Our family trip to Desolation Sound in beautiful British Columbia, Canada, was a long time in the making. My mom planned and arranged this for our families (her, my family, and my sister’s family) way back in 2020. Of course we all know what happened that year. We tried again in 2021 but travel was still prohibited for us to Canada. Finally in 2022 we were all set to go. BC or bust! We all tested negative darnit! We were all going to Canada darnit! We were all excited darnit! But alas, sadly, it still did not work out perfectly well for all of us (stay tuned for Day 4 to find out why).
My mom did most of the planning for this trip. I was just along for the ride. So that means this was not primarily a waterfall trip. It was primarily a family vacation and ocean trip. Nonetheless, I still managed to see and photograph about 20 (or more) incredible waterfalls on this vacation. BC is so amazing!
One thing I did plan myself was the first day (before we met up with the rest of the family the next day on the Sunshine Coast). We stayed the first night in Squamish BC where there were 5 awesome waterfalls I wanted to see in Squamish and Whistler that I had not seen before.
We arrived at Squamish early and hung around town a bit before we could check into our hotel. We found out (too late) that the hotel we booked has a bar below the rooms and they play loud music until 2AM! THANKFULLY, we came on a Monday and they do not do this on Mondays. (big sigh of relief). We checked in and then went to A&W for dinner where I got my annual mozza burger fix. Mozza burgers are my absolute favorite! They don’t have these in USA so whenever I go to Canada we MUST go to A&W! It is not optional. After dinner we drove up to Whistler to check out 4 of the waterfalls.
The last one we went to: incredibly beautiful Brandywine Falls. I measured it to be 171 ft. high though it is officially cited by the park as being 230 ft. high (not even close). We arrived at the park just before sunset. Supposedly they close the gates at sunset so we had very little time to walk down to the viewpoint. My son Jadon stayed in the car while Tara and Nekoda and myself quickly walked to the viewpoint. It is a very easy walk. Brandywine Falls was flowing very beautifully! It is absolutely gorgeous and arguably the prettiest waterfall in all of British Columbia. I have wanted to see this one for a very long time. Even though it is August all the waterfalls in British Columbia were flowing very well. A drought for California does not mean the same for BC. Thanks to La Nina, BC had an above average winter and spring. We picked the perfect year to come up here to see waterfalls in August. Sweet goodness gracious!
We did not get locked in by the park rangers even though it was a bit past sunset when we got back to the car. Whew, that was a close one. We returned to our hotel in Squamish and had a good sleep with no loud music to keep us awake. It was an awesome first day on the west coast of British Columbia.
Posted in British Columbia, Waterfalls by leapin26: August 9, 2022
This is Middle Cherry Creek Falls, 36 ft. high. Where I camped for the night. A very beautiful place!
Posted in Northern Sierra, Waterfalls by leapin26: June 14, 2022
It rained most of the night. It was still raining when I got up and continued to rain throughout the morning. So what did the weather forecasters say about this? TWENTY percent chance of showers on Sunday. I think one site might have said 40 percent chance of showers but the others said nothing like that at all. WHAT AN EPIC FAIL. Showers is one thing. I expected I might have a little bit of off and on showers and so I did bring my rain jacket. This was constant rain all night and morning. Light rain. But still rain nonetheless. Not showers. I did not bring my rain pants or my gloves. I dearly wished I had brought these two items. If I had then the hike back out would have been much more pleasant in the light rain. Instead it was miserable. You can call me an idiot for not being prepared enough, I don’t mind. I should have known better. It is a 1500 ft. climb out of the canyon with no trail and a lot of brush. The brush was wet from all the rain and so I was a soaking dog long before I finally got to the top and back on the trail.
I was extremely happy that I saw all the waterfalls on the previous day. I certainly would not have wanted to go to any of the falls in the morning in the rain. I ate my breakfast and drank my coffee hiding under a tree sheltered from the elements. The photo shown here is Lower Cherry Creek Falls, 51 ft. high.
Once back on the trail at the top of the ridge it is a 4 mile hike back to the car. Unfortunately there is still a lot of brush overgrowing onto the trail. It is not a problem if the brush is dry but of course it was not dry. It was also still raining. It was too miserable to stop so I hiked the entire 4 miles without stopping. It is all downhill though so that was good. I got back to my car and turned up the heat to warm myself up. I drove straight home. I did not stop for pizza this time but I did get a triple western burger at Carls when I got back. It was a good trip down into the Cherry Bomb gorge in the amazing Emigrant Wilderness.
Posted in Northern Sierra, Waterfalls by leapin26: June 8, 2022
This would likely be my last backpacking trip before Fall (though I may possibly do one more in June). I had this trip on my list for this spring but I did not think I’d get to it. I did not really want to drive back out to Yosemite for a third time this spring (it is not Yosemite actually, it is Emigrant Wilderness which is just before Yosemite but essentially the same amount of driving). However, rain was in the forecast for the weekend. Quite a bit of rain. But for the Yosemite area there was no rain in the forecast or very little anyway so going back to this area seemed like the best bet for the weekend. Yeah right. More on this in part 2.
It was Saturday. It was raining on Saturday. What did the forecast say? ZERO PERCENT chance of rain on Saturday. I don’t know about you but to me ZERO means ZERO. Nada. Nothing. Zip. No possibility of any rain whatsoever. If the stupid weather forecasters have any doubts why don’t they say 10 percent. Zero means NOTHING! Anyway, it was not raining very much but I did need to get out my rain jacket. I did bring my rain jacket but I did not bring much else. It was only a 20 percent chance for Sunday after all. Again, more on this in part 2. (it’ll be a good one)
There were a lot of cars at the trailhead including one that I was pretty sure belonged to kayakers. Cherry Creek is a popular run for expert kayakers but I thought it was a bit late in the year for them to be doing this run. Well I hoped that no one would be camping down in the canyon where I was going. I suppose it was unlikely because there is no trail and it is very difficult. Still it was possible.
