January 1 (1986, 1987, 2002, 2003, 2006) Mild and Wild: New Years Days in the North Fork Canyon

“January 1, 1986
A lovely morning, the canyon awash with fog, clinging and crawling about its ridges and ravines. The rising sun kindled a flaming gap in the fog, which I ran out to the cliffs to watch.

Last night I went into the Monte Vista, but found the band uninspiring and returned home to usher in the New Year alone. 1985 was a difficult year for me [...]

However, 1985 saw the granting of a preliminary injunction which opened the Smarts Crossing road up to the public. That was tremendously satisfying to me. Also, I had an exciting year intellectually, pursuing algebra and geometry into recondite regions of great beauty and symmetry.”

Russell Towle's journal

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“January 1, 1987 [...]

~ Later; the sunset hours; it has rained all day, the most rain since I don't remember when—October? I'm debating the merits of riding into town, [...] but it's too wet, and so I'll just stay here. Wish I could go by Shelley's and have some sushi, today's her party-day…

A slight coloration hints that the clouds then, the storm dwindles. Yes, it stops raining; but to ride the bike in now, in the dark… I don't know.

I'll stay home. But I'm sad and lonely, in the mood for self-pity. Broke, starving, alone, [...] It's intolerable but somehow I contrive to tolerate it.”

Russell Towle's journal

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Sunrise, January 1, 2002

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A Mild, Sunny, New Years Day at the River, 2003

New Year's Day 2003, the N. Fk. American River, via the Stevens Trail, from Colfax.

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Date: 1 Jan 2006
To: North_Fork_Trails
From: Russell Towle
Subject: When Rivers Run Wild

I wish you all the happiest and most enjoyable of New Years.

Recent weeks brought many storms and little hiking. Yesterday I finally broke free and dropped into the North Fork from Garrett Road, at Gold Run. This was a marvelous adventure, and involved getting very wet, and crashing through brush, and tip-toeing over slippery cliffs, and peering through wind-whipped fog at distant and tremendous waterfalls.

Geomorphology has been on my mind, geomorphology, and philosophy. There has been much in the way of heavy labor, leaving me tired: I fall asleep early, arise at two or three in the morning, read and write and play music until just before dawn, and then sleep again, for a final hour or two.

This morning I arose at 2:30 and made my first, and soon my second, cups of coffee. Rain had started the 29th and gradually increased in intensity all through Friday the 30th. By nightfall a steady downpour had set in, and at 2:30 in the morning, it continued.

I had been learning to play, by ear, Jobim's "O Nosso Amor," from the movie "Black Orpheus," and hours went by, in part, fruitlessly searching the internet for a MIDI file of this song.

Eventually, I thought to check the internet automated stream gauge for the North Fork American at Lake Clementine, near Auburn [link below]; the number of cubic feet per second is updated every few minutes, as is the depth of water flowing over the top of the dam.

It was 5:15 in the morning. As I scrolled down the page, I saw first that the depth of water flowing over the top of the dam had reached eight feet.

Eight feet, over a width of perhaps a hundred!

Scrolling down further, the cfs column came into view, and I saw the whole succession, from the morning of the 30th, when the North Fork carried little more than 4000 cfs; sunset on the 30th, it had risen to 6000 cfs; and then — then the wild river ran wild.

Suddenly it was 10,000 cfs, 15,000, 20,000, and at 5:15 a.m., 35,400 cfs!

Now this meant that the night's rainfall had been an epochal event, a real rarity in rainfall intensity and duration. This May 19 I had seen the North Fork at 20,000 cfs, when Ron Gould and I slogged right down the Canyon Creek Trail to the river. It was running grey with sand on that day. And the bridge across Canyon Creek, which I had built in 1998 with the help of John Krogsrud, had only barely escaped being swept away; driftwood was found on the rocks at bridge level, when we crossed.

So. On May 19th, when the North Fork ran at 20,000 cfs, the bridge at Canyon Creek had almost washed away. Now, today, at 5:15 a.m., here was the North Fork, roaring along at 35,000 cfs and climbing. There could be only one conclusion.

The bridge was gone.

And there could be no merry romp down the Canyon Creek Trail to the river.

Nonetheless I shot off an email to Ron and suggested a visit to the river was in order. I turned in for my last hour of sleep and then, soon enough, we were talking on the phone, and Ron had the idea to go to Diving Board Ridge.

This remarkable spur ridge flares from the canyon wall between Indiana Ravine on the west, and Canyon Creek on the east. Its crest plunges steeply and then levels off for a long run to the south, into the canyon depths, but almost a thousand feet above the river; so it puts you in the center of the canyon immediately downstream from the great cliffs of Giant Gap, and within direct view of the largest waterfall on Canyon Creek, a 150-footer which lives in a kind of crater all hemmed around by sheer cliffs.

Big Waterfall on Canyon Creek

So, when much water is flowing, a special thunder booms out of this monstrous hollow in the solid rock of the canyon wall. The North Fork, with dozens of times the flow, does not make these kinds of deep booms and thuds. The North Fork does not have the magical resonating chamber of the Big Waterfall.

Of course there is also plenty of sounds in higher frequencies coming from the Big Waterfall, hissings, and sharp slapping sounds.

We drove south on Garrett Road until BLM lands were reached and parked on a side road. The rain had slowed and yet everything was drenched and soggy. I had hardly walked ten yards when the red clay jumped up from the very earth and bit me in the butt, or, I should say, there was a graceful skiing motion on the right foot, followed by a rotation of the torso, and a sudden decrease in elevation, and the Red Badge of Clumsiness adorned my posterior.

We had scarcely entered the Diggings when Giant Gap burst into view through the trees, adorned with many lacy streaks of white water, waterfalls and cascades filling every ravine and crevice in the rain-dark cliffs. We whooped and hollered a bit but hurried on through the sticky clays and the millions of white quartz cobbles, following an almost strangely circuitous and indirect route, until finally we reached the rim of the North Fork canyon and the Indiana Hill Ditch, constructed in 1852 to supply the new diggings at the head of Indiana Ravine.

Here we passed the tiny trail down to the Diving Board for a quick jaunt up the old canal to an overlook. There was the North Fork, fifteen hundred feet below, churned almost white in a frenzied maelstrom of rushing water, but clearly carrying much sediment. It was also visibly higher than it had been, on May 19th.

We took photographs and admired the fine vistas into Giant Gap, and across Canyon Creek to the Blasted Digger Overlook, before turning back to the Diving Board Trail.

The CCT, in the stretch by the Inner Gorge, Gorge Point, the spot where the Six-Inch Trail
forks away, and you can even see the North Fork, down at the confluence. Picture taken
from west side of creek, opposite side from the CCT.

There used to be huge sluice boxes in both Canyon Creek and Indiana Ravine, to trap the fine gold in the tailings from mines far above; sawn lumber had to be delivered, somehow, to these remote and cliff-bound canyons.

So the Diving Board was pressed into service as a lumber slide, of which there are many in the North Fork canyon, tho probably almost always unrecognized. The idea is simple: lash a thousand pounds of lumber into a big bale, tie a mule in front, and start dragging it right down the canyon wall, letting it slide on its own if possible.

Over the course of a very little time, a groove is worn into the canyon wall along the line of the slide.

Now stop using the slide, and let one hundred and twenty-five years pass.

A groove remains. But trees grow from it, and leaves and dirt have washed into it and partly filled it; now, people only rarely recognize the old lumber slides.

