Leon Turnbull Photography

I have been wanting to get up to the High Lakes area in Lassen NF for a long time. There are quite a few waterfalls in this area. The problem is: it is a LONG DRIVE AWAY. Essentially, you drive to the other side of the Earth, and then a little more. Also, you need to go when it is a cloudy day for waterfall photography purposes, and also when the road is open (that basically means summer for the most part, and there are no cloudy days in summer).

Well it was going to be a cloudy day on Saturday, and it seemed like as good a day as any to try this long drive. I was really not sure about the road, however. You have to drive up to 6600 ft. elevation, there would surely be snow, but how much? There is no information about the road that you can look up beforehand, thus I did have a backup plan if I could not drive up there. Also I was not sure if the waterfalls would even be flowing up there. This whole hike was just a big shot in the dark. Nonetheless, I still wanted to try it.

The road to the High Lakes area is EXTREMELY ROUGH. There were a couple spots that were very sketchy driving my SUV past. I DID NOT LIKE IT. I was definitely worried about driving back down afterwards. My next car is surely going to have more clearance. Have I said that before? There was no snow until the last 100 or 200 feet. I almost bottomed out, indeed I could hear the snow scraping the bottom of the car, but it was just slight, and I was able to continue driving up to the trailhead. I made it up there. Now what?

My plan was to do a big huge loop to see all the waterfalls up in this area. It would be an all day affair. However, this plan was soon to change. I started out with a hike to Morris Lake. There was snow on the ground, and it was icy. The weather was brisk and refreshing. I saw quite a few bear tracks in the snow along the way, some of which seemed fairly fresh.

This is a popular OHV area, and even in the winter, I saw many tire tracks on the roads. I expected to see quite a few off roaders up here, but I saw no one the entire day. That is, until I was almost finished my hike. I did see a couple groups at the end, just up for the day. The road is crazy rough past where I parked, huge boulders to negotiate; I don’t know how anyone could drive a Jeep on that road, but they do. I just wish they could also learn how to pack out their trash. Is it really so complicated? I picked up quite a bit of garbage on my hike. So annoying.

Anyway, from the first junction, it is supposedly 6 miles round trip to the waterfall.  I figured it would be quick and painless, but it was actually probably 8 miles and it was a much much tougher hike than anticipated, with about 1100 ft. elevation loss (which I would have to hike back up). Despite the elevation loss, the snow continued on the road and “trail” all the way down to the waterfalls. This was worrisome because there is a very steep descent off trail down to the falls. That made for a very sketchy hike on cliffy terrain. Could I make it down? In addition to this, the brush is crazy brush. It was not manzanita, I’m not sure what it was, but it was just as bad as manzanita. I was thick in it, and could see no light at the end of the tunnel. I almost turned back, but I persevered, and I finally got through it and then the rest of the way down was not too bad. I came to the first waterfall.

The first waterfall is a pretty darn nice one in its own right, and is 43 ft. high (that will be my next post). From here you can tell there is a huge waterfall just below you, but you cannot see it. You are standing on the brink of a monster cliff with no way to get down, and no way to see the falls. Well, I thought, if I could get over to the next ridge and down, I would be right in front of the waterfall and have a grand view of the thing. The trouble was twofold: First, it looked to be very cliffy on the next ridge, and there was snow on it, so it looked potentially impossible to get down it. Second, there was a huge ravine between the ridge and myself, so how would I possibly cross it? Well, I worked my way over and I saw a way to cross the ravine. With snow on it, it was a bit tricky, and I slipped once. Thankfully, I was holding onto some tree branches, otherwise I probably would have slid all the way to the bottom of the ravine. No joke. I got across onto the ridge. It actually did not look too steep or cliffy at all, and even with snow, it was not difficult to get down it. All the way to the viewpoint directly across from the waterfall. Glorious waterfall. 151 ft. high magnificent waterfall, and flowing fairly well this early in the winter too. The views down the canyon were absolutely breathtaking. What an amazing place. I have never seen any photos of these waterfalls before. Perhaps people have been down to them, but they have not been documented by anyone before waterfallswest.com.

It was already noon. I ate my lunch at the viewpoint. Now I had to climb back up the mountain. 1200 ft. back up. As you can imagine, it was a very tough climb out. I realized there was no possible way I could hike to the other waterfalls. Even if I was not so tired (and I was), it was now too late. I would have been hiking back in the dark for certain had I continued on as originally planned. As it was I just got back to the car less than an hour before sunset. I will have to come back here at some point, but I’m not sure when. Even though I only saw the two waterfalls, they were absolutely spectacular, and it was an incredible day in Lassen National Forest.