After you climb up to the top of the ridge on the trail you need to go off trail down into the canyon. No trail. Very brushy. It was a lot harder than I remembered. I made it down to camp by 2PM. There was no one else down here. Fantastic. I had the entire place to myself right beside the Middle Falls. It is a gorgeous campsite and a very large sandy beach like area to put up my tent. There were very few mosquitoes at this spot. It was perfect!
Thankfully it was a cloudy day. It was also still very early. My plan and hope was to go to all four waterfalls today. That way I could sleep in a bit and not have to go to any of them in the morning.
When I was last down in this canyon I failed to make it to Cherry Bomb Falls. My planned route turned out to be much too steep and I could not figure out a way to get up above the cliffs at the Middle Falls for the life of me. So what do you do when you fail the first time? Give up! No! The madman does not give up but when it comes to waterfalls he certainly may need multiple attempts before success is found.
I had a different route this time and a better one. I was able to make it above the cliffs without much difficulty. Once you get above the Middle Falls the scenery is absolutely outstanding. Wide open granite. It is an easy walk over to the edge where you can look down into the Cherry Bomb gorge.
Maybe only kayakers will appreciate this view. Cherry Bomb Falls is not really much of a waterfall. It has a 20 ft. drop at the top and then it continues into a long cascade in a very tight and steep gorge. Of course I knew this beforehand but I still wanted to come here. It was certainly worth it! I really loved this spot and this beautiful cascade. The scenery is incredibly magnificent!
Now it was onto the next three waterfalls, the last one being the Middle Falls at my campsite. When I finally got back to my camp I found that I had company. The kayakers had made their appearance. I missed seeing them go over the waterfall as they had already done that and set up their camp. Thankfully they were camping on the other side of the river. I don’t know if they planned to do that anyway or they saw my tent and decided to go on the other side to give me space. Either way I am grateful because they had a large group and if they were camping right beside me they would have been invading my space and been too loud and keeping me awake in the night. I was so glad to have my peace and quiet at my campsite on the beautiful sandy beach. Part 2 is on the way.
Posted in Northern CA, Waterfalls by leapin26: June 6, 2022
My planned hike was a very difficult one mostly all off trail and over 4000 ft. elevation gain. I had no room to spare and only two nights available because I had to get back home for a few important things (one of which was my anniversary – not much wiggle room for that one). However, it took much longer to reach Laurel Lake than anticipated. I did not think I’d be able to make up any of that time on the rest of the hike (from Laurel Lake it gets harder not easier).
The further I descended down into the canyon the more I realized I would not make my intended destination to the big waterfalls. I would be hard pressed to make it to the first of the waterfalls. I really needed two more days for this hike than I had planned but I did not have any more days. The canyon is absolutely stunning. It reminded me of West Cherry Canyon but it is much more difficult. There is quite a bit of brush to negotiate with some (but less of) the fantastic open granite spaces yet still the canyon walls are incredible all around you.
I came to a place where I could not continue. At least not very easily. By this point I was incredibly tired, it was getting late, and there were still three more hours before I would even reach the first of the waterfalls. Even if I could make it that far it seemed pointless to continue because I could not make it where I really wanted to anyway. As I said I needed a couple more days which I did not have. I decided to retreat.
I came to this small waterfall on Eleanor Creek and found a place to camp. It was actually an incredibly pretty little waterfall about 20 ft. high and definitely a worthy one. I call it Far Upper Eleanor Creek Falls. I enjoyed my camp here with the tiny lizards. They were about 2 inches long and scampered about, jumping behind the rocks when I came too close to them. They were hilarious.
I don’t ever sleep in but sometimes I would like to. I was up at 6AM. Sigh. I packed up, had my breakfast and coffee, and started my journey back home. I still had a long way to hike back to the car. It took 9 hours to get this far and I anticipated the same back.
If you know exactly where to go that does save some time and I got back to Laurel Lake an hour ahead of schedule. From there it would be all on trail and mostly downhill. I would not go back down the Frog Creek canyon. I was done with all the off trail anguish for this trip. That means I would have to cross Frog Creek at a different place. The creek was flowing “somewhat” gently at the crossing but it was deep and I realized that this crossing would probably be up to my waist level. All my electronics hang around at about waist level so I took off my pack and moved them all up to a higher safer place. The creek was very cold but only up to my mid thigh. (that is pretty darn deep though).
It is 8 miles from Laurel Lake back to my car. The last 4 miles from Miguel Meadow to Lake Eleanor are along a very old overgrown road (now a trail). The section along this old road I found to be very interesting and there were also tons of butterflies. Back at Lake Eleanor I found the trail crew still there. Two days later and they still had not started doing any trail work. Maybe they weren’t actually a trail crew after all. They were all hanging out in a circle and blindfolded. I walked right past them and they did not even see me. Is this some kind of training for being a trail crew? or maybe fire fighting? or maybe none of the above? I don’t know. All I know is that the Cottonwood Creek trail at Hetch Hetchy still desperately needs to be cleared. I got back to my car and drove to Pizza Factory in Groveland (of course). It was another beautiful and amazing trip to Yosemite National Park.
Posted in Waterfalls, Yosemite by leapin26: June 1, 2022