Ron, feeling the spray

 In this case, the slide follows the very crest of the ridge, on a gradient too steep for any reasonable trail, yet perforce men had to go down there, and eventually, wrestle the lumber from the ridge-crest down to Canyon Creek or Indiana Ravine. Hence a trail developed, possibly merely from use.

This is the Diving Board Trail.

We hurried down, pausing only to photograph waterfalls and so on... and reached the final level area, with its absolutely superb views both up and down the North Fork canyon.

Visual comparison of flow levels.

While gazing up into Giant Gap we saw that even Bogus Gully had become a river in its own right, huge masses of white water leaping briefly into view. If the bridge had not washed out, and if we had hiked east on the HOUT, well, we might have gone no farther than Bogus Gully. Too much water to cross, by the looks of it.



Near The Eminence, a cliff on the south canyon wall, a narrow streak-waterfall dropped two thousand feet from the canyon rim to the river. A half-dozen others graced the cliffs nearby.

Many photos were taken, but a fog began to settle lower from the canyon rim, and strong winds stirred, and rain began to fall. We crossed to the western, windward side of the Diving Board, and were astounded by the North Fork as it swept in tight curves around the spur ridges at Pickering Bar. Big trees were floating down. Boulders the size of small cabins were underwater and throwing giant rooster tails of white water skyward. It was as though geysers were erupting from the river, in many places. The rain intensified, the wind flailed and whipped the trees and us alike, and soon enough we sought the shelter of the Canyon Live Oaks and the lee side of things.

Looking west to Pickering Bar

The Big Waterfall was putting on an incredible show, semi-permanent protuberances of whitewater, marking ledges where tons of water were suddenly changing directions, sent flying away from the cliff. So the whole monstrous mass of white water, a hundred and fifty feet high, was indeed monster-like, with groping arms and pointed knees and elbows of froth, always in motion. Above the falls, a dim grotto in the inner gorge was filled with a blue glow, made from the reflection of white water within and out of our view, on the glistening sheer walls of the chasm; and, perhaps like the sky itself, this reflected whitewater was robbed of other colors, leaving blue.

California polypody
(Polypodium californicum)

Or perhaps some sort of blue star was being forged right there within the rock-shrouded chasm, only just out of our view, by elves unimaginable, or fairies, or by dragons, the spirits of the waterfall.

Sheets of rain fell; one could actually watch the wind pushing these wavering rain curtains up the canyon. We grew cold, and a sure cure for that is to start walking uphill. So we slowly trudged up the narrow ridge crest in a pouring rain.

At the Indiana Hill Ditch we bent our steps east and then north, finally dropping down through brush and grassy openings to the Canyon Creek Trail. The rain diminished again, but every gopher hole on the mountain had become an artesian well, and really wherever we looked there were springs of water gushing direct from either rock or soil, it made no difference; the whole world was leaking, as it seemed.

We reached the bridge site and saw what we knew we must see: the complete and utter absence of a bridge.

Arrow marks where the bridge used to be!

Yes, the good old thing is probably in Folsom right now; it will reach the Delta tomorrow, pass the Golden Gate on Tuesday, and then make for Mexico South.

After a time we wandered south towards the first big waterfall, and eventually met a ridge which let us descend to a fine overlook. Canyon Creek was gigantic and muddy and rampant. Quite scary. We stepped rather carefully on those steep rocks perched a hundred feet above the creek.

Then it was time to start up and out. Along the way, I found other overlooks with remarkable views of the Canyon Creek Trail, across the creek to the east. We marched back through the Diggings in wet clothes but good spirits. During a time of rarely high flows, we had been able to visit the great canyon, in one of its wildest areas.

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Links:
Real-time water level data generated at the North Fork Dam, lower end of Lake Clementine:
http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/uv?11427000

A National Weather Service review of this "Heavy Precipitation Event" (Southwest Oregon, Northern California, and Western Nevada) from December 24, 2005 - January 3, 2006:
http://www.cnrfc.noaa.gov/storm_summaries/dec2005storms.php

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April 10 (1986, 2003, 2005) Blew it (twice)

“Wednesday April 10th 1986

After days on end of cloud and cold, the sun has returned. Yesterday I—no, day-before-yesterday—I wrote a letter to Supervisor Larson of TNF, opposing the proposed clear-cut plan. Blind copied Cranston, Wilson, and Shumway.

Yesterday Alex stopped by and with Dave Black we went out to the Polar Star pit and did some prospecting. Got quite a bit of amalgam, but blew it trying to burn off the mercury. Fun though; today we plan to go down to the Bear, perhaps at Smart's Crossing, and do some more.”

[Russell Towle's journal]

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Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 08:39:20 -0800
To: NFT
From: Russell Towle
Subject: TNF land acquisitions & the Sierra Club


Hi all,

I have apparently raised the ire of the good John Moore of the Sierra Club. He writes:

“The Sierra Club does NOT ‘favor limiting acquisitions in the North Fork American’ to the parcels that would be purchased by the LWCF appropriation for the next fiscal year which environmentalists are campaigning for.”

I hope this clears up any misunderstanding I may have caused. John's a good guy and has done a ton for the North Fork, I couldn't thank him enough.

Cheers,

Russell Towle

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Propertius Duskywing Butterfly, on Houndstongue blossom
(Erynnis propertiuson on Cynoglossum grande)
April 10, 2005

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March 15 (1976, 1978, 1986, 1987, 2003, 2004) Green Valley: Mystery Dog, Suspension Bridge, East Tunnel

“3/15/76 […] spring has sprung. i saw a pair of wrens this morning. the vespulid wasps have suddenly appeared, and the red ants are very active. buckbrush is beginning to bloom, as are the black oaks. this spring has the feeling to me of being considerably earlier than last year's, and forebodes a hot dry summer. snowpack is only 25% of normal in much of the sierra. i wonder how the summer will be for thunderstorms in the high country.”

[Russell Towle's journal]

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“3/15/78   morning, clear and bright. yesterday i was made so curious by the persistent barking and howling of that dog that i hiked down the green valley trail in order to hear it better, with various images cropping up in my mind concerning the why and wherefore of such prolonged complaining: 1) the dog's master had been injured or killed and the dog was keeping watch over his body and howling in sorrow; 2) two coyotes got stuck after [mating] and the male was in intense pain; 3) a dog's master had crossed the river and the dog was afraid to follow; 4) a camper or fisherman had tied up his dog at camp and left him alone for some reason, and the dog was sad.

when i was about halfway down to the river, the dog was still barking and howling. i could tell for sure that it was down in green valley, and probably at the upstream end. as i neared the forest edge the sounds became intermittent. i saw a pileated woodpecker. by the time i reached the meadow-of the—silver-spoon i couldn't hear it at all. the river was loud. i hiked downstream a ways without hearing it, and then cut away from the river to the knoll near dragon mine. i could hear the dog again once in a while, but couldn't locate the sound.

i headed for the meadow below pyramid knoll, another likely camping area. following an old ditch overgrown with manzanita, i was startled and scared by the report of a large-caliber rifle that sounded as though it had been fired within a hundred yards of me. i paused and listened. the dog howled again, a little weakly, i thought. was someone torturing the dog by shooting it in non—vital places? was that shot meant to scare me away? i couldn't see or hear any human signs at all. i had been crashing through manzanita and making lots of noise. whoever had fired the rifle must have heard and/or see me. i dropped down into pyramid meadow and picked up the trail to the river. no footprints since the rain. heavy brush gave me cover, and whenever my cover thinned i slowed down and looked carefully around. i was mystified. i was moving very quietly and fully expected that i would find the person who had fired the shot. but i found no one.

