by hiking along the river bed. A future return trip was inserted into my brain.

Fast forward to March. The rain continues. The creeks must be flowing as high as they were back in January. I thought. That return trip to Auburn was extracted from my brain. Here we go.

This time I found a good place to park for free. I was quite happy about that. It added about a mile round-trip to the hike. No problem. As I hiked down the trail I saw that all the little creeks were not flowing nearly so well as they were back in January. At least half as much flow. I was not so happy about that. Big problem. I got down to the river and started hiking along the river bed towards the waterfall. As I suspected it was very easy even though the river was extremely high. I easily made it to the waterfall. It was NOT Mile Hill Creek. It was in fact just one of the small unnamed creeks. One of those small creeks that had half as much flow as back in January. I was not very impressed. I did not really want to take a photo but decided to take one anyway to share with you. It will not likely be going on my website even though it is 24 ft. high. Continuing on to Mile Hill Creek was out of the question because of the cliffs so I retreated back to the trail and up to the car, arriving well before sunset. There was a couple standing around in the bushes. Not doing anything. Just standing there. What in the all out heck were they doing? So weird. Let’s go home.

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My mom is not doing very well these days so I took a trip to Canada with my daughter Nekoda to visit. It is a two day drive and the first day is a very long day, driving all day. I rarely make stops along the way, especially on the first day because it is so long and tiring and I had no plans to stop anywhere this time either. However, it is hard to resist when the conditions are absolutely perfect and they were perfect for visiting Hedge Creek Falls. It was cloudy. There was fresh snow on the ground. A lot of fresh snow on the ground. I was betting the waterfall would be stunning.

There was a path in the snow. Some people had been down there, so we did not need our snowshoes, but we were postholing quite a bit on the trek down to the waterfall. It was absolutely gorgeous. I have never seen Hedge Creek Falls covered in snow before. It was just a 30 minute break but it was perfect.

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Thanks to waterfallswest friend Scotty for sharing this great find.

As of March 1, the snow pack in California is at 151% of average (north), 196% (central) and 231% (south). Precipitation is 117% of average (north), 158% (central) and 167% (south). If all the complainers back in January got their way then we would only be at normal average for the year, and still would be in a horrible drought this summer and likely seeing more forest fires than normal. I am happy to say the complainers did not get their way (though I thought they would when the rains stopped back in January). The storms picked up again with a vengeance in late February and are continuing into March. The snow pack is near an all time high. The waterfalls will be flowing well this year throughout the entire summer. The Madman is very happy. We still have a moderate to severe drought in most areas of California but this continues to improve. By spring I think the drought may be mostly gone. You may be wondering how is this all possible? We have La Nina conditions, exactly the same as last year. Every single weather forecaster said we would have another well below average winter. Every single one. There is really only one explanation in my opinion: God. He has answered all our prayers for rain and snow and to end the drought. In one fell swoop. Thank you Lord but I have to admit the extremes in California just kill me. I would much prefer to just have an average season every year.

Anyway enough of that. Onto my hike this weekend. I had no idea this waterfall (waterfalls) existed. It is an unnamed creek. I did not even consider it in my research. Why would I? However, with all the rain we have had, the creek is flowing very well and I could see from my friend’s photos that this would be a great waterfall find and definitely worth visiting. I did not know exactly where it was located on the creek. I assumed it would be down by the river. That was most logical. So I hiked the trail all the way down to the confluence at the river. No waterfall. Ugh. It must be upstream somewhere.

Now things got very hairy. I started bushwhacking up the creek. Bushwhacking indeed! The poison oak was absolutely atrocious. I gave up even trying to avoid the stuff. I can only hope I scrubbed it all off when I got home. There was a path in places but mostly it was a crazy bushwhack up the mountain, in the creek, through the brush, through the oak. I almost gave up. Where are those darn waterfalls anyway? I did not want to go back down to the river. That would have been just too hard. There was a big storm coming and the rain was supposed to start very soon. But I was not sure I would be able to exit upstream. It was incredibly brushy and getting worse and worse. I bushwhacked the entire length of the creek from the bottom to the top (to where it finally crossed the trail). I found a couple lower waterfalls that were 20 ft high (but hard to photograph). Finally I reached the main waterfall, an outstanding 41 ft. high cascade. I found it! We shall call it Drivers Flat Falls. I relaxed here a bit, taking many photographs. Then I continued going up the creek hoping to find an exit point so I would not have to retreat back down all the way to the river (thankfully I found one). It was a marvelous day in Auburn State Recreation Area.

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