Last Week's Waterfall

When I headed out last Wednesday for another hike, it had rained over the weekend and the temperature had gone from the mid-80's of the previous week's hike, to a cooler but still comfortable mid-70's. Time to pack a sweatshirt cardigan just in case, because I was headed to Grouse Creek Falls and had been warned that except at high noon, most everything would be in shade. I anticipated a short day since the trail head was closer than my previous road trips, less than 20 miles of mostly paved road that I was quite familiar with. It was only those last 5 miles that I hadn't been on before that slowed me way down as the road went from paved to gravel to washboardy and narrowed to dirt with huge potholes which meant it took nearly as long to get there as to the trailheads farther away. My directions were a bit sketchy - take a right and follow Grouse Creek Road for about 4 miles and take a right down an unmarked road - but another later site indicated that there might be a marker now. All of a sudden, there was a narrow one-lane road dropping off to the right and I spotted the marker partly obscured by bushes, just a square stick with "Grouse Falls" printed vertically on it - see the red arrow. Did I really want to drive down there for who knows how far? I got out of the car to inspect and decided to make my way down to the parking lot that supposedly awaited.

I did not have to go far for the road to open up into a very large parking area where sat a big motorhome. Ok then, I was being a bit wussy about the road in I guess. I chatted with a woman coming off the trail who assured me it was beautiful but a lot of up and down. My information said it was about half a mile to the falls so it shouldn't be too bad. As I headed out of the parking lot, I spotted hoofy prints - surely people aren't riding horses to the falls, but perhaps this trail hooked up to the one I'd seen that did accommodate horses?

I didn't go far until I noticed several horses, saddled and tied up back in the trees, no humans around. A puzzle . . .

This may be one of my favorite hikes. Unlike other trails I've been on, this one stays right along the creek which is seldom out of sight and never out of hearing. There may not be much water in the creek at this time of year, but you can see how big it must get with spring runoff, filling the creek bed all the way to the far treeline.

I've gotten use to wide and well maintained trails and this one started out that way. Soon it narrowed and led through a section nearly overgrown with grass, as if few people had been through.

Then this section which left me peering past a boulder field to see if the trail really did take up again on the other side. This was the place where I really appreciated my walking stick for balance as I worked my way across, remembering how my dad had taught me to traverse rock-strewn areas and reminding myself to be extra careful so as not to twist or break an ankle.

And there were several sections where springs crossed the trail, making for muddy going unless you could step from rock to rock. No boardwalks here. Click on the picture for a large view to see all the way down the wet trail.

As I was picking my way through I suddenly realized why those logs were there. Oh yeah, one can walk along those instead of down in the mud. Thankful for that walking stick again - don't do this kind of balancing walk anymore.

Making my way through another muddy section I was surprised to see these stairs in the steep hillside. They were deceiving though. To climb them was not unlike climbing a ladder and they were wet and slick. Still, a tiny bit better than climbing the bare hill itself.

So after all that primitive stretch of trail, it was a surprise and a bit of a relief to see the trail widen out into a sort of path I'd become used to. A little farther up, some trails looked to split off and lead down toward the creek, but not decisively so. I thought of my directions "when the trail starts to climb, take a right towards the water", but I wasn't sure I was there. I followed the main trail up a bit farther, far enough to see it was heading closer to the edge of the hillside than I wanted to go and maybe stopped altogether. I turned around and tried one of the trails heading down . . . 

The indistinct trails eventually merged to one leading up the creek and I was soon ready to cross over these boulders down into a lovely beach area. Well, almost, because I could hear voices, not just a couple but many, and somewhat raucous ones. I spotted a cowboy hat just poking up behind the rock before I saw the group and realized these were the people who had left those horses tied up at the beginning of the trail. I'd seen signs for a "guest ranch" and "Adventure Pony Rides" on my way up and these must be "dudes" from the dude ranch.