i continued down to the river and heard someone on the other side firing a .22 caliber, but couldn't see anyone. i sat and waited. the dog was silent. the river was loud. the sun was warm. i was about to give up trying to find the dog when a rock wren appeared and hopped from boulder to boulder upstream. that was the direction the dog had to be. so i followed. i stayed close by the river and returned nearly to east meadow (silver spoon meadow); no sounds or sights of anything human or canine. so i gave up.

the dog, the heavy rifle, and the light rifle, could all have been on the other side of the river. in fact, they must have been, because i covered this side pretty thoroughly. i hiked up to the top of the pyramid knoll and enjoyed the view for a while, then returned here by way of the creek cut into the contact between the serpentine and the metamorphic rocks. actually, it is not cut precisely into the contact but is in the serpentine nearby. on the way up i found several springs and seeps that seemed to be associated with fracture zones in the metamorphic rock. two eagles flew close overhead, making melodious screeches as they passed.”

[Russell Towle's journal]

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“March 15, 1986    “SNOW… They've been saying for days that it would snow to low elevations this weekend, and they were right, by god.… No chance of going anywhere in the Toyota; the chains don't fit. Soon there will be enough snow to ski, however.

It's a showery storm. Occasionally I can see well down into the canyon.

… Alex and I didn't get rich mining; we got wet and cold and exhausted and hungry. But the word is out that a new gold rush is on, people are finding lots of gold already (after the Big Storm of February 1986) and lining up for hours to buy gold dredges, etc.; people are picking nuggets out of the roots of overturned trees, etc. etc.”

[Russell Towle's journal]

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“March 15, 1987   morning, beautiful morning; a few inches of dry snow fell overnight, all the way down to the river, and as the sun rises through the fog, the canyon glows with colors, light oranges and blues, extremely pretty.”

[Russell Towle's journal]

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March 15, 2003

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Garbage Hike an Unmitigated Success!

[North Fork Trails blogpost, March 15, 2004:
http://northforktrails.blogspot.com/2004/03/garbage-hike-unmitigated-success.html ]

Catherine & Julie & Mike & I started down the Green Valley Trail around 9:30 a.m., in full sun, with some of dawn's coolness remaining. The amazing warm weather has spurred manzanita and bay laurel alike into full bloom, and sweet smells wafted around us on the long descent. Many tiny white and pink bell-like flowers of manzanita lay scattered on the trail; Catherine called it a "hail of flowers."

The High West Trail: crossing the dry creek, over a little pass, and down through an open forest of Ponderosa Pine and Canyon Live Oak, to an anonymous spot marked by many fallen pine trunks—there we stopped while I scouted for the trail to High Pyramid Camp and our garbage.

Having found the faint trail and made a dash to the garbage itself, I lopped my way back to the others and we ambled over to our work. The site had seemingly been a marijuana grower's camp, back in the 1980s.

A multitude of plastic sheets and tarps had slowly disintegrated in the sun, and scraps and pieces of plastic were spread maddeningly wide, while coffee cups had been left high in the branches of manzanita bushes, and odds and ends were all around in the heavy brush. The sun beat down and we worked up a bit of a sweat filling six garbage bags.

Then we lopped our way south to The Pyramid, a brushy knoll with tremendous views of Giant Gap, Lovers Leap, the Pinnacles, and even the river itself. The Pyramid knoll is about 470 feet higher than the river and is set well back, at least a quarter-mile, away to the north. Legend has it that this serpentine knoll, so carefully placed to receive the last light of day streaming through Giant Gap at the winter solstice, is an Ancient Alien Pyramid, and we joked about being beamed up, or down, or possibly sideways through Time Itself.

Suspension bridge built by Joe Steiner, Green Valley.

Photo courtesy of Bernie and Harriette Denton.

 We hauled the garbage back to the High West Trail and proceeded towards the river, pausing at the spring and wooden trough, where water had ceased flowing through the old iron pipe, and I mucked around trying to open it up again for a few minutes. Then we made good time on the last section of trail, passed the old bridge site (I have photographs of that precarious suspension bridge, taken around 1935-40), and reached the sandy beach at High West Trail's end. A large pool extends down the river here, with Lovers Leap rising quite impressively, 2300' above us, to the west.

Joe Steiner on his suspension bridge, sometime during the 1940s.
Photo courtesy of Bernie and Harriette Denton.

After a lunch break, and Mike's daring sort-of swim in the icy river, running high and fast from snow-melt, we boulder-hopped down the river to the faint trail which climbs to the line of the HOUT. The High Old Upriver Trail ("upriver" with respect to Canyon Creek) represents the line of survey and preliminary blasting work for a canal, proposed to carry water from the North Fork American to San Francisco, in the late 1890s. Here the HOUT is around 150 feet, to 200 feet, above the river.

Looking straight up Lovers Leap's
east side ravine.

Down here, where the weak and sheared serpentine gives way to the massive metavolcanics of the Calaveras Complex, the HOUT suddenly becomes very well-defined, cut directly into the sides of sheer cliffs, often overhung with Canyon Live Oaks, so that mounds of dead dry leaves cover the cliff-trail over some of its scariest parts. A bit nerve-wracking! We did not shy from the danger but slipped along past Lovers Leap's East Ravine, which heads up right at the overlook itself, and soon reached the dark maw of East Tunnel.

It is a shame East Tunnel was never driven all the way through its rock spur, it could only have fallen a few yards short, and would connect through to a nifty ledge, running along almost perfectly level, as the HOUT so often does. But the tunnel ends in a blank wall lost in the deep darkness, and one must drop well down below to find a way to climb back up and regain the HOUT.

On the steep slopes near the HOUT one finds a sudden almost abundance of the California Nutmeg, or Stinking Yew, Torreya californica. This tree looks a bit like a Douglas Fir but has larger needles, quite stiff and sharp, which, if bruised, give a rather pungent smell. I suspect the determining factor in its presence here, as at Pickering Bar, in the first 200 feet above the river, is the cold air which sinks into the canyon and intensifies, at night, through all the year except during strong storms. For then the air is mixed too well by the storm winds to stratify into a temperature inversion, in which cold air sinks beneath warm air.

One often sees a river of fog flowing down the North Fork, at dawn, after a storm has passed. This fog marks the river of cold air which likewise flows down the canyon. And the Torreyas seem to prefer just that zone of canyon wall which is always within the fog river, and always within the cold air.

These Torreyas usually do not get very big; a Torreya even two feet in trunk diameter is a rarety in the Sierra, tho a little commoner in the outer Coast Ranges.

The sun was lowering as we started back to the end of the High West Trail, almost a mile east. It's mostly a long river-side boulder-hop, sometimes complicated by native grape vines trailing over the boulders, or by vicious masses of long-fingered poison oak grasping at any and all bare skin. Julie forged ahead and, I suppose, ran right up the trail with a giant garbage bag on her back, reaching the top at 4:30. Catherine stepped out 'right smartly', but Mike and I held a slower pace; we were all finally up top at the stroke of seven, in near complete darkness. It's nice to take it slow coming up and out of Green Valley. There are wonderful views all along the trail, and many boulders to rest on.

Such was another great day in the great canyon.