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For my Black Friday, as I always do every year, long before REI ever came up with the idea, I go out hiking. My hike this year was going to be an epic one, but unfortunately did not quite turn out that way. It was a long one, however. I hiked 17 miles; I started my hike before sunrise, and it ended after sunset. Wow!

I started at the Salt Springs Reservoir hiking into the Mokelumne Wilderness. All access roads to the reservoir have been closed due to storm damage from last year. Two of the roads are still closed. I noticed on the Eldorado NF website, however, that Ellis Road is now open. It seemed like the perfect time to get back here. This road will be closed soon for winter, but it is not closed yet, and the river would be flowing strong as well. It was going to be awesome.

Surprisingly, I was not the only one out so early at Salt Springs Reservoir. There was a car parked at the trailhead where a fisherman was sleeping in his vehicle. I think I woke him up, but he did not seem to be upset about it, and we chatted briefly before I started my hike. Even though I started early, the hike to the end of the reservoir took longer than I thought it should. I do not really understand why. I also found a multitude of ticks. The first ticks I have seen this season, and there were a heckuva lot of them. It is only November, far too early for ticks. I was constantly swatting them off the brushes with my hiking pole as I hiked along the trail. By the end of it, the ticks had worn me out. Literally. And I think it cost me a bite. When you get to the end of the reservoir, there is something else to worry about too: poison oak. Somehow, I managed to get in the wrong place, right in the middle of the stuff. Fortunately, I somehow managed to avoid getting the big itch, which is a miracle, considering how late it was before I could get home and wash myself down.

So I was already running late, tired from swatting ticks, and already in the poison oak. I took a long distance photo of the Blue Hole Falls which I have been to previously, then continued hiking up the river. There is no more trail, or not much of one anyway, but it is fairly easy going. I did not see any ticks in this area, thankfully.

I came to this 20 ft. high waterfall, which is called Island Slide Falls by the kayaking community. It is easy to see why it is called this, as the river splits around rocks at the top of the falls. It is a gorgeous slide. I debated about even going to this waterfall because it is out of the way, and delayed me even more. As it turned out, I am glad I did go here.

From here I retreated in order to climb up the mountain. I went the wrong way up and it took much longer than anticipated. More delays. Frankly, I thought I was going to get cliffed out and not be able to get all the way up, but I made it up successfully. I then started going down the other side. Now I did get cliffed out. There was a tremendous amount of brush, and major cliffs. I could not get back down to the river. I retreated back up the mountain, and ate my lunch at the top. The views of the Mokelumne Wilderness are stunning from here. However once again, I could not get to Fantasy Falls as I had hoped to do. Will I ever try it again? Yes, for sure I will. After I ate my lunch, I did find a possible route down. I don’t know if it will work or not, but I marked it with my GPS. I think next time, however, I will backpack in here. That will give me more time.

I went back down the mountain (the proper way). It was late, I was tired, I was out of water, and I still had 7 miles to hike back to the car. I filled my water reservoir in the river, then made the long hike back. I tried to hike at a fast pace on the downhill parts. I did not want to be hiking back in the dark. You cannot see ticks in the dark. I arrived back at the car just after it started getting dark. It was not until I got back home that I noticed I had a tick embedded in my backside. I had to get my daughter to get it out for me. It is odd that I did not notice it biting me beforehand. How long had it been embedded? Thankfully, it was not a bad bite. It was a long but beautiful day in the Mokelumne Wilderness.

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I’ve always wanted to snow shoe to Mill Creek Falls in Lassen Volcanic National Park in the winter. Well, this past weekend was my chance to do it.

My wife joined me on the hike. She just got brand new snow shoes (an early Christmas gift). I was totally jealous. Mine still work fine, but they are really beat up. I want new ones like she now has. Maybe I will steal them from her. Hummmmm ….

We arrived at the park before sunrise. I talked to some lady while my wife was using the restroom. They were camping in a tent at the park. It was 24 degrees. Yikes, that is a bit cold to tent camp for my bones. She said it was not cold. Ok, if you say so, ma’am. There was two feet of snow on the ground, but it was hard packed. You almost did not need snow shoes. Almost, but not quite. We would have been sinking in a lot without them. The latest storm dumped a lot of rain, but there was not much fresh snow, only a few inches. I wished there was more fresh snow. We need it. This winter is definitely not starting out like last year. Sadly. Although… actually we’ve had more rain this November than last year (but much less overall because October last year was huge).

It is a gorgeous hike. We saw quite a few animal tracks in the snow, including fresh bear tracks. I always like seeing those, but we did not see any bear or other animal. We arrived at the overlook to the waterfall. It was incredibly pretty in the snow, and flowing well. In the summer, I have no (or few) qualms about descending partially down the cliff to get a better view of the falls. I dared not do any such thing this time. It would have been extremely dangerous. Sliding off the cliff. That would not be much fun. The hike was very fun.

