Leon Turnbull Photography

When life gives you liver, just take the onions instead. The philosophy of a madman. Ha ha.

I was not planning to go this waterfall at all. It was not even on the radar for this weekend but it turned out to be a pretty decent consolation prize.

I was planning to backpack down to the bottom of a certain secret canyon to see a certain secret waterfall. It was going to be awesome. The hike was about 9 miles one way. It was going pretty well. I had to make a couple detours and a couple off road bushwhacks but I made it to the top of the ridge. Now I just had to get down to the bottom. I had a good route mapped out. I was pretty sure I could do it but it is a 1200 ft. descent. It was killer tough. Very steep with lots of deadfall and bushwhacking. I made it down 1100 ft. I was cliffed out. You have got to be kidding me. There was no possible way to continue the rest of the way to the bottom. No possible route around the cliff. I was done. Oh man. I was bummed. I was beat tired. Now I had to bushwhack back up the 1100 ft. to the top and carrying my heavy backpack as well.

It took a long time to climb out. About 1 and a half hours. I was going very slowly. I bonked. Eventually I made it back to the top of the ridge. I certainly did not have energy to hike the 9 miles back to my car and go home. I had to find a place to camp. Near some water (which is quite lacking at the top of this ridge). A thought occurred to me. When I went to Onion Creek Falls last year I remembered hiking past a small stream on the way back. That would be a good place to camp for the night. It would be on the roadside (again) – another lovely camping location – not, but it was not far from where I currently was and there would definitely be water. In addition to this I could go to Upper Onion Creek Falls in the morning before I hiked back to my car. I had not been to this one before so it would be a good consolation prize.

The roadside camp was a little better than Breakneck Creek. At least this time I had a view overlooking the canyon. I setup camp, made my dinner, watched a movie, and went to bed.

The hike to Upper Onion Creek Falls in the morning was supposed to be very easy. So I thought. It would be an easy road walk to the top of the falls then a fairly easy descent down to the creek. Umm, not even close madman! I should know better by now, you would think. Firstly, there was no road. I had to traverse the mountain along a steep ridge through much brush. This is not what I wanted to do this morning at all. I was still tired from the day before. Secondly, when I finally made it to the falls I found not an easy descent down to the creek but instead an extremely cliffy hillside. There was no possible way to get all the way to the bottom of the waterfall. I very slowly and very carefully worked my way down the cliff. I had to use my rope at the end but I finally got down to a spot where I had a good view of the waterfall. Essentially I was hanging on to the edge of the cliff for dear life while I took my photos. But it worked.

Upper Onion Creek Falls is a fantastic waterfall and it is a lot bigger than I expected. I estimated it to be about 80 ft. high. It is a beauty but the access is crazy to say the least.

I hiked back up the mountain and found an easier way back to my campsite to collect my backpack. It was 9 miles back to my car and it was not easy with over 1000 ft. elevation gain but I made it back to the car by 2:30PM. Along the way I saw my first two bears of the year. They saw me first. I would not have even seen them but I heard a loud scratching sound and when I turned to look to see what the heck it was I saw one of the bears climbing down a tree. The second one was still up in the tree looking at me. They were young ones, perhaps a year old. I tried to get my camera out but he scampered down too quickly and then they were both gone. Ah well, it was a great ending to a very tough backpacking trip in Eldorado National Forest.

As for that secret waterfall? I will definitely be back some day to try again.

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This is Wildwood Falls, 22 ft. high. It was surprisingly quick and fairly easy to get down to it. I did not spend much time here.  I think it would not have been difficult to get all the way down to the bottom, however, there was a swath of poison oak in the way and I did not want to deal with that (of course, I ended up being in poison oak later that morning anyway – ugh). The rain was coming and I had another hike I wanted to do before it started so I took my photos quickly and headed back up to the car.

There was a lot of trash down here that I had to pick up, left from the disprespectful kids that came here last summer (or before) to jump off the waterfall. Please, people, leave no trace. I beg you. If you see trash left by others then please pick it up. We all have a responsibility to leave places better than we find them. It just takes a little bit!

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It was supposed to rain all day on Saturday. At first it looked like I would not be able to hike at all on Saturday but by the end of the week the forecast had changed. The rain would not be starting now until a bit later in the morning. Maybe I could get a quick hike in before it started. Not to just one waterfall, but two waterfalls! Two brand new waterfalls in fact.

The first one was quick and easy (picture is forthcoming). The second one was about a one mile hike and I got to the trailhead at 8AM. Depending on which forecast you believed the rain was supposed to start at 8AM or 9AM. (they were both wrong, actually). I really hoped to get to this second waterfall before the rain started. I did not care if it was raining on the hike back out, I just wanted to be there before it started so I could get some nice photos. I felt a couple drops on the way in so I wondered if I was going to make it but a couple drops was the extent of it. I even saw a bald eagle on the hike.

