Leon Turnbull Photography

It has been a long time coming. I have wanted to go to this waterfall on the Lost Coast for many years. This weekend, the conditions seemed perfect. All the stars were aligned: Lots of recent rain, a break in the weather (for a couple days), a rare minus tide at sunset (required to get to the falls).

I took the day off work, and made the very long drive out to California’s fabled Lost Coast. It is possible to drive to the Usal campground. The road is very rough, very steep, very narrow, and very muddy. It is not something I really had any desire to drive. Thus, I decided to park my car and walk the 6 miles into the campground. That is my excuse. The truth is that I could have easily driven in to the camp. There were plenty of others that drove in (actually, a lot more than I expected to see at Usal). However, I did not want to drive. I “wanted” to hike in. I “needed” to do a backpack trip. I could have chosen a different location perhaps, but I really wanted to go to this particular waterfall, and as I mentioned, the conditions were perfect for it. So … was I laughed at by the other drivers that passed me on the road? Perhaps, but I did not care. I definitely did not regret it.

The hike is 6 miles, and is not too difficult, except for the 1000 ft. elevation gain, and then a 1000 ft. descent down to the campground. There are not very many views along the road, until you near the end. Then the magnificent ocean finally comes into sight. I could actually see the waterfall way down at the far end of the coast, such a long way away. I was not in a rush on this hike, and took plenty of video and photos.

It was the Monday of the long weekend. I was not surprised there would be people at Usal camping on the weekend. And there were. I also expected that they would be leaving on Monday, and I would (hopefully) have the camp all to myself on Monday night. This also was the case. When I arrived, there was still one vehicle in the camp, but they left before too long, and then I was all by myself. The strange thing, though, was that on my hike back out on Tuesday I saw quite a few drivers coming into Usal. I found it extremely odd that so many people would be coming into this very remote location in the middle of a week day in the middle of winter.

Anyway, I came to the bridge over Usal Creek. This creek was unbelievably huge. It would be uncrossable without a bridge. Fortunately there was a bridge. I crossed and looked for a campsite. There are many campsites here. None of them were great campsites, except for the ones closest to the beach, but there was a strong cold wind and those ones were not sheltered at all. I chose a sheltered spot away from the beach, setup my tent, and made my dinner.

After dinner, I hiked down the beach to the waterfall for sunset. It is a long hike. The beach is mostly very rocky, which is hard on the feet and quite slow going. I was taking a lot of photos and video, so that obviously increased the time but coming back afterwards, I was hiking as fast as possible, and it took a full hour or longer to get back to camp. Finally, I arrived at the falls. It was absolutely beautiful! It drops about 80 ft. right into the ocean. I love it (not!) when everyone says there are only two waterfalls in California that drop right into the ocean (can you guess which ones they say?). In reality, there are many more waterfalls than those two that fall into the ocean and this is one of them. With the minus tide, I could walk right up to it and photograph it from in front, in order get the stream in the foreground. I did not have to wait too long for sunset, but I oddly had cell service here so I made sure to send some photos to my jealous wife while I waited.

After taking photos at sunset, I booted it back to camp. As you can imagine, if it takes a full hour to hike along the beach, I arrived back at camp well after dark. I had my headlamp of course. The big problem was trying not to twist my ankle on the very rocky beach in the dark. I made it back without incident, jumped into my tent and warm sleeping bag, and went to bed.

I was warm in my sleeping bag all night, but in the morning there was a lot of condensation on my tent and on the outside of my sleeping bag. Everything was soaking wet. (not on the inside of my bag, though, thankfully!). It was cold outside, but I walked down to the ocean one last time while I tried to let things dry out (which did not happen because there was no sun out yet).

So I did something slightly stupid while down at the ocean, taking photos. The tide was coming in. I was taking photos along Usal Creek where it flows into the ocean. A wave came up, all the way to the creek. I saw it coming and got out of there in time. Only problem is that I forgot to pick up my glove. The wave pushed the glove into the creek, that very big creek, and it started to flow down the creek towards the ocean. Oh my gosh! I dropped my gear in a safe spot, and splashed through the ocean water, along the creek bed, where I then had to plant my foot right into the creek in order to reach in and grab the glove. My foot was now soaking wet and it would be cold for the rest of the morning (even after putting on a dry sock), and of course I could not wear the glove (which is bad because it was a cold morning). Thankfully, however, I did not lose anything. I survived the ocean yet again.

