Leon Turnbull Photography

We are now in the Dog Days of winter, waiting for the next storm to arrive. Will we have another dry Jan/Feb/Mar as we had last year? Or will the storms pick up again at the end of Dec? We only need about 1 big storm per month to end up at average for the year. Pray pray pray.

From the lower Dogwood Creek Falls, I found a trail going up to the upper Falls. It was definitely a human trail but also incredibly overgrown. At one point I had to take my backpack off to squeeze under a log. But I made it. It was a little easier getting down to the upper waterfall with no cliffs and I did not need to use my rope. It is another nice one, 54 feet high. One foot higher than the lower falls.

I retreated down the mountain, trying to follow the trail back to the road. But it became impossibly brushy. I gave up. I decided to exit the trail and head straight down to the road. It was a bit easier that way. After driving down the horribly narrow road back to the highway, a stop at Jakes in Oroville was definitely on the agenda. It was another great day in Plumas National Forest.

My friend Jeremy told me about some waterfalls on Dogwood Creek quite a while ago but I did not make it up there to check them out until this weekend. The big deterrent for me was the horrible road. It is another one of those very steep and very narrow and rough roads with absolutely no turn outs. This one is even worse than the previous one I did recently. I prayed profusely again that I would not see another car as I drove up it and then back down later. Once again God obliged. Thank you Lord. Whew. Driving these roads is so stressful.

I arrived at the creek at noon and ate my lunch before starting the hike. There is a path going up along the creek so it is really not that hard. Until you reach the waterfall, that is. Then it becomes cliffy. Horribly cliffy. Impossibly cliffy. How was I going to get down to the creek and waterfall? I saw a possible route down but it would require rope. Thankfully, I brought my rope. There is no way I could’ve done it otherwise. I made it down safely and up to the waterfall. What a beauty! 53 feet high. A hidden gem. And much more difficult than I anticipated.

When I reviewed my friend’s photos afterwards, it seems he did not make it to this one. Maybe because it was so cliffy? But also it seems he went to some other falls that I did not see. I think I will be exploring this creek again on another day. Except for that darn road.

I did continue on to the upper Falls. Stay tuned for part two…

You may be thinking after this weekend, we are going to have a great winter with above average precipitation! You may be thinking, we’ve had enough, stop raining already! As of right now, we have a snow pack about 200% of average. Surely that is enough. If you are thinking that, you would be wrong! Has the fat lady sung yet? No, she hasn’t. Remember last year? We were well above average in December and then we received almost zero precipitation in January, February and March. Nada. We ended up well below average for the year. Winter in California is four months, not one month. I read one report that said the same thing is going to happen this year, and already now it seems we are starting an extended dry period after this past weekend. What is my point? My point is: don’t get so excited yet. Keep praying for rain and snow. It’s not over yet.

Whenever I go to the Bay Area I am almost always disappointed with the waterfalls. About 90% of the time they have low and disappointing flows. I keep wanting to go back there because there are many waterfalls I still want to see. I should have gone to Oroville instead. However, I thought if I went on Saturday during the big storm, then the waterfalls would be good. They should be good. I had plans to see four falls, including three new ones. The first one was one I have been to before: Arroyo San Jose Falls.

As I started the easy hike up to the waterfall I was stunned: the creek was completely dry! We are in the middle of a huge storm and the creek is still dry from the summer? I just drove 2 hours to see this? This is a fairly decent sized creek. I expected this one at least to be flowing quite well. It was dry. Nonetheless, I continued on the hike. Well, I’m glad I did not turn back because as I came close to the waterfall, I found water in the creek. It was flowing up at the falls and then went underground. It was not great. But at least it was not dry.

There were a couple kids playing in the creek at the waterfall so I went off to the side to take photos. I did not want to disturb their play (I’m not that mean!), and also it was probably a better angle from the side anyway. After photographing this waterfall I decided to skip the other waterfalls. I did hike a bit more but in the end I figured it was not worth the effort. Considering the low flow in Arroyo San Jose, I knew the other creek would have been just a trickle at the very most. I will have to come back. Hopefully next time it will not be a disappointment.