I discovered Lower Mooney Flat Falls on Google Earth awhile ago but I was not sure about my planned route approaching the waterfall from below. It seemed very steep and very brushy. Indeed it was steep and brushy. Too steep and too brushy. Both of my mapped options were an absolute no go. I could not find any way down to the creek. Worse than that I ended up getting into the poison oak. Even though I did not make it down to the creek I did see a third possible option. It looked like if I could get down to the top of the waterfall then there was a good chance I could find a view of the falls. I retreated back up the trail and looked for a way down to the top of the falls. I found a trail. It was a beautiful well trodden trail. It was a very easy trail! It led me all the way down to the creek at the top of the falls and down to a perfect viewpoint. Just as I suspected. Oh man I could have saved myself a lot of trouble if I had found this trail straight away (and I could have avoided the poison oak!).

Obviously people have been here but no one has ever documented this waterfall before me. It is a bit smaller than I expected but it is still over 20 feet high (25 feet high to be precise) and certainly incredibly pretty. It was a very beautiful morning in Nevada County. I even got back to the car before the rain started.

 

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I have lately noticed a lot of blatant disregard from hikers breaking the law. And then posting it on social media! I’m talking about hiking on closed trails and flying their drones in national parks. If caught doing these things you could get a very large fine. Or worse. The trails are closed for a good reason (due to fire damage or ice fall or whatever it is). If something happens when you are in there and you need to be rescued then you are making others risk their lives to come rescue you. And by posting your illegal hike on social media you are also now encouraging others to break the law. What happens if they get seriously hurt or die? These people just don’t care about breaking the rules. Am I being too much of a stickler? Perhaps but I don’t really think so.

Anyhow … we finally got a bit of snow this weekend. Unfortunately it was not much; we sure do need a lot more this month. The forecast indicated there was a good chance this first waterfall on Canyon Creek would have snow on Saturday morning. It is fairly low elevation so it is extremely rare that it has snow but I thought it would be awesome to see it covered in snow. So off I went.

It was a very sad day in our household. Our youngest cat Strider passed away suddenly. He was only five years old. He was perfectly fine the day before and we think he had an aneurysm or something like that. He was a very adorable cat and died way too young. But I did not know about this when I left for my hike in the morning. (he died while I was gone).

I arrived at the trailhead and it was indeed snowing, and it was sticking also. It snowed the entire hike down to the falls. I was definitely thinking that my wishes for a snowy waterfall were going to come true. The good thing about the snow is it means no ticks! The bad thing is that the trail is a lot trickier with some very dangerous spots. The first part seemed to be a better defined trail but there were also a large number of new blowdowns on it so this made it quite a bit more difficult and harder to follow (it is hard enough not to get lost on this trail). Before too long I arrived down at the creek crossing. I made my way easily across the cold creek (I do sure miss the bridge here), then up the other side and to the first waterfall viewpoint.

It was still snowing but down here at 2500 ft. it was not sticking. There was a little bit of snow on the ground but not on the rocks at the waterfall so my snowy waterfall wish did not come true. However …  across the canyon the waterfall was in fog and this made the scene very cool. An unexpected surprise indeed.

I decided not to continue down to the Big Waterfall because there is one extremely sketchy spot where you definitely do not want to slip and with the wet rocks it would have been very dangerous. I retreated up the canyon, across the creek, and got back to my car by about 11AM. It was a beautiful foggy and snowy day in Tahoe National Forest.

 

 

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As of March 1, we have a snowpack at 60% of average (northern CA), 67% (central Sierra), 64% (southern Sierra). Rain is at 89% (north), 77% (central), 72% (south). After two months of no rain we have gone from way above average to way below average and once again we are in desperate need of a miracle March. Please pray!

 

The plan this weekend was to return to Big Kimshew because I really wanted to attempt Frenchys Falls. I have been in this area before but it is 10 miles one way. You cannot drive in here any longer (which, by the way, is stupid and annoying – but that is a topic for another day). Last time I went here I biked in but I did not want to do that again. It is very tough! Plus, my bike is currently out of order. Twenty miles as a day hike is just a bit too much (I did think about it, however). Doing it as a 2 day backpacking trip would be quite do-able and not too difficult and I would have time to get to other waterfalls as well. Sounds like a plan, madman!

 

The entire hike is on dirt roads so it is a very boring hike. I tried to keep myself entertained by taking funny video clips (wait for the madman video!). There was not much snow on the roads but there was a little bit. I saw an inordinate amount of animal tracks in the snow. Deer, squirrel, rabbit, bear, and bobcat tracks. A lot of bobcat tracks. A huge amount of bobcat tracks! In this one particular spot there must have been 20 or 30 bobcat tracks all over the place. Maybe it was just one bobcat gone bonkers, or a lot of different cats, I don’t know, but I have never ever seen so many tracks in one place before. I was certain I was going to see one, there must be a lot of them around, but I never did. I also saw quite a bit of poop including bear and bobcat. The cats seem to do their thing on top of rocks in the middle of the road. Have you ever noticed this? They don’t leave it in the dirt, they leave it on top of rocks. Why do they do this? I think they need to learn some leave no trace principles.

 

I arrived at my intended campsite at around 2PM or so. Camping in this area is difficult. There is little water (a necessity for camping) and where there are creeks flowing there is not any camping. I had mapped out a couple potential campsites on Google Earth beforehand but when I arrived at these spots I found that these are NOT good camping locations at all! In fact it was impossible to camp at these spots. What do I do now? It is late and I did not want to go back on the road to find something so instead I continued forward on the road to where it crossed Breakneck Creek. I set up my tent right on the roadside beside the creek. It was not very scenic and probably the worst location I have ever camped but it was the only possible option! At least I had water and does it really matter what else? I am only going to sleep here for one night.

 

After eating dinner I went to try to find the waterfall on Breakneck Creek. The name of this creek is rather interesting. Indeed it is a bit ominous. It is a very steep descent (about 500 ft.). It is ominously steep. Surprisingly, however,  I was able to get down to the waterfall. It is about 60 ft. high and is a very lovely cascade. Photographing it was a big challenge. I could not find any decent angle that I liked. There is another drop just below this but I could not get down to it because it was too cliffy and brushy. One out of two is not bad (so far). I returned to my beautiful campsite and went to bed.

 

I woke up early and packed up. The plan was to head down to Middle Big Kimshew Falls and Frenchys Falls. I have been to Middle Big Kimshew Falls seven years ago. A lot has changed in seven years. The road is now completely overgrown. Seven years ago it was perfectly fine. Now it is horrible and I came really close to turning around. (and I suppose I should have). Just when I was about to turn back it seemed to get a bit better. I thought that if I could get down to the ridge road it would be much easier. Umm, nope. When I finally got down to the ridge road it was much later than I hoped so I decided to skip Middle Big Kimshew Falls since I have been to it before and decided to focus on Frenchys. The ridge road was not better. It was worse. Far worse! The brush was essentially impenetrable and there were three landslides I had to cross over. What I should have done is turn back but then I would have to climb 1000 ft. back up to the main road. I did not want to do this so I pressed on. I was already very tired from all this bushwhacking. The road finally opened up by the time I reached the point where I needed to drop down to Frenchys. The planned route down did not work. I got about halfway and then got cliffed out. Once again it was too brushy and too cliffy to continue. I suppose it was not too surprising but I was disappointed that I had to retreat. At least I made it to one waterfall on this trip. One is better than none.

 

My planned route now was to continue on the ridge road back to the bridge over the West Branch Feather River making the hike a big loop. I certainly did not want to go back up the mountain through all that brush with a 1000 ft. ascent. This route “should” work. After all that brushy-ness earlier on the road I was a bit concerned but now the road has opened up and it should be fine for the rest of the way. If I had to retreat now I would be in huge trouble. I was well past the point of  no return. I would not be able to get back to the car before dark if I had to do that and I had no food left to spend another night camping. (not to mention that I was extremely tired and also I had to work the next day). The road was perfect and easy hiking … until … I completely missed a turnoff. I walked almost a mile on the nice road past my supposed turnoff. But there was no turnoff! I surely would have seen it. This road I was walking on now was not on my map at all. I went back to where the supposed turnoff was and found a very old road that was completely overgrown. It was literally impassable. I was already well past the amount of bushwhacking I could do (or wanted to do) on a single day. I was not going to bushwhack down this old road for 3 miles. I could not retreat (as I already said). My biggest fear was realized for this trip. I sat down and thought about it. The other road that was not on my map was a good wide maintained road. It must go back to the main road eventually. It logically must go back! It might take a while but it must take me back to where I need to go. I decided to continue on the unmapped road. Indeed, it did take me back to the bridge and the main road. I don’t even think it was that much longer but I did lose a lot of time and added two miles or so to my hike. I ended up hiking 17 miles in total for the day. I finally got back to my car at 3PM. Of course I stopped at Jake’s in Oroville for a burger. It was an interesting trip into Lassen National Forest with one waterfall seen.

 

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