But it was tough. It is not an easy hike to Mill Creek Falls. There is a lot of up and down hiking and with snow shoes, it is twice as difficult. My wife struggled on the hike, especially on the way back from the falls, but she made it. Even I was tired by the end of the hike. This was not an easy way to break in your brand new snow shoes. Whew.

We were almost back to the trailhead when we saw a couple descending the trail. They were drunk, they each had a beer in their hand, they were wearing running shoes, and they were falling all over the place in the snow. They said they were going to the falls. Yeah, right. Good luck with that. I can easily imagine them getting stuck in the snow and not able to get up, and no one there to help them out until spring. Or else falling down the cliff at one of the very sketchy spots, at which you need to be extremely careful (ie. Not drunk). Frankly, I was just hoping they were not planning to leave their empty beer cans out on the trail. I try not to be stereotypical, but these are exactly the kind of people that do this kind of thing, and it ticks me off all the time when I see litter in the wilderness. Ok, well, enough of that. I hope you all had a great weekend.

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It was the first major snowstorm of the season this weekend. Of course, like a madman, I wanted to get out into it. But where to go? I wanted to find a snowy waterfall that was still flowing decently. That meant it would have to be above 7000 feet and somewhat easily accessible and somewhat flowing as well. I decided to try Susie Lake Falls in the Desolation Wilderness. I knew it would not be flowing great but I thought it should still be decent at least.

I have not been hiking or exercising at all for a couple weeks because I put my back out just bending down to pick something up. OK this is what it is like to feel old. I have not had any issues with it in over two years, and now it goes out? I had been doing exercises faithfully from my physio-therapist sister, but I stopped because it had been so much better. Well I won’t be stopping those exercises any longer in the future. The back is better but still bothering me a bit, yet I still wanted to get out hiking this weekend. The worst part was driving back home from Lake Tahoe afterwards.

It was extremely windy when I got to the trailhead, a full on storm blowout. This was going to be a fun day, I thought. At this elevation, there was no snow on the ground. It was snowing a bit but it was not sticking until I got higher up in elevation. When I got up to Susie Lake there was a good 3 inches of snow on the ground, but I was actually hoping for a lot more. It seems that most of the precipitation fell further north (the northern foothills got about 4 inches); the Tahoe area did not receive too much at all.

At the lake, the wind was just completely crazy. Snow was blowing in my face from across the lake. I could see nothing. It was a struggle to walk to the end of the lake. Now we really were having fun. From the outlet, it’s a steep descent down to the waterfall. In the summer I imagine it is a cakewalk, but now? With snow on the ground? With slick terrain? With ridiculous steep dropoffs? Good luck with that, madman. Well, I found a way around the dropoffs. Overall, it was not too bad or dangerous.

I made it down to the waterfall and it was actually pretty nice with the snow, though it would’ve been a lot nicer if there was more flow in the falls and more snow (so I guess it was not such a perfect storm – but then again, could I have gotten here at all if there was more snow?).

But it was fun, and despite the cold and blowing snow I was warm and quite dry enough in my rain gear. It was a good start to the season in the Desolation Wilderness. I just pray we have another good one this year.

 

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This is Ritter Lakes Falls, total height is about 350 ft. high. The bottom section shown here is about 200 ft., the top is out of view. I could not find a viewpoint where I could see the whole thing in one shot, though it may exist somewhere. I got down to the bottom of it here a bit past sunrise and there was still some nice color in the sky. Pretty sweet. I was surprised that this creek still had so much flow in it. On the way up, I had to wade across it at a sketchy spot above a small waterfall. It was a bit tricky. On the way back down, though, I found a much easier place where I could just jump across.

Our family is excited about watching the new season of Stranger Things. We are looking forward to the start of the showdown this evening, after our big church celebration today. It is the 500th anniversary of the Reformation of Martin Luther. We are Lutheran so that is a big deal for us.

Speaking of Stranger Things, my back is out again. I have had no issues with it for two years. It has felt really strong recently, on backpacking and hiking trips, then I bend down to pick something up and it goes out. Oh and we have to move heavy stuff this weekend because we are getting our floors re-done next week. Just perfect.

More Stranger Things … not so strange really, but we still have not had much rain yet. By this time last year, we had well over 10 inches of rain in the Foothills. This year, not so much. Only a couple inches thus far. I suppose last winter was the strange one. It is actually normal for it to NOT rain in October. Good news, though, there is finally a good storm in the forecast for next weekend. I am excited. Let’s pray it is just the beginning of another good winter for us.

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