After this excursion to the beach, I ate my breakfast and packed up my very wet gear. Now I am sure you are thinking that since most everyone drives to Usal campground, the campground must be squeaky clean because everyone has a vehicle and can easily pack out their trash. Yeah, nope. There is a lot of trash at the campground, annoyingly and sadly. I took out most of the trash I found at the two campsites that I used. I say two because the one I chose for my tent did not have a picnic table, so I used the neighboring site for eating my food. Those two sites I left pretty much immaculate when I left. (you can thank me later). My pack was much heavier on the hike back out (but that also had something to do with my wet tent gear).

I decided to take a slightly different route, rather than hiking along the road. There is a trail called Peter Douglas Coastal Trail, which is a new extension of the official Lost Coast trail, and it begins at the Usal campground. It is a bit longer, but I figured I had the time so why not try it. I am so glad I did this! The trail goes through an absolutely amazing old growth Redwood forest. These trees were utterly spectacular and unique; this is one of the best Redwood hikes I have ever done in my life. The hike ended with some amazing ocean views, and along the way I saw an elk as well. If I had driven up to the Usal campground instead of hike, I would have seen none of this. If I did not know already, now I KNEW I made the right decision to hike into the camp. It was a beautiful morning, and an awesome couple days on California’s Lost Coast.

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As I drove up to Oroville (yet again), I debated to myself where I should hike. Should I go to Feather Falls (again)? Or should I go on a different hike to a new waterfall? I did want to go to Feather Falls. We had over 10 inches of rain in the past few days. Feather Falls would be a monster. I have seen it at full force before, but that was a long time ago, and also was before I had a good camera. I really wanted to go back there. However … I also wanted to do this other hike to find something new. It would be awesome as well for sure. I decided to go for the new waterfall. The decision was made. I continued on my journey to Oroville.

But alas, things do not always work out as planned, do they? When I got to the Feather Falls turnoff, I found snow on the road. This is very low elevation, and there is already snow here. For my planned hike, I would be at 1500 ft. higher than this. It was pretty clear to me that I would not be able to drive anywhere close to where I wanted to go, there would be way too much snow on the road, and it would be pointless to waste time trying to drive up there. I made the turnoff to Feather Falls.

Feather Falls is certainly no small consolation prize.

There were creeks flowing along the trail that are normally dry. Frey Creek was amazing. I’ve never seen so much water in that creek. I knew Feather Falls would be awesome. The anticipation was mounting but the hike seemed to take a lot longer than usual. I was not dawdling either. I began to wonder if Feather Falls would be just too much. There would be so much mist at the overlook, that I would not be able to take any photos at all. It was a pretty big concern, but it was unwarranted. There was no mistiness at the overlook, but there was a lot of mist on the waterfall. Feather Falls was a monster. A good monster. It was not what I would call “in flood”, though. The river had come down a lot in the last couple days. If I had been here two days earlier, the river would have had about twice the flow. Hard to believe but it would have been even more spectacular. Nonetheless, it was still incredible.

It really bugs me that there is always so much trash at Feather Falls. I just do not understand people. You want to come out in nature to see a beautiful waterfall, and then trash it? I picked up a lot that I saw along the trail, but there was just a ton of it thrown down in places that would be very dangerous or impossible to go pick up (particularly, at the overlook). Please people! If an empty can really is too heavy for you to carry back to your car, then at least leave it by the trail where someone else can pick it up for you. I do not want to take out your trash, and I should not have to take out your trash, but I will do it.

Anyhow, I spent about 1.5 hours at the falls, taking lots of photos and video, and enjoying the view. Then I headed back. I was surprised I did not see anyone else on the trail. I would think others would have the same idea as me, to see Feather Falls at monster flow. I almost made it all the way back to the trailhead, then I finally saw some other people just starting out their hike. There were just a couple cars in the parking lot. It was certainly a most special day at Feather Falls.

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I did get the poison oak itch from my hike last weekend. Indeed, I got the oak in my eye. I could not see anything on Monday morning, and had to call in sick for work. This is the third time this has happened to me. Last time was about a year ago. Thankfully … I still had enough drugs leftover from the last time. My wife did not have to take me to the doctor again (which she was grateful for), and by Tuesday morning, I am all better. It would sure be nice if I could just buy these drugs without a prescription. It kinda sucks having to go pay the doctor $200 or so, in order to get a prescription for something I need, and then go pay $ to buy the drugs, so I can get rid of the poison oak in my eye. Also, it would be even better if I did not get oak in my eye in the first place! I have been very careful about avoiding oak, and honestly, I thought I was careful this time, and I did not think I would get any poison oak itch this time either. I don’t know what happened, but somehow I missed something in my cleaning up, or maybe I was just in too much of it. Anyhow …

After my hike to Wild Oat Falls, I got back to the car, very tired. It was raining. I really wanted to do a second hike (actually more than 2 hikes), but I was so tired from the first hike, very wet, and I did not want to go out in the rain any more. I had my lunch in the car, and checked my weather app, not expecting any let up in the rain for the afternoon. However, surprise, it said the rain was apparently going to stop in about 30 minutes or so, for a brief time. Well, I suppose I could do a second hike (an easy hike) after all.

