Leon Turnbull Photography

This is from my hike last weekend. The fifth of five waterfalls I saw that fall onto the beach on the California coast. This is Palomarin Falls, 151 ft. high. Last time I was here, Palomarin Falls was just a trickle. It was so nice to see this one flowing decently well. It is a beauty. Just be sure to come here immediately after it rains.

My initial plan was to hike to RCA Beach Falls then back to the car, and then drive to the Palomarin trailhead to do my second hike in the afternoon. However, the road to Palomarin was closed, apparently due to flooding. I saw no flooding on the road. So why the heck was it closed? There were a ton of people this day wanting to hike to Alamere Falls and they either turned back or had to walk an extra 5 miles. For no good reason whatsoever. Indeed I found out later according to the park website that I (and all the other people) were not even allowed to walk on the road. What is wrong with the park service, not letting people hike to Alamere Falls?

I had a second option. After hiking to RCA Beach Falls I would continue up the beach to Arroyo Hondo Falls (which I have been to before). I would then cross this creek and continue on my second hike to the other waterfalls and then I would hike back on the main road to my car. Now this would be interesting. Arroyo Hondo is a large creek. With all the rain we had it was very questionable that I could cross it at all. Well it was definitely flowing very strong but as it turned out it was not difficult to cross it. But did I even want to go on the second hike? It was too sunny. What would be the point of going to the other waterfalls? I sat down at Arroyo Hondo Falls and ate my lunch and thought about it for quite a long time. As I pondered the dilemma, I saw that clouds (and perhaps a storm) were coming in from over the ocean. It might actually cloud over in the afternoon. I decided to continue on. Of course the storm and clouds never materialized and it remained sunny all afternoon. Sigh.

I have not been to Bass Falls before. It requires a very low tide to access and perhaps a minus tide. It was not a minus tide today but it was low enough that I thought I would be able to make it if I timed it correctly. It was a beautiful and fun hike along the beach and I had no trouble making it to the waterfall. Now I just had to wait again for clouds to pass in front of the sun. Bass Falls is quite interesting. It looks very different now from pictures I have seen. There was a huge rock slide right in front of the waterfall. In addition to this the flow seems to be altered somehow up on top. It is not as photogenic as it used to be. Sometimes waterfalls are strange.

I retreated back along the beach. I could have gone the same way (via RCA Beach) but I decided that I had enough of beach walking for today. The rocky sections of the beach are very hard to walk on and my feet were quite sore. It might be a bit longer but I figured it would be a lot easier to hike on the road. Getting down to the Palomarin beach used to be very easy. This trail has also been washed out now. There is a very sketchy rope ladder to climb up the cliff and get onto the trail. It was very debatable if the rope was going to hold my weight. A fall here would have really hurt or involved breakage of bones. I made it up and once on the trail the going was very easy the rest of the way. I found out that the trail is actually closed because of the washout (but there were no signs down on the beach so how could I have known?). Once on the road I saw a lot of people walking, supposedly going to Alamere Falls (where else would they be going?). This made no sense to me. It was now 3pm and they had 6 miles to hike to Alamere Falls. There is no way they would even get to the waterfall before dark (never mind the hike back). Some of them seemed ill prepared, not even carrying any water (and most likely not carrying head lamps either). Why would you go on such a big hike so late in the day? People are strange, I think. It was a most fabulous day in Point Reyes National Seashore.

When I was here a couple weeks ago I stupidly missed seeing this waterfall (read prior post Who’ll Stop The Rain?) so I wanted to return here and finally get to it. The weather forecast was for it to be cloudy with showers all day. It was sunny. You have got to be kidding me. They could not get it more wrong if they intentionally tried to get it wrong! Clouds or sun? How difficult is that, really? Ugh!

I started out on the same trail as before. I arrived at the creek crossing above the first waterfall. The flow was way down. I was not expecting this. I was expecting it to be about the same. It has pretty much rained non stop (until this day). There was a wooden board to easily step across the creek. I did not even see the board last time because the creek was in flood. I got down to the last section before getting onto the beach. Two weeks ago it was very easy to get down to the beach. Now the trail was washed out. There was a cliff! There was no longer any way down to the beach! Well, it was not too horrible. I was able to slide down the cliff on my butt (it was a small cliff) and get onto the beach. I hoped I would not have any trouble climbing back up later. It was an interesting adventure already and I had not even gotten to the waterfall yet.

The tide was on its way out. I thought I might have to sit and wait an hour or two before I would be able to walk up the beach, however it was not a problem. I made it easily to the first waterfall of the day: RCA Beach Falls. What does RCA stand for? I have no clue. RCA Beach is a clothing optional beach, however I saw no people at all, clothed or otherwise. I did not even see any naked sea lions. Well, it was quite a bit chilly. The waterfall was in full sun. I waited. This would be my theme for the day: hike to waterfall, wait 30 to 60 minutes for clouds to pass in front of sun, take photographs, hike to next waterfall. It was a good thing I was not in a hurry. Low tide would not be until 2:30pm. There was no rush. I had all day.