I beat a hasty retreat before any of them saw me and made my way to a spot by the creek, hidden by one of those big rocks. I am such an introvert! But viewing the creek and the falls was not an experience I had planned to share with distracting strangers, so I savored the stretch of creek before me while eavesdropping on their conversation and waiting for them to leave, which they soon did. You'll recognize familiar features: large boulders and cliff faces, trees hanging onto them for dear life, mosses, clear clear water.

I'm glad I waited them out. This is such a lovely spot and I'm sure this whole hike culminating in this cathedral of sorts was tapping into a lot of childhood memories. This looks to be a well-used area, with signs of a campfire and rocks rearranged in the creek to create pools for cooling your beverages or your feet.

But where are the falls, you may well ask? Well, I'd been warned that one could not see them because they were hidden around that big boulder. Bring your water shoes, it said. You'll have to get in the water to see around it to catch a glimpse of the falls. I'd not brought my water shoes, decided to gamble that maybe the creek would be low enough to expose some dry beach to stand on. I was wrong. So I had a little debate with myself. Are you brave enough to take off your shoes and socks and wade in? How cold is that water? A quick check proved it was not that cold.

So yeah, I'm gonna do it! Using the boulder for balance and ouch ouching my way along the pebbly creek bed, I didn't have to wade too deep and the water felt great!

And here's the prize! Click on the picture for a larger view because there's not much water and the falls actually comes in at an angle from the right, you can just see some water splashing up there before it turns and comes down towards you. All the same, I was thrilled.

And here's a video that zooms in so you can see better and hear that lovely racing water.



And as long as I was standing there in the creek, I continued a pan down it.

Still mesmerized by the crystal clear water and the sound. It conjured up a memory of camping trips, with my mother and I heading down to the creekside to sit, look, listen, sometimes break into song, as if we could be heard over the sometimes roar.

And fascinated by these rosy boulders and their cracks.

I suspect that if I'd followed that rising trail, it might have led to a place where one could look down on the falls, see it in its entirety. No doubt if one were nimble and willing to scramble up this steep face from the beach (and it looked like some had), you'd get a similar view. 

Not me, at least not today. I still had to pull myself up over these rocks and navigate that primitive trail back to the car. More of a challenge and took longer than I expected to snag this particular waterfall, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and this glorious day. This is one that would be worth coming back to . . . with water shoes!

How About Some Clouds?

It's been awhile since I've tried to capture sunset clouds, but after my hike last week, as I was catching up on the computer, I happened to look over my shoulder out the window to see these coral beauties. Grabbed my camera, raced downstairs and started shooting, the colors already starting to fade. You've gotta be quick with sunsets! This will give you something to look at while I'm preparing the post of this week's waterfall adventure.

 

And Then There's The Sketching

Back side of concertina sketchbook with pencil sketch inked in. The messenger bag holds all my sketching supplies including a folding chair. Click for a larger view.

I've kept a wary eye on the weather forecast and the skies since early August, thinking about those outdoor activities I hoped to get in before summer fled or smoke arrived. Granted, September can still be a lovely month for being outside, even October some years, but I must admit, I've felt like I've been in a race to get things checked off my list before I lost the chance. Besides getting out on the trails, I wanted to get out with my sketchbooks. I started working in this concertina sketchbook about this same time in 2017. If you scroll to the bottom of this post, you can see how far I got before putting it aside as the weather changed, and read why I chose my subject matter. By September  2018, I was back at the beach, continuing my pencil sketch and having to flip to the back side to complete the jetty and stop once again (scroll down to the bottom of this post). It was getting clear that I would run out of sketchbook before running out of beach. Now it was almost September again, and I'd read that the hotel partially showing at the beginning of my sketch would be coming down early next year to make way for a taller, updated one. The rest of the beach might remain unchanged, but time was running out for me to have that building "posing" for me. I picked a sunny day the last week of August to complete the pencil undersketch and ink in a lot of it.