On Friday night I checked the weather forecast for Saturday morning. One app tells me it was going to be raining all Saturday morning. The other app says partially sunny. What the heck? This is a very big difference. It is less than 12 hours beforehand and they cannot figure out what the weather is going to be like? That is unbelievable to me. It is the difference between the GFS and the European weather models I guess but this close to the actual time they should be in alignment. So which one would be right? Usually the European model is more correct but this time it was GFS. So that meant it was raining on Saturday morning. That is what I woke up to. It was not raining too much in the morning though, just very light off and on. So I guess they were both wrong. Nothing surprising then.

My Plan A hike was going to be a very short, easy hike, close to home. I was pretty confident I could do this hike …until I ran into a big huge fence in which it would be a major crime to cross over it. No trespassing here. I was not expecting that at all. I was bummed. I wasn’t confident at all for my Plan B hike but decided to drive over to check it out. No trespassing again. Strike two. I needed something that would be a sure thing. My Plan C hike would be just that, one that I have done before. Many times before, in fact. American Canyon Creek Falls. Old Faithful.

It was lightly raining as I hiked down the trail. I anticipated it getting worse now as it was much later in the morning. Maybe I should just go back to bed. I continued on, however. I have a new Gopro camera for an early Christmas gift and I really wanted to try it out today. (thanks Tara and Meredy, by the way!) Last time I was here, the poison oak was growing tremendously over the trail. It was unavoidable. At this time of year, however, no poison oak. No ticks either. By the time I reached the falls the rain had stopped. Just long enough to take photos. Sweet perfect timing, Lord.

It was raining harder as I hiked back up the trail but I did not mind. I was happy. It was a lovely morning hike to my favorite little waterfall in Auburn State Recreation Area.

Blackbird fly, blackbird fly. Into the light of a dark black night – Beatles

Black Friday. The Bird is done. Time to hike. It is, as you know, my favorite day of the year to hike. There would be no one else hiking where I was going. Everyone is shopping. Everything is back to normal (it seems) after COVID. I did see a couple hunters, however. That was a surprise.

I have tried this waterfall twice before by different routes and failed twice before. This time around I would be trying the same route as the first time I tried it. Am I such a fool? The first time I went here by this route it was just impossibly brushy. There was no way I could battle through it. It was not even close. So why would I try this again? What is different this time? The Hirz Fire of 2018. That is what is different. The entire area was burned that year. Maybe it would not be so brushy now. Maybe I actually might make it down to the waterfall this time.

The road is horrible. I seemed to have blocked that out of my mind after the first time I went here. I did not remember it at all. It is not really bad (in terms of roughness),  it is just a very steep, very narrow road, with literally no turnouts for passing. Pray that you do not come across anyone driving this road (like hunters, for instance). I hate roads like this. It is just very stressful to me. I was literally going something like 5 or 10 miles an hour. When I finally got to the top, I decided to park and walk the rest of the way even though I was still a couple miles from the trailhead. I was done with the driving. I needed to get out of the car and hike.

It was a good decision. I had great views of beautiful snow covered Mt. Shasta as I hiked along the road.  I got to the trailhead, which is not really a trailhead, because there is no trail. I had to exit the road and descend back down the mountain about 1200 ft. to the bottom of the canyon (this time not in a car). Good news: The fire did clear out all the brush. It was quite easy hiking down the mountain. The poison oak was growing back already but I suppose that is not surprising. I wonder how long until the whole area is too brushy and this route is inaccessible again? It gets a lot steeper near the bottom but I found a way down that was not cliffy. However, the poison oak at the bottom was absolutely horrific. This section had not been burned in the fire. There was no way to avoid touching it. Ugh!

Once down at the creek I had to cross it and make my way upstream, climbing up the middle of the creek above a small cascade. This was quite tricky. I made it!

North Salt Creek Falls is quite a bit bigger than I anticipated, 51 ft. high, and it is incredibly pretty. This one is a winner, an absolute beauty. I had to stand right in the freezing cold creek to take my photos but it was worth it. Now I had to climb back out of the canyon, through all that poison oak, and back up to the road and my car. I prayed profusely to God that there would be no one coming up the narrow road as I drove back down it. He obliged. It was a marvelous Black Friday in Shasta National Forest.