My friend Mike told me this was an EASY waterfall. With a capital E-A-S-Y. Umm, yeah, not exactly E-A-S-Y. It was not H-A-R-D. However, the hike did gain about 300 or 400 feet, and the last part involved whacking through some brush and poison oak to the edge of a very steep cliff, looking down on the waterfall. I would not call that easy, especially the part where I am treading on pins and needles at the edge of the cliff, trying to photograph the waterfall. Anyhow, I managed to do it, and got back to the car before the rain started up again. It is certainly a very pretty waterfall.

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I was back in the Bay Area for an exciting weekend adventure. This time, I was back to see the Devil. Mt. Diablo State Park, that is. It has been a while, a long while, since I was last here. I really wanted to try to get to Wild Oat Falls. Did I make it? Well, I think you know that already, but it was killer, very difficult, and poison oak infested. I almost blew it, though.

There was a big storm coming in, but it was supposed to be cloudy and showery all morning. It was not showery at all. It was also not cloudy. Well it was cloudy when I started the hike.

Whenever I am here, the trail to Donner Creek is especially muddy. Ridiculously muddy. But it was good to see the creek flowing well from all the rain. Praise God for the rain. We are now well over average for the year so far. The waterfalls should be  fantastic.

Thanks to my friend Mike, I had a good route planned for Wild Oat Falls, and it was my full intention to follow this route. But alas, that did not happen. Enter poison oak. Well, you see, I thought it might be good to go to Donner Creek Falls first. It is on the way and would be a bit easier (I thought) to go to those waterfalls first, even though I’ve been to them before. I should not have done that. But anyway, I did. I spent a lot of time, far too much time, scrambling around those waterfalls, and tiring myself out. Now the sun was coming out. The clouds were all gone. It was supposed to be cloudy all morning! Nope. Not Cloudy. By the time I could get up to Wild Oat Falls, now, it would be in the sun, and that is the waterfall I really wanted to get to. I blew it! I should have gone up to Wild Oat first! I knew it, too. Ugh.

However … all was not lost. I saw a path heading up the canyon from the Donner Creek Falls. I was not planning to go this way. I knew there would be a lot of poison oak this way. Guess what? There was a lot of poison oak. However, it was much faster doing this now then going my original route. I could not avoid touching the oak. I gave up trying, and just trounced right through the stuff. Hoping beyond all hope, that I will avoid getting the itch this time. (actually … I have not gotten the poison oak itch in a long time – knock on wood). It was a tough route, climbing up the canyon this way. The waterfall was much further than I thought it was. This was NOT the right way to go to it! I continued climbing, and finally I could see the falls. It was still in shade. Could I make it in time? I still had a long way to go. Finally I reached the viewpoint. It was still in shade. I was ecstatic. Wild Oat Falls is a stunning 83 ft. high waterfall. Such magnificence! I took photos and enjoyed the view. I did not go back down via Donner Creek Falls, I went back the way I had initially intended to come to this one. It was much much easier. And no poison oak! (but it was too late about that, anyway). It was a long hike back down the mountain. By the time I got back to the car, the clouds were back. It was raining. Yeah!

 

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As of Feb. 1, here are your stats for the year thus far: Snow pack is 101% of average (northern CA), 103% (central Sierra),98% (southern Sierra). Rain is 96% of average (northern CA), 92% (central Sierra), 97% (southern Sierra). So as you can see, we are pretty darn average for the year so far. The good news is that February is starting out with a bang (the above stats do not include the storm that started on Feb. 1). I like being average. I have said it before. I wish we had average precipitation EVERY YEAR, instead of the huge ups and downs that we usually have in California. We will have to see how we end up at the end of this year with two more months to go in the winter. I am sure liking how February is starting off.

As for this photo, is it a pretty average photo of an average waterfall? This is Upper Merlin Falls, 53 ft. high. When I first went to Merlin Falls a couple years ago, I did not go to this upper Falls. Why not? It is not difficult! On that day, I totally wrenched my back on my first hike of the day. I could only BARELY hobble up to the lower falls (which is by the roadside). Going up to the upper falls was out of the question. Driving home that day was a nightmare. I am only now just getting back to this one. So many waterfalls to see, not enough time. Enjoy.

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