Finally I got some clouds and took a photo. I certainly had to be on my toes because I only had about a minute or two before the sun was out again. RCA Beach Falls is a marvelous 50 ft. cascade dropping into the ocean. I find it hilarious when people say there are only two waterfalls in California that drop into the ocean. There are many of them! This is one. I would be seeing four more today.

Part 2 is coming …

I hate it when people complain about the rain and call for it to stop when we are still in the middle of winter. There are still 2.5 months of winter left! News flash: If the rain stops now then we will still be in a drought at the end of this winter and we will still end up below average for the year. Although with all these recent storms some areas are very close to the Apr 1 average already but other areas are not (especially the north). Also, we need much more than just an average year for the drought to end. Do you want to continue in drought and continue to have more fires than normal next summer? I sure don’t. California needs more rain not less. Stop complaining. But these people are going to get their wish. The rain is going to be stopping next week. Okay, end rant.

Anyway, I wanted to go hiking this past weekend but I did not want to drive too far. I decided to return to Paradise Canyon Falls on the Middle Fork American River. It had been a long time since I’ve been here and I did not have a good photo of it. With all the recent rain I figured it should be flowing quite well, much better than I’ve ever seen it before. Or would it?

I arrived at the trailhead and found that there is now a $10 parking fee. Ugh! What a ridiculous amount of money to pay for day parking at a state park. What choice did I have? I was going to be on a long hike. There was no way around it. I thought I could park back on the main road and walk in but you had to pay for parking there as well.

There was not very much water flowing in Mile Hill Creek at the trailhead. That was not where I was going but it was not a good sign. Then I came to the first creek crossing down at the river. There was so much water flowing in this creek it was almost uncross-able. Now that was a good sign. Paradise Canyon Creek also had a lot of water flowing in it. In fact, it was pretty much perfect. This waterfall is one of those that needs a lot of water to look nice. It certainly would have been much better a week earlier but then I would not have been able to photograph it. In order to photograph it you need to cross the creek right at the bottom of the falls. It was not an easy task and the water was deep. In higher water it would have been impossible. Even if I could have crossed a week earlier there would have been far too much mist. So Paradise Canyon Falls was about perfect on this day. Paradise Regained.

I continued on the trail along the river in search of other waterfalls. I did find a small one though it wasn’t really all that special. I ate my lunch and then hiked back. It was a perfect day in Auburn State Recreation Area.

Bassi Falls in the spring? Very awesome. Bassi Falls in the winter? Not very good. What about Bassi Falls in the winter after a Pineapple Express with 11.5 inches of rain? I wondered what it would be like this last weekend after the storm. Would it be flowing as well as it does in the spring? Or perhaps even better than spring?

I was actually planning to go to Table Mountain in Oroville on this day but I was just so tired and I could not wake up. I slept in until 7:30am (for me that is incredibly late). I blame my kids. I stayed up with them on New Year’s Eve and the lack of sleep caught up with me two days later. So I slept in on the holiday Monday and did not feel like going to Oroville when I woke up. Instead, I thought about going to Bassi Falls in the afternoon. Heck, why not?

There were a lot of people on Ice House Rd, going up there to play in the snow, but no one was hiking to Bassi Falls. Nonetheless, there were a lot of tracks and the trail was well trodden down. I did not need my snow shoes as the snow was hard packed and easy to walk upon. It was quite icy, however, and I wondered if I should have brought my spikes. I especially thought it was going to be very icy at the falls (and it was).

Bassi Falls was indeed spectacular and it was very much like spring flows. The ice around the waterfall was incredible and obviously not something you will see in the spring. To be honest I did not really think it would be flowing like this on Monday. This really made me wonder what it would have been like on Saturday in the rain. I imagine it would have been much tougher to get there but the water flows would have been out of this world (it would have had at about 10 times the flow on Saturday). Perhaps for the next Pineapple Express I will try this one.

By the way, to the assholes who left their graffiti all over the area this past summer, thanks so much for making Bassi Falls look like those southern California waterfalls that have ugly graffiti everywhere. Please leave your address below so I can personally thank you.

On the hike back to the car I did see a couple people. Apparently they only went to the lower falls and were on their way back already. Why would you hike all the way to the lower falls and not go to the big waterfall? I have seen that a lot. People only go to the lower falls and don’t even know there is a big waterfall just a short distance further. You people need to check out waterfallswest.com. It is a pretty good website, you know. Anyway, as I passed by this couple I definitely let them know they missed out on seeing an incredible waterfall. It was an awesome winter day in Eldorado National Forest.