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March 13 (1981, 1986, 2002) Skiing and Gold Panning

“3/13/81   Foggy and raining, soft rain. Jim and Lora just left. […] we had a fine time skiing yesterday. Headed in towards the Cedars. A long way down the road. Cumulus grading into cumulonimbus nearly filled the sky. A few isolated snowflakes drifted down, the sun shining brightly in places around the upper north fork canyon. A cross-country route back, up thickly forested slopes, past magnificent sugar pines, jeffreys, incense cedar, red fir. Thunderstorms began, Hail hammered down, and we had a great time, though Jim was a bit out of shape. Lora took to skiing very quickly. A flock of Canada honkers drifted by, some two hundred of them, a soul-stirring sight. Rocketing explosions of thunder followed bright flashes. Then came the snow. Long Meadows to ski down. A visit to the Cheese Store [in Soda Springs]—surprise meeting with Kathy McLaughlin. Return, to sleep deeply.”

[Russell Towle's journal]

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“March, the 13th, 1986;   a coolish morning, some snow on the ground. Yesterday I went up to Sugar Bowl (it had snowed down here the night before) and telemarked, then visited Alex Henderson and went out prospecting with him. We found some fairly good stuff, considering we were just panning. We plan to go out again today, using my sluice box, where, I don't know. Right now the Toyota is stuck half-way up my driveway (again), but only an inch of snow is on the ground, and the sun bids fair to break out of the clouds before noon.”

[Russell Towle's journal]

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8-fold Rock Cress Tiling

Photomontage by Russell Towle
March 13, 2002

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March 10 (1979, 1983, 1986, 1988) Glorious Sun. Intimate Fog. Dismal Storm.

“3/10/79 glorious sunny weather ~ it's been several months since we've had anything like this. everyone is happy. flocks of geese have been flying north. the other day ~ my birthday ~ i saw a flock with some smaller, white, birds tagging along. the geese were circling over the south slope of moody ridge to gain elevation in the thermal rising there and while the geese circled one way, the four or five white birds circled the other ~ surely this has some cosmic significance. the white birds may have been seagulls ~ the coyotes of the avian world ~ light and dark energy spiraling in invisible energy column ~ kundalini rising. another omen-ous event on my birthday ~ i went to visit neil and found him watching ‘lost horizons’...

[Russell Towle's journal]

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“3/10/83 ~ A foggy morning. Birds sing. Yesterday was warm ~ went to over 70° here at the cabin ~ the fog has a sort of maritime vibe, it's soft and warm, no wind, an intimate fog.

[Russell Towle's journal]

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“March 10, 1986 Another dismal storm rolls through, and keeps on threatening to snow right here on Moody Ridge. Yesterday I spent half the day getting my car unstuck, after having slid it off the road the night before trying to drive out through an inch of fresh hail. With no gravel on my little driveway, traction is limited. It was an amazingly involved process, extricating the Toyota; I had to jack it up, block under the wheels, to no avail, then jack it up more, and try to topple it off the jack in the right direction; hours and hours of muddy, strenuous work; then I turned to the firewood problem, (after moving a couple of wheelbarrow loads of gravel from the remains of the stockpile far away, down to the bad spot in the driveway); I cut down the stump of an oak that broke in the November snowstorm. It yielded fine wood, easily splittable (except that my splitting maul finally broke); and the cabin became warm, truly warm, for the first time in days.”

[Russell Towle's journal]

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“3/10/88 Morning;
just saw two golden eagles* playing, swooping upon one another, I raced out to the cliffs and watched, they dove right past me with an incredible rush of air, and pursued the canyon wall and their joy amid today's fresh northerlies out towards Lovers Leap, where I lost sight of them. One of them was immature enough to show white in the tail, so that I thought at first it was a bald eagle, but then I saw its head was dark, and also, better than ever before, saw the flash of gold that gives them their name around head and neck.”

[Russell Towle's journal]

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*More on Golden Eagles:

Wonderful videos of Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) in flight:
http://www.arkive.org/golden-eagle/aquila-chrysaetos/video-06a.html

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March 5 (1976, 1986, 2003, 2006) Flowering Oak. Hopeful News.

“3/5/76   sunny, clear, still snow on the ground, so cold at night, i wear a sweater to bed over my long underwear. reading Hudson's ‘Deformation of Sierra Nevada since middle Eocene time’ in which he demonstrates that the rigid-block theory is incompatible with the measurements of the gradients of the channel of the Eocene south yuba river; and proposes five zones of deformation along the west slope, two of which he has found evidence of in the field. One of the zones is related to the serpentine belt my canyonlands lies on…*

*serpentine belt may be the zone; i had a hard time deciding. wish i had the geologic map of this area.”

[Russell Towle's journal]

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“March 5, 1986   a while after dawn on a day that promises to be yet another summer-like rapture of heat and birdsong and bursting buds. I saw a Kellogg's Black Oak just west of Gold Run yesterday that was already flowering and unfolding its first leaves; certainly the earliest I've ever seen at that elevation.”

[Russell Towle's journal]

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Date: Wed. 5 March 2003
To: North_Fork_Trails
From: Russell Towle
Subject: News

Hi all,

There's a little news to report.

In accord with Deane Swickard's (Area Manager, BLM, Folsom Resource Area) recent posting to the list, the BLM is exploring new funding opportunities for land acquisitions in the Gold Run area and elsewhere. I have emailed various write-ups of Gold Run and land acquisition there to Deane and his staff, which may be of use.

To recapitulate what is at stake in Gold Run: in 1978 Congress designated the North Fork American a Wild & Scenic River. Congress also formed a special Gold Run Addition to the W&SR "corridor." The Addition involves a mixture of BLM and private lands in the southern reach of the Diggings, and includes almost all of the historic Canyon Creek Trail. Currently, the most reasonable access to this trail is by way of the so-called Paleobotanist Trail, from Garrett Road, east across the Diggings. This trail, however, veers north out of the Addition boundary. There is also a significant petrified wood resource in this area.

Therefore most of us familiar with the area have thought it important for the BLM to seek to acquire not only those lands within the Addition, but also, at the very least, those lands adjacent to the Addition to the north. At a minimum, around 360 acres.

It so happens that all these private lands are for sale, 800 acres in all, and the owners are reluctant to sell it off piecemeal. It is also true that the 800 acres includes most all of the Diggings, and two miles of Canyon Creek, not just the lower mile of the Canyon Creek Trail. To me it seems important to try to acquire the entire 800 acres.

The Gold Run Diggings is, I think, an excellent candidate for the National Register of Historic Places. It has a wealth of history, old trails, many many discrete gold mines, tunnels, and was the locus of one of the most important legal battles in California history, State of California vs. the Gold Run Ditch & Mining Company (1881-62). There is an extraordinary body of historical materials which bear upon this one area, including the 27 volumes of testimony taken in the famous 1881 court case, and many dozens of newspaper and magazine articles, and sections of books, from the 19th century.

I imagine the Diggings managed as a Primitive Area, with equestrian and bicycle use allowed on most but not all roads, and the trails restricted to foot use. There is a tremendous opportunity, also, for an almost eternal succession of school field trips, to examine the geology, mining history, paleobotany, and ecology of the area. It is possible an Interpretive Center could be established, conceivably, with access direct from the eastbound Rest Area on I-80.

So much for Gold Run. Jim Eicher of Folsom BLM called and mentioned that they are also looking at acquiring trail easements through properties on the rim of the canyon in Giant Gap. There are very substantial BLM holdings at Lovers Leap on the east, and near Bogus Point on the west, but around ten 10- and 20-acre parcels of private land intervene. Any one of these parcels could suddenly sprout a gigantic "million-dollar-view" house, as has happened already east of Lovers Leap. An old mining ditch winds along the canyon rim for part of the distance between Lovers Leap and Bogus Point. I have always envisioned a Giant Gap Trail along this ditch, and elsewhere along the rim of the canyon, connecting Lovers Leap to BLM lands in the Gold Run Diggings. Easements could make this dream a reality. A trail could lend support for preserving the viewshed in Giant Gap. So, this is a good thing.

I believe that the BLM is also interested in acquiring a 40-acre parcel in the west end of Green Valley. This is surely a very important goal. There are five or six private parcels along the north side of the river, old patented mining claims, and although there is no road access, I believe the pressure to get away from it all is mounting steadily in California, and I see no reason why wealthy landowners might not helicopter large log cabins down there, and then fight for, and win, permission to use OHV's to go down the historic trails into Green Valley. There is a very suspicious run of red flagging at the east end of Green Valley right now, where one of the private parcels goes to the summit of East Knoll, with its spectacular view of Giant Gap. Tahoe National Forest (TNF) has already been approached with inquiries as to building a road into the east end of Green Valley. So, do not underestimate the power of Progress!

TNF tried, several years ago, to purchase all these parcels except for the 40-acre one in Green Valley West—that one is within the BLM management domain—but failed to purchase even one parcel. We need to continue to encourage TNF to try to pick up these inholdings, which are all partly or entirely within the W&SR corridor.

The BLM is also looking at other properties within the W&SR corridor farther west. They have done a truly excellent job in years past to acquire the private inholdings along the North Fork American. Now they are renewing their efforts, and I think we all owe a vote of thanks to Deane Swickard, Dean Decker, Jim Eicher, and others there at Folsom. You may wish to give Deane a call and thank him, and let him know that you appreciate his efforts to protect Gold Run and Green Valley and Giant Gap from development, and keep the historic trails open.


Cheers,

Russell Towle

[Note: Deane Swickard is now retired from the BLM. Russell always very much appreciated his commitment and zeal as a manager of public lands. He has received a Lifetime Service Award from the Public Lands Foundation. Thank you, Deane Swickard.]

---

March 5, 2006:
A rendering by Russell Towle of the landscape of the North Fork American River watershed

The most deeply incised canyon is the N. Fk. American canyon; note Canyon Creek (lower center),
defining Moody Ridge between it and the N. Fk., then making its turn to the south, dropping steeply 
into the river, and creating the succession of waterfalls accessed by the Canyon Creek Trail.

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March 3 (1986, 1987, 1988, 2005) Dramatic Events, Minor Calamities

“March 3, 1986   An incredibly beautiful, summer-like day, flocks of geese heading north, but pausing to circle over the thermals rising from the canyon walls. [...]

This morning we went out to the cliffs to the gaze about, and saw thousands of spider webs drifting in the warm northeasterly breezes that began during the night.”

[Russell Towle's journal]

---

“3/3/87, or, maybe 3/4/87 — it is Wednesday morning, at about 3:30 A.M. […]

I should try to get something done about the trash at Bogus Point.

Yesterday I wrote letters to Deane Swickard (BLM), about Moody Ridge Road, and to Pete McCloskey about Chinatown and the Golden Drift Historical Society, and worked on a memo to Newsom on my findings about TNF; the Swickard letter was occasioned by Gay Wiseman, who informed me that during a recent Moody Ridge Rd., Association meeting I had been roundly lambasted for bringing attention to Lovers Leap, and, horrors!  about increased use of Moody Ridge Road.

[Russ and I had just recently met at this time.  –Gay]

Should write letters to capital Reps. Fazio and Matsui about TNF, the Auburn dam, and Mather AFB (I would like to see enclosed).

Should write letters to TNF District Rangers, asking which timber sales are still open to appeal. Need to get names and addresses.”

[Russell Towle's journal]

---

“3/3/88   Morning. Yesterday, at about this time, while typing a letter to Frank Waldo of TNF re Smart's Crossing (possible acquisition by TNF), I was pleasantly surprised by the advent of Eric and Paula Peach, who whisked me away to go skiing; we slogged up the road from Big Bend to Huysink Lake, then proceeded to Salmon Lake, and returned via the Loch Leven trail, an intricate process involving breakable crust and myriad red fir trees. Quite nice. Today was to have been an expedition to Snow Mountain, but Eric hasn't arrived yet, 'tis too late now, so, no go.

Finished the Waldo letter, but no money for stamps, copies, etc.”

[Russell Towle's journal]

---

Revisiting the HOUT

[North Fork Trails blogpost, Thursday, March 3, 2005:
http://northforktrails.blogspot.com/2005/03/revisiting-hout.html]

Alex and Catherine along the HOUT (High Old Upriver Trail)

Wednesday dawned showery, after a night of sustained heavy rain, yet the morning news showed the storm passing rapidly east into Nevada, chased by clear skies to the west. I can't tell you how impressed I was by the views from Big West Spur, last week. It seemed only sensible to return and photograph the spectacle of Giant Gap emerging from its shrouds of storm-wrack and fog. An early start was demanded.

Driving my son to school at 8:00 a.m., a regular downpour of cats and dogs quelled my ardor. Sometimes these storms hang up in the Sierra for many hours, or even a day, after they have ended in lower elevations to the west. Who could say if this storm would stay or go?

Alex Henderson could. He called around 9:00, while light showers persisted here, to report sunshine there (Auburn), and proposed a hike. In a matter of minutes Catherine O'Riley was on board, and we all met at Gold Run, rather too late in the morning for Big West Spur and the good old post-storm Phantasmagoria of Fog, but at least the showers had ended.

We parked near Garrett and marched across the soggy Diggings to the Canyon Creek Trail. Little creeks one usually strides across without pausing had swelled into rushing rivers, within an ace of stopping us and forcing a ford. We were in the headwaters of Potato Ravine, not so labeled on modern maps. The waters of Potato were captured by the "Big Pit" of the Gold Run Ditch & Mining Co. in the 1870s, and since then have flowed into the more northern shaft and out to Canyon Creek in the huge drain tunnel.

At the head of Potato, west of Canyon Creek, stands Cold Springs Hill, where volcanic ash strata of the Valley Springs Formation create a perched aquifer, and a perennial spring nurtures a meadow high on the warm southwest slopes, where Indians lived for thousands of years, and where some enterprising 49er set up a trading post.

There is every reason to believe that the original beginning of the Canyon Creek Trail was at the Cold Springs Trading Post. Potato Ravine formed a kind of pass leading out of the gorge of Canyon Creek. In yet another meadow, also associated to the perched aquifer in the headwaters of Potato, were grown the very potatoes which gave the ravine its name, in 1849 or 1850.

If one is very clever and practiced using Google, one can find the diary of a doctor who spent the summer of 1849 near this trading post. Lamentably, we learn very little of this area from the doctor's diary. A mention of the impossibly steep cliffs of the North Fork (probably referring to Giant Gap), a mention of huge pines near the trading post (the Eocene river channel, unrecognized at that time, had evolved deep soils, and well-watered as well; we should imagine Ponderosa and Sugar pines, up to eight feet in diameter).

Soon we were beside Canyon Creek, high and loud and fast and a little muddy after the night of drenching downpours. Across the bridge, the roar of the first big waterfall greeted us well before it came in view. The Leaper was far beyond the fire-hose aspect of lower flows, and was a confused mass of white water bridging the little chasm-notch beside it with great force and sound and fury.

As the main North Fork canyon hove into view to the south, the last shreds of fog were already lifting and dissipating, and the clouds above were lifting as well, their bases already thousands of feet above. The showers had ended.

Biscuitroot
(Lomatium macrocarpum)

More and more flowers are appearing along the CCT, and really it bids fair to be an exceptional year for the things. In some years one wades through forests of flowers. Other years, drier years, they are much reduced in size and number.

A portion of the Inner Gorge, Canyon Creek

The creek was raging into and through the amazing Inner Gorge, a corkscrew chasm with mist and thunder rising from hidden waterfalls. We took the steep cross-country route down to the base of the Big Waterfall, perhaps 120 feet high, which splits into two falls in high flows. It was generating an impressive cloud of spray, which drifted all around us, a hundred yards away.

"Big Waterfall", Canyon Creek

I have been there several times when the creek carried much more water, and a kind of hurricane of mist sweeps over the very spot we were standing, and one is almost instantly soaked.

An ephemeral stream spilled down the cliffs across the creek, those remarkable steep slabs broken on right angles to make gigantic overhangs. In fact, the steep cliffs around the base of the Big Waterfall make it a hazardous place; rocks crash down frequently, and smash to smithereens of shards on the big rounded bosses of bedrock along the creek. Large sluice boxes were once mounted below the falls, and the stout iron pins in the rock, which somehow (using cables, I guess) anchored the boxes, have been smashed down flat by flood events, probably many decades ago. The pins are unchanged since I first saw them, in 1977 or 1978.

The slabs below Big Waterfall

The sun broke through suddenly, and a rainbow played in the mist. We continued down the Big Waterfall Trail, past The Terraces, to the Canyon Creek Trail, and soon thereafter, struck away east on the HOUT.
The clouds thinned and the sun rapidly warmed the canyon wall, lush in spring grasses, mosses, flowers, and ferns. Last week no fewer than four ticks dug into my hide, during a hike on the HOUT. They are quite a nuisance in the rainy season, yet seem to disappear when summer comes.

Bogus Ravine, on the west side of Bogus Spur, named for Bogus Point, far above us on the canyon rim, was full of whitewater. We crossed without incident and soon reached strangely steep Croquet Meadow, just beyond where the River Trail forks right. There Alex decided to stop, but Catherine was of course ready to forge ahead to the overlooks on Big West Spur. Not a shred of fog remained, but some rather glorious cumulus clouds drifted here and there, draping shadows over the two-thousand-foot cliffs.

Here as elsewhere the world was alive with the sound of water and waterfalls; every little ravine in Giant Gap had its own long series of cascades and falls, and the North Fork itself must have been flowing near a thousand cubic feet per second, and was still a mite muddy, or at least, not its usual picture of clear clarity.

We had found the sweater, so full of holes, I had left along the trail last week, the very sweater which actually inspired "darn it, darn it!" Now, as we followed the HOUT east towards Big West Spur, we saw that the "true" line of the HOUT was above us, in trees and brush. At a certain point we found the HOUT's tiny bench cut and decided to explore back west towards Croquet Meadow: perhaps the original line of the trail could be restored.

Catherine set her pack down on the narrow trail, and I watched stupidly while it slowly turned over and began to roll away, straight down. It was almost stopped by a fallen Digger Pine, but snuck beneath its trunk and turned into a little cyclone of mass and momentum, making glad leaps and bounds and spinning away out of sight.

This changed everything. We decided to let Alex know where things stood, but on reaching Croquet he was gone, already away on the return trail. We dropped to the River Trail in hopes the pack had hung up in the brush somewhere, rather than plunging directly into the North Fork, below. No sign. We split up and I climbed back up to where it had first escaped. Then, climbing right back down the fall line, I passed the fallen pine and carelessly dislodged a good-sized rock, which instantly whirled away on its own trip to the river. Unless Catherine had veered east, she was safe, but I shouted out warnings in any case. As it went out of sight a spot of color caught my eye.

Descending, I grabbed the pack and set out west, to find Catherine scouting open grassy slopes below the River Trail. A water bag and umbrella were still missing, and we took a quick look but could find no trace of either.

Now three in the afternoon, it was prudent to retreat, rather than push on to Big West. We enjoyed a nice hike into the westering sun, enlivened somewhat when I left my GPS unit at Bogus Ravine, and had to run back over a quarter-mile of rough trail to retrieve it, while Catherine waited.

Despite these minor calamities it was a wonderful day in the great canyon. We reached our cars a little before day's end, a little wet and bedraggled, but quite pleased to have acted on impulse and taken the path less traveled.

---

March 1 (1979, 1986, 1988, 2001) Exquisite! Roiling and Glowing, the Tensions of Spring

“3/1/79 ~ still snowing, after dumping about two feet last night, but the sky is glowing through the snow and it will be clearing up. it is exquisite, truly exquisite. oh god! i even see a bit of blue sky! i hear george barnes playing green dolphin street. django reinhardt playing beyond the sea. i woke up grumpy but i'm happy now. oh, the roiling glowing clouds above me ~ if i could fly and stay warm, i'd shoot up for a peek.”

[Russell Towle's journal]

---

“March 1, 1986  Partly cloudy today, but warm, with a certain tension in the air, a tension which heralds spring. [...]

I was just outside, gathering oak twigs and branchlets for kindling; atop the hand-hewn redwood barn timber from Año Nuevo some branchlets were laid to dry. I went to retrieve them; two Western Fence Lizards were — what? — making love in their shelter. I knelt to watch them; they'd moved apart, within inches of my rapt gaze; I studied their intricately imbricated scales, which reminded me of polar zonohedra, I studied their eyes, so like my own, and whispered appreciation: they watched me closely as well. I compared the lengths of their toes and fingers, terminating in delicate claws; finally I seemed to see the eyes of what I took to be the female, dull, narrow; I thought, gosh, if I don't get out of the way, she many have no eggs this spring!! So I left.”

[Russell Towle's journal]

---

About the Western Fence Lizard:

“It is thought that the presence of western fence lizards diminishes the danger of transmission of Lyme disease by ticks. The incidence of Lyme disease is lower in areas where the lizards occur, and it has been found that when ticks carrying Lyme disease feed on these lizards (which they commonly do, especially around their ears), the bacteria that cause the disease are killed.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_fence_lizard

---

“March the First, 1988  afternoon; after several days of storm, the temperatures have dropped, and now hail rather than rain showers down; a sign that the storm has in the main moved past and to the east, and, since cyclonic, since in the northern hemisphere cyclonic storms rotate counter-clockwise (as seen from above), it then happens that, moving from west to east as is their wont, either north or south of the equator, they drag cold air in behind them. The same would be true south of the equator, where storms would begin with north winds, finish with southerlies; cold southerlies stemming from the pole and hastening equatorwards... the names given to the winds of the various quarters and octants by the Greeks and Romans reflect the characteristic weather-types associated with those winds throughout temperate latitudes; that is South Wind is cloud-bearing, sea-roiling; North-East Wind, hot and dry (sometimes cold and dry)...”

[Russell Towle's journal]

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Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2001 15:50:57 -0800
To: North_Fork_Trails Email Group
From: Russell Towle
Subject: Canyon Creek


Hi all,

I have put a few pictures taken along the Canyon Creek trail on a web page at:

http://northforktrails.com/RussellTowle/NorthFork/Trails/North_Fork_Trails.html
Cheers,

Russell Towle

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February 28 (1979, 1986, 1988, 2002, 2004, 2005) Many Forms of Beauty; and of Damage

“2/28/79 ~ well, it is snowing again, huge ‘flakes’, started at dawn. ...

this day, right now, this is beautiful, and all my dreams have come true. in a way, snowfall like this, when it dusts the branches of the various bushes and trees, reveals their forms better than if they were bare of it. oh. I love it. ”

[Russell Towle's journal]

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“February 28, 1986   Sunset: a band-tailed pigeon makes short electronically spaced whistles in the warm dusk. After record rains, record high temperatures have ensued; spring, or even summer, seems upon us.

Last night the stars were so bright I walked up to the meadow and gazed; ... I lit some minor fires, burning ceanothus stumps, again and again. This morning, I visited the ashes of last night's fires; I heard some buzzing and found many flies of a certain kind clustering on the sunny sides of pine trees. [...]

I stood a graceful cedar stump up today, upside-down in fact; they are very sculptural, very beautiful. Another stump was too heavy for me to heave upside-downright, but I'll get it when I'm stronger, when someone is here to help me. Cedar stumps have roots like flames, forking flames ...”

[Russell Towle's journal]

---

“2/28/88   Morning, grey and cloudy: yesterday afternoon it sprinkled ever so slightly, this morning again something wet precipitates from the sky, why, almost to the extent that the ground is dampened. [...]

Now it begins to rain, lightly, the trees gesticulate, gently, the canyon goes gray in the grasp of showers, my cabin a drum played by thousands of tiny watery hands, my labor foregone, digging beds wherein to rest tiny sprouts: foolish? for there's still snow to come, still frost will clamp rich soil tight within its grasp...

Later: the rain has passed, only higher clouds remain. I cooked spaghetti and sprinkled it liberally with parmesan cheese, ate plenty, while reading Suetonius and leafing through my dictionary.”

[Russell Towle's journal]

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Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2002
To: North_Fork_Trails Email Group
From: Russell Towle
Subject: Adventures

Hi all,

The swinging of a heavy mattock last Sunday had left me rather sore in the lower back, so that after sitting for a while, I could not stand straight up but mysteriously leaned forward, like an old man. However, when an opportunity arose to visit Lovers Leap with Catherine O'Riley, I was more than ready. Catherine had never been there before. After picking up my kids from school and dropping them at home to fend for themselves, we headed out there on Monday afternoon.

It was one of those amazing winter days in the Sierra which seem almost summer-like. Canyon wrens were singing somewhere on the cliffs, the river was roaring over 2000 feet below, and to the west the thin silhouette of the Coast Ranges north of San Francisco could be seen above the haze.

After visiting the Leap itself we wandered west and down through the rather remarkable forest, with its fairly giant oak and pine, crossing the nameless ravine which debouches into Giant Gap, and climbing to the the mining ditch on its west side. This ditch, which appears likely to have served the small hydraulic mine workings west of Bogus Point, breaks out onto the rim of the canyon in Giant Gap and stays just below the rim for perhaps half a mile to the west. It makes a wonderful trail, although much blocked by brush and infested with poison oak. I have hiked it since 1978 and have tried to interest the BLM and others in its value as part of a "Giant Gap" trail since about 1985.

Unfortunately, although where it first breaks out into the main canyon it is on BLM land, it soon crosses onto private lands, then again onto BLM lands. There are as many as ten private parcels along the rim of the canyon in Giant Gap, between BLM lands at Lovers Leap and BLM lands a mile west at Bogus Point.

So, we had an excellent tour. On the way back to the Leap we followed a bear trail which has been there for many years, and climbs almost straight up the steep side of the ravine. A ridiculous route.

[...]

Cheers,

Russell Towle

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Snow, Flowers, and Waterfalls

[North Fork Trails blogpost, Saturday, February 28, 2004:
http://northforktrails.blogspot.com/2004/02/snow-flowers-and-waterfalls.html ]

Friday I dropped my son at school and left Alta for Gold Run, Garrett Road, and the Paleobotanist Trail. I hoped that an early start would save me from that second snowfall which is typical at these elevations; first, a storm loads up the forest with masses of snow, then, as soon as the sun shines, often, say, the next day, all that tree-snow comes whomping down in a soggy, dripping mess.

An accident seemed to have blocked the eastbound freeway near the Dutch Flat exit, and a long line of cars and trucks was rapidly getting longer.

A few inches of snow covered the ground in that fine forest atop the Bluffs, and the trees dripped, but did not snow-whomp. It was interesting to see the Diggings in snow. There were occasional glimpses of the North Fork canyon to the south and east, fog swirling here and there, and snow near the canyon rim. I hastened along the winding trail towards Canyon Creek. It had come up big, raging in fact, on Wednesday, when the North Fork itself had topped 4000 cubic feet per second at the North Fork Dam (Lake Clementine), below Auburn. I wanted to visit the waterfalls, since I have yet to photograph them when the creek is really big.

In coldish weather an interesting phenomenon may be observed in the Diggings. A little down the Main Diggings Road from its crossing by the Paleobotanist Trail, an old mine shaft plunges a hundred feet or so to meet a long tunnel. The shaft is the historic "49" shaft, and the tunnel has been called "the gravel tunnel." The tunnel was driven in 1874, and follows the bedrock floor of the ancient river channel north. The shaft, tho, seems to be that very one sunk in 1861, on the banks of Potato Ravine, which established the depth to bedrock beneath the channel. At that time the shaft was 250 feet deep. Subsequent mining stripped away 150 feet of gravel, so now it is only 100 feet deep. And it connects to a roughly horizontal tunnel.

The "interesting phenomenon" is that fog rises from the shaft on cold mornings, when the rest of the Diggings is clear. It is as tho—as tho—as tho some tribe of Indian spirits has set up camp deep within the earth, and the smoke of their secret fire escapes up the 49 shaft. Now, fog forms whenever the air falls below the dew point, which point depends upon two variables, temperature and humidity. Given such-and-such a temperature, increasing humidity could drop the air below the dew point; or, given such-and-such a humidity, decreasing temperature could do the same. A few feet below ground, the temperature of the earth is about 57 degrees Fahrenheit. Now, colder air is denser and heavier, warmer air is less-dense and lighter. Fog rises from the 49 shaft when air temperatures at the surface are (how much?) colder than 57 degrees, which is a commonplace there in the winter, since the shaft is really within the huge mining pit below the Bluffs. Cold air sinks into this pit at night, and can't readily escape. Let us say that there is little or no wind and air temperatures in the pit are in the thirties. This is much less than 57 degrees, the aforementioned earth-temperature; hence (somewhat moist) air within the tunnel and shaft is warmed by the 57-degree gravels at depth, and this relatively warm air rises, and, reaching the surface at the top of the shaft, is instantly chilled below the dew point.

I noted a small column of fog rising from the shaft as I hurried along; the Indian spirits were awake; soon I was at the snowy head of the Canyon Creek Trail, and set off towards the waterfalls and the North Fork. I was a little disappointed when I reached that part of the trail where, suddenly, Canyon Creek is directly below, and as I listened to the loud voices of the many cascades and low falls in that area, I realized that, yes, it was big; but not raging big. Perhaps the lower temperatures and snowfall had slowed the runoff.

The snow steadily thinned as I dropped lower. There was a constant dripping from the trees as it melted. The little bridge had a thin layer of almost transparent, wet snow, but thereafter there was hardly any. The creek was indeed bigger than it had been on my previous visit. Some very fine views open up just after crossing the little bridge, and one can see that strange little fall, the Leaper, which rises in an arc before free-falling down a slot-like embayment in the cliff. Now it roared out of its narrow channel and slammed into the wall of the embayment with a loud cracking thunder.

Right beside it is the main waterfall, the first big waterfall as one descends Canyon Creek. There is quite a fine view of it from the trail: I call that place Waterfall View. I have a photograph of this waterfall taken ca. 1875, when the creek was lined with giant sluice boxes, and water from Bear River, the South Yuba, and the North Fork of the North Fork was used in the hydraulic mines of Gold Run and perforce flowed into Canyon Creek. The creek was perpetually big, back then. Thousands of "miners inches" of water were used in the mines, brought by long canals from the higher country. One miners inch is something like seventeen thousand gallons per day.

Sluice channels above upper falls, Canyon Creek.
Photographed in 1875

The Upper Falls, Canyon Creek
February 28, 2004

These "upper falls" were nice and big, but not exceptionally so; I photographed them and hustled down the trail. I should say that at the very instant of dropping my son at school I learned that it was a minimum day; I would have to be back to pick him up at noon, not at 2:30, as I had imagined. So haste was in order.

I had forgotten to bring a watch, but knew from past experience that it takes about thirty-five minutes to reach the little bridge from the Bluffs.

Not raging, but very impressive. More and more waterfalls appeared along the way, in new shapes and louder voices. In places the trail is cut into cliffs, and it is interesting to hear the sounds of the falls reflected from the cliffs as one passes. The Inner Gorge was spectacular and, as usual, somewhat frightening; the trail passes above it on a ledge blasted from a cliff, and one peers a hundred, two hundred feet down into a most remarkable chasm, twisted, narrow beyond belief, rife with hidden waterfalls of great power, and essentially inaccessible.

Gorge Point was passed, with its same Brewer's Rock Cress and Biscuit Root. Suddenly the North Fork canyon is in full view, and the Big Waterfall roars away below, out of sight. Since time was short I took the steep short-cut down. The Big Waterfall, around 120 feet high, was still in the shadow of its awesome gorge. As I neared the viewpoint below the falls, where the trail coming up from the Terraces ends, I noticed many Birdfoot ferns. These are smallish ferns with narrow leaflets, a ghostly light grey in color, adapted to dry conditions, such as cliffs baked beneath full sun. There is much in the way of varied microclimate along Canyon Creek, and I have identified eleven different species of fern growing there.

Spray billowed out from the falls and chilled me, so I took my photographs and hurried down to the Terraces. The fog and low clouds were thinning and I enjoyed sunshine, and stopped to photograph the narrow trail, all covered in a turf of grasses and sedges and moss, gleaming in the sun, still wet from the storm.

At the Terraces I turned onto the Lower Terraces Trail back to the CCT, and was striding along when a voice called out, "Hey Russell!" And there was Ron Gould, a couple hundred feet above me on the main trail.

We continued on down to the river, pausing to photograph one of the larger waterfalls, another one which develops a double path when flows are high, and therefore looks strange and unfamiliar. Then down the last few hundred yards to the last big waterfall, at the river itself, also doubling and even tripling its path, booming, spray rising.

The North Fork was surging along quite rapidly, fairly well bank-full, still over 3000 cfs, as I was to learn later on the Internet. Ron and I took the Low Old Upriver Trail to some great viewpoints, where one can see, first, Lovers Leap, all snowy and still partly hidden in fog, with Bogus Spur and by all rights the HOUT (tho we couldn't see a sign of it) in the middle ground; and then, around a few corners, the Pinnacles and the Eminence came into view. It was great to see the Leap and the Pinnacles so well frosted in snow. We photographed them, and then returned to the last and lowest waterfall, and took more pictures.

The Big Waterfall" by Russell Towle

All too soon I had to start up the trail. Ron stayed to visit the Big Waterfall at his leisure, but I walked on up and out without a break, and reached the Bluffs just before noon, only a few minutes late. However, the freeway traffic had been detoured onto the back roads, and it took a long time to reach the school in Alta. All was well, however, my son was waiting patiently in the chill shadowed snow in front of the school, and home we went. It had been another wonderful visit to Canyon Creek and the North Fork.

There [is a] useful and interesting internet site I would like to mention.

For those interested in California history, the Library of Congress has an amazing collection of books online, the text having been scanned and OCR'd, so that it is a searchable database. There are many Gold Rush diaries in this collection. Suppose, knowing that Gold Run was once called Cold Springs, one searches for Cold Springs. If any one of the Gold Rush diaries mentions Cold Springs, you will find it, and, moreover, be able to link directly to that part of that diary. Of course there were many places called Cold Springs in those days, so some caution must be used (and what temperature is the usual cold spring? Yes, of course: 57 degrees).

Go to
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/calbkquery.html

where the main search page is found for this collection. You can search through bibliographic records or the text (of the entire collection) itself. I almost always search the text. You do not need to enclose multiple words in quotes, as when using Google.

---

Date: Mon Feb 28 09:10:52 2005
To: NorthForkTrails
From: Russell Towle
Subject: Damage to Big Granite Trail, update

Hi all,

Last fall word came in from Tom Martin of Alta that the historic Big Granite Trail (BGT) had suffered new and additional damage from logging operations.

The BGT originally connected Cisco on the north to the North Fork American River on the south, and beyond to the La Trinidad Mine in Sailor Canyon. See the Cisco Grove and Duncan Peak USGS 7.5-minute map quadrangles.

The more northern parts of the BGT became roads long ago, for instance "The Grade" is what a local's local calls the road from Cisco Grove up to Huysink Lake. This road shows on a map from 1902. Currently one accesses the BGT by driving past Huysink towards Pelham Flat. An unmarked road left leads to the trail. Descending, one enters Four Horse Flat, where the original line of the BGT was destroyed by logging, some ten or fifteen years ago.

It is in this same area where new damage occurred last fall. The snow fell before I had a chance to get in there. Two lumber companies own land there, intermeshed with Tahoe National Forest (TNF) lands: Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI; famous for clearcuts) and another outfit called CHY. It turns out both have timber harvest plans, either approved (SPI) or pending approval (CHY) in the area. I was unable to determine "who done it."

I obtained the CHY and SPI harvest plans from the CA Department of Forestry (CDF), and wrote a letter to Deputy Chief Bill Schultz, complaining of the damage to a truly great and wondrous historic trail. This trail makes, I'd say, the very most scenic entrance into the North Fork canyon of all the old trails.

Now, it is remarkable and horrible that, in a frenzy of timber harvests in the 1960s, very many of our historic trails were ruined, utterly obliterated. What I find strange is that the process continues to this very day.

I copied my CDF letter to Governor Schwarzenegger, for I have a feeling, an odd feeling, that almost nobody in our State or our County governments has the slightest inkling that these historic public trails are being ripped up by bulldozers.

Today I received a letter from Dale Geldert, Director of CDF, in which he writes "Governor Schwarzenegger has asked us to respond to your letter regarding harvesting practices and protection of historic trails in the North Fork of the American River." Geldert goes on to remark that the CHY harvest plan is still under review and that no decision will be made until the snow melts and on-the-ground inspections can be made by CDