Leon Turnbull Photography

It was a long weekend. The weather was good. So I went backpacking. I wish it was raining. We have had a horribly dry February, and I’m not confident anymore that we will have a miracle March this year. I will take what I can get. If the weather is good on a long weekend in February then I will go backpacking to waterfalls that I know are flowing well. So off I went into the Mokelumne Wilderness.

When I picked up my permit on Saturday morning, I saw there was one other envelope for someone else backpacking this weekend. The ranger had written on the other person’s envelope: Have an awesome adventure! On my envelope she just wrote: Remember to sign your permit. I was very upset about this. Just kidding. But seriously, I am 100 percent certain that my adventure was way more awesome then this other person’s adventure, wherever he or she was going. So where was I going, anyway?

Salt Springs Reservoir: My goal was to hike to Fantasy Falls. The very remote and very mysterious Fantasy Falls. I have tried twice before (day hiking), and failed. We will talk about this more a bit later.

I started hiking at about 8:30am. There was no one around at the reservoir, and I saw no one the entire weekend. Not surprising, really. It is winter. Who wants to go backpacking in winter? But still, one might see fishermen there. It is a long weekend after all. But nope. The reservoir was very low. Extremely low. It should be much fuller by mid February, but we have had a horrible winter thus far. We really need that miracle March again. Please let it rain, Lord.

It is about a 6 mile hike to the end of the reservoir (though the end of it was empty). There were ticks, poison oak, and gnats. I expected the ticks and oak, as I have been here before. But the gnats!?!? They were bad. Not nearly as horrendous as at Tehipite Valley, not even close, however they were very annoying. Why are there gnats in February? There should not be any gnats in February! I can deal with ticks. I can deal with oak. I can deal with gnats (except at Tehipite). I cannot deal with all three at the same time. Anyway, I had no choice but to deal with all three of them. I managed to avoid getting any ticks on me, and I had thought I had completely avoided the oak, but apparently not. I do have a rash.

When you get to Island Slide Falls you come to a dead end. There is no way to continue up the river to Fantasy Falls. The cliff comes straight down into the river bed. I could not cross the river. It was flowing at about 250 cfs and was not crossable. The only way is to go up and over the cliff. Getting up is not a problem, but getting down the other side is a problem. Actually, it was a huge problem because the other side is one immense and entire cliff. There is absolutely no way down. I scoured the entire length of the cliff and I found zero possible ways down. Now it was almost sunset. I had no choice but to retreat and go back down to Island Slide Falls, and camp there for the night. This was strike three for me. The first two tries were day hikes: the first time I ran out of daylight and did not even attempt getting over the cliffs. The second time I went the wrong way and again had to retreat. This time, I really thought I had a great route and was very confident I would make it all the way. I was not counting on that huge cliff and there being no possible way to get down it.

Well, I found a nice little spot close to Island Slide Falls. I barely had enough time to setup camp, eat my dinner, and take photos of the falls before dark. It was a very tiring day, but it was beautiful beside the waterfall and the North Fork Mokelumne River, and the sunset on the river was spectacular. It was a long weekend and I still had a couple more days. What could I possibly do the next day?

This is Far Upper Chambers Creek Falls, 81 ft. high. This was my second discovery of the day. And in case, you are wondering, it was just as brushy getting a viewpoint of this one.

This weekend I went all in to discover two brand new waterfalls in the very upper reaches of Chambers Creek. It was an epic adventure. It was a killer hard adventure. It was a madman adventure.

I started my hike at 9:30am. Not too early. Not too late. I was not in a hurry, and I took much video as I climbed up the mountain. Most people think it is a very difficult hike just to the main waterfalls on Chambers Creek. That was just my half way point on this day. It is a 1700 ft. climb to the main waterfalls. I felt good, and I was not tired as I arrived at the bridge. From here, I had another 1600 ft. to climb up the trail.

This section started out well, but in the the last half of it, the trail became very brushy and overgrown. It is still easy enough to follow, but it was just very annoying. The last time I was up here was about 19 years ago. The trail was not overgrown then. I wonder how many more years, and it will become in-navigable. There was no poison oak, but there were ticks. I got a few on me, but I plucked them off before they did any damage.

As the view opened up, I could see the waterfall in the distance. Well, just part of it. Most of it was hidden. How would I get down to it? To be honest, I thought it unlikely I would make it. The terrain (like most of Chambers Creek) is steep and cliffy. At 5300 ft., I hit the snow line. I expected there to be some snow (as I saw on the satellite images), so I had brought my spikes, but I did not need them. The problem was postholing through the snow and breaking my leg. I took it slow, and soon left the snow behind as I descended down to the waterfall, 500 ft. down. If you are adding up the numbers, that makes a total of 3800 ft. elevation gain for the day. Yikes!  I was tired but I still felt really good before I started the descent down to the creek. This section, though, was killer. I encountered the crazy brush. The brush just got worser and worser as I descended closer to the falls (is worser a word? it should be a word). It was very difficult to battle through it, but battle through it I must. I was too close to turn back now. After a great deal of effort, I finally saw the ridge I wanted to get to. Until this point, I could not even see it because of all the brush, and yet, there was still a huge mound of the stuff to get through before I could get there. Finally, I reached the ridge overlooking the waterfall. I could not see the waterfall. Well, I could see it but it was obscured because of trees in the way. Well this sucks.  I had to descend more, down the cliff. I used my rope to get down, and shortly arrived at a much better viewpoint, with a clear view of the falls.

Upper Chambers Creek Falls is a real beauty, 145 ft. high in two large tiers. I took photos and ate my lunch, and examined my injuries. My legs were completely scratched up and in pain from scrambling through all that brush. (you say I should have worn long pants – well that would have been actually smart). I definitely paid the price on this hike, and it was much tougher going back up. I also made another stop at a second waterfall along the way (pic coming soon). When I finally got back to the trail, it was 4PM. Now I was spent. I still had 4 miles to hike and 3300 ft. to descend. At least it was all downhill. I arrived back at the car a bit before 6PM, just as it was getting dark. It was an awesome day in Plumas National Forest, but I will not ever be back to see this one again.

This is Alamere Falls from the cliffs. You don’t want to stand too close to the edge here.

As of Feb. 1, the snow pack is 77% of normal (northern CA), 71% (central Sierra), 69% (southern Sierra). Rainfall is 63% (north), 53% (central), 55% (south). Things are looking very bleak this year. I like to be optimistic, however. Optimistic that we will catch up in the last half of February and March, and get back to average by the end of winter. Pray for snow, everyone.

The photo is Upper Alamere Falls.

I was very warm during the night. I had to shed layers and did not use all the warm clothes I brought for sleeping (my pack could have been a lot less than 43 pounds). Nekoda was also warm, but Tara and Jadon were cold. I’m not really sure why Tara was cold, but I know why Jadon was cold: He is so stubborn, that is why. I bought him a $70 sleeping bag liner so he would be warm at night. He did not use it. (Nekoda used the one I bought for her and she was warm). Instead, he carried a heavy blanket in his pack! (that must have added 5 pounds to his pack on top of the 20.5 pounds I weighed). This did not keep him warm whatsoever. But would his father (who has much backpacking experience) know what would be best ? No, of course not. He has to do his own thing. As for hiking boots, I made him try on my old boots before the trip. He said they fit perfectly fine. When we got to the trailhead, he said they did not fit. So what did he do? He took out all the shoelaces from the boots and hiked in the boots with no shoelaces! Was that better? Of course not. For the hike back, I could have let him suffer more, but I gave him my trail shoes (which I happened to have along with me), and those fit him better. (but he then had to carry the heavy hiking boots in his pack). No wonder he struggled with his pack, carrying those extra (and unnecessary) heavy items. As for Nekoda, she had to bring along all her makeup on the hike. I wonder how much weight all those items added. Sigh. Teenagers.

We woke up to a beautiful sunrise and glorious morning. Tons of little birds swarmed around us as we ate our breakfast, looking for scraps and trying to steal my food as I sat at the picnic table. Tara and I walked down to the ocean and watched the huge waves while my daughter Nekoda struggled to get up and out of her warm sleeping bag (and it WAS a big struggle). I think it was 9:45am by the time we got going, and it was a 6 mile hike back to the trailhead.

We saw many hikers on the trail going to Alamere Falls. I thought it was funny because many of them missed the turnoff to the waterfall. It is not marked, and if you miss it, you will go all the way to Wildcat camp and have to walk to Alamere Falls along the beach. But at high tide, (as it was), you will be skunked and not be able to reach Alamere Falls. I think it would clue in once you passed the bridge over Alamere Creek that you missed the turnoff, but most people we saw seemed to be unprepared and have no clue. We corrected some of the hikers we saw to go back the right way, but another thing is the tide. It was high tide and the waves would be (I know they were) crashing right up against the cliffs. That means it would be impossible to go down to the beach to see the waterfall. If you did go down, you could easily be swept out to sea. I wonder how many people have died down there at high tide. Bottom line, people: be prepared! Check your map! Check the tides! Go to my website and get proper information!

We got back to the car at 1PM. The parking lot was completely full. All those people hiked to Alamere Falls and could not even see it except from the top. We ate our lunch, and then made the long drive home. It was an awesome two day trip to Point Reyes National Seashore.