So often our weather falls off Labor Day weekend, but the weather forecast assured the 80 degree weather would hold until the following Thursday. I packed up my sketching bag on Wednesday and headed for the beach. Working around the cars parked across the road is always an issue. I hadn't planned to sit in the sun, but the spot on the other side of the rock turned out to be the best viewing spot for this first section of my sketch. Even though I used a waterbrush, I still found balancing the sketchbook and travel paintbox and mixing up colors in its lid tricky. I'd brought water in vials and a regular brush just in case but couldn't imagine using them once I got seated. A bench or a table would have been nice!

But I did get the part of the sketch that will disappear done, after completing the inking, and got a start on the rest. (And realized I should have put on some sunscreen!) I kept thinking that I hoped no one came up and asked me what I was doing. "Oh, just practicing," or "Learning how to use my paints," which actually is pretty much the truth. I'm such a novice at watercolors but love the effect urban sketchers get with them so am motivated to keep working at it. 

I was concerned about how well the paper in this sketchbook, which is smooth and stiff like cardstock, would hold up to watercolors but it did just fine. Paint doesn't flow on it like on watercolor or even multimedia paper though and in that way it can be pretty unforgiving. I really did think I'd get farther than this in the hour and a half I worked on it. I have a long way to go, a lot more trees, the mountains behind them and of course, the lake and sky. Towards the end, I was mostly using up paint mixed on my lid palette, and I had a lot of that brown paint so got a lot of pilings painted.

Also on my mind has been a couple of buildings I've "bookmarked" in my brain as ones to add to my architecture sketchbook. (I still haven't made peace with the tan toned paper and am eager to get this one filled up.) This row of houses is just beyond the park on my walking route. I just happened to notice the angles and symmetry of the roof lines one day and that is just the sort of thing I like to capture in a sketch. As with many of my sketches, this was a two day affair, the first to pencil in the lines and get the angles right, and a return trip to add pen, and in this case, some white gel pen, done while so many were out enjoying the holiday weekend with camping or visiting area lakes. I prefer staying off the roads and trails over holidays now that I can go any day of the week.

And while getting in my daily walk at this same park, I realized I was looking at the backside of a house I started sketching back in June and have yet to finish up. The back side has fewer details so I was able to do this in one go, and while sitting at a picnic table to boot! Again, it was the angles of the house's roof lines that made me want to sketch it and you can see some of that on this side of the house as well. This one is done in just graphite and colored pencil, and you can see how difficult it is to get colors to really show up well on that tan paper. Bold black and white pens really work the best. But I enjoyed sitting in the waning cool afternoon, experimenting with different ways to portray the trees and bushes.

Somewhat Fiber Related

It would be fair to say that this last month or so has been a real attempt to take back control of some portions of my life. I've been limited by health issues for so long that as summer approached, I wasn't sure what I could do anymore, and had fallen into bad habits and poor use of my time. So choosing a place to drive to and hike around each week has been more empowering than one might normally suppose. So has been tackling a range of very old and very frayed loose ends and bringing them to completion. My first attempt at knitting socks is one of those loose ends that I've taken up again in the last few weeks.

As I watched so many others take up their needles and whip out perfectly fitting socks, I didn't think I was interested in joining in. But eventually they wore me down as I was looking for a project to use up some yarn from a sweater project. This cotton/wool blend is a worsted weight, but the shop owner where I bought it had mentioned he'd knitted up a pair of socks for himself with it and praised their warmth. I found a pattern in a book I had for "boot" socks using this weight of yarn but it required a second color. I'd been years since I purchased this yarn (on sale of course) so wasn't sure they'd even still carry it, but yes they did. I was hoping to find that green in this "milk chocolate mint" yarn, but no, nothing like that. Not even a dark brown. Only an orange, which I admit, is showing up a bit in my main yarn. I bought it but was not happy. I hoped that once I got to knitting, the two colors would look good together.

I think I must have started this at least two years ago, maybe longer. What I DO remember is that the more I knit with the two colors, the less I liked that orange, and the less I liked the pattern I'd chosen. Now I am not a novice knitter but these directions had me doing things I'd never heard of, or if I had (like the kitchener stitch) had never used. As I finished up the first sock, I kept thinking, this is the ugliest sock I've ever seen. I stuffed it on the shelf under the coffee table and there it sat until this summer, a constant reminder of unfinished work. This is SO ridiculous, I thought. Even if ugly, they will be fine to wear around the house this winter so time to bite the bullet and finish them.

Note the tubular binding on the top of the sock

This pattern is worked top down and has you do a waste yarn cast on so that you can do a special tube finish at the top once the rest of the sock is knit. I'd saved that part on the first one figuring it would be best to do them both at the same time. When I finally finished up the toe on the second sock a couple of weeks ago, I didn't think it would take long to knit the few rows creating that tube binding on the socks. I was wrong. I spent several hours on two different days finishing this up on this one sock as I sat out on my deck. Too much pattern to keep track of to do while watching tv or even listening to music. And being asked to do the scariest thing I can think of, removing your stitches from the needle so you can put them back on in a certain order on two needles. But it worked and I do have to admit, it's a rather nice finish for the top of the sock. Now to do it on the other ugly sock . . . 

The Other "Two-fer Tuesday" Falls

When I left off yesterday, I was hiking back from the Upper Snow Falls to the fork in the trail that would take me down to the Lower Snow Falls. It was pretty much a steep drop down along switchbacks until finally arriving at viewing platforms at two levels. This is looking back up the trail from the lower platform.

There it is - the lower falls, looking even better than the upper one which is supposed to be the better of the two. Well, not this time of year.

Is it wrong of me to be mad at nature for blocking my view? Dang, I could not get a shot without trees and limbs in the way.

Ok, if you're going to be that way, I'll take my video shot anyway.

Here's a closeup of the top section. Check out the lichen and moss on the rocks.

A peak through more nature in the way at the creek flowing away from the falls. Click for a large version where you can see the slabs of rock under the water near the top.



And I finally maneuvered to take a relatively unobstructed pan from where the creek empties from the pool the falls drops into back to the falls where I zoomed in on them. I really wanted to lop some branches off that one tree!

But I did have one unobstructed view directly across from me - of a tree with exposed roots clinging on to the rocks, and thick thick moss covering that outcrop.

Ok, time to gird my loins for the climb out. As I said in yesterday's post, this country is famous for its steep and deep gullies and I was at the bottom of one. Even climbing up those steep platform stairs was looking daunting. It's only a mile, I reassured myself. I walk a mile every day (albeit on mostly flat ground). And there's that bench at about the 3/4 mile mark . . .

And there were places that weren't as steep as others. I looked down a side trail I'd been told had more benches and places to explore along Quiet Creek, but the tree fallen over the entrance seemed a sign that I should save that for another day. Yeah, don't need any more ups and downs added to this hike.

Huff, puff, where's that bench? Was definitely ready for a sit down by the time I reached it. I took some time to study my surroundings, take in the sights and sounds and smells, and spotted this very curvy tree. You know how I anthropomorphize trees. This one I imagined was doing an erotic dance to get the other trees attention. Hey boys, wanna have a good time?

Giggles over, I did what everyone should do (and many do) when sitting in a grove of trees. I tipped my head back and looked up . . . WAY up to the top of the trees, or as near the top as I could see. These are some TALL trees.

At last I reached the trailhead, and heard the one sound you don't want to hear on a logging road: the unmistakable growl of a logging truck's jake brakes. I admit, I panicked just a bit, trying to determine just how far up the road he was and how far the car was from the trailhead, not much shoulder before the turnout. I started for the car, then realized he was RIGHT THERE about to round the corner just up from where I stood. So I darted back down the trail a bit, realizing I was going to get caught up in a billowing of dust as he passed. I just managed this shot as he rounded the corner just beyond the turnout. Well, better he go by now than as I was coming up or going down the road in my car.

One last look at the view before heading down the mountain and home.

Shortly after getting back on the main road home, there's a turnout with historical markers. I've been wanting to stop but there's always been a line of cars behind me, getting up to speed to climb a hill and not much chance to slow down and pull off until you are right on top of the turnout, a little nerve wracking at 60 mph. But this day, on my 4th day by, no one was behind me and I dived in. This sign tells about the geography of the area, our famous ice age story. The red star shows you just how far up the panhandle I am. Click on the picture for a readable view.

Here's the view to go with the explanation. Much of this is farmed, and the wildlife refuge is just beyond. "Is it wrong to be mad at nature?" I found myself thinking again. That tree in the middle is blocking the view!

I had spent the day somewhere off to the left in this shot, in those mountains chasing waterfalls.

Here are the other two historical markers which may or may not be of interest to you. I appreciated the memory jog as I've forgotten a lot of the details of the history of this area. And frankly, the Wild Horse Trail is one I hadn't heard about.

Glorious day, glorious waterfalls, glorious test of my stamina! Really made up for last week.

Two-fer Tuesday

Yesterday made up for last week's lack of a waterfall by providing me two along the same stretch of creek. Snow Falls, upper and lower, was my destination and they did not disappoint.

The trailhead is west of Bonners Ferry, just south of the Wildlife Refuge and a shorter drive than my previous adventures. I was surprised that I followed a paved road most of the way, my route only changing to a dirt logging road with a little over a mile to go. But logging road is the operative term. I do not like to see signs like this, knowing how those logging trucks and their heavy loads barrel down the mountain on somewhat narrow roads with no guardrails. Well, it's only about a mile . . . I'll go slow and wide around any corners.

Up until now, the road had been pretty flat but the dirt road quickly gets steep and somewhat switchbackie, second gear stuff. (Yes, I still drive a vehicle with a clutch.) That Falls sign points off to nothing, then as the road curves, there's a turnout on the left for parking, something not evident if directions had not pointed it out.  You can see how far up you've come in such a short ways.

The trailhead is even less evident. Walk a bit farther up the road (as my directions instructed) and there it is, dropping off the embankment with the only signage being a board with various postings. It's a mile to the falls, mostly straight down, which gives one pause about the return trip.

Ok, I can do this, psyching myself up, not for the hike down but the inevitable hike back up. If there's one thing this part of Idaho has plenty of, it's deep narrow canyons which didn't use to faze me. Yeah, a bit out of shape these days. Luckily, this is such a well kept trail making "a gradual descent into the Snow Creek Drainage," passing through "Ponderosa pines, a dry open hillside and eventually to old growth cedar and hemlock," according to my brochure. At several points I caught a spicy scent I couldn't place - maybe the wild ginger the brochure also mentions? There are boardwalks across areas that would have water in the spring...

And a few benches here and there. You're going to need that on the way back up.

And barriers along steep drop-offs, partly to persuade you to stay on the trail rather than try to take a shortcut as the trail switchbacks below.

In half a mile you reach a T in the trail. Right takes you to the upper falls, left down to the lower one. Knowing the long climb I'd have going back up, it made sense to head UP at this point to the upper falls.

This part of the trail is really lovely, a bit of an ascent through open pines, winding along the shaded hillside and over a small creek heading for Snow Creek. They've even placed a "meditation bench" overlooking this little creek. This time of year hardly anything going down it and not worth my while to climb those stairs!

Always at least one tree of interest, this one probably taken by fire and half gutted.

Finally the trail heads down again and I get my first glimpse of the Upper Falls.

This must be a real wonder during spring runoff, but I enjoy also seeing the rock formation that it flows over now that the volume of water is less.

Plus you can see the way the water splits over the rockface. Those dots of yellow? Leaves already turned fall colors and blown from their trees.

The creek flows past the viewing area and around some rather large and lichen-covered boulders.

And makes a sprint over the edge to tumble through the gorge to the lower falls.

Here's a pan of the falls and the creek below to the point of that drop off. I still find myself stunned at the crystal clear quality of the water. And you just know people are heading off the trail and wading or swimming in that pool.

Rested and satiated by the sounds and sights, it's time to head back up the trail and down to the lower falls. 

I think I'll save the lower falls and hike back out for a separate post. After all, this was a "two-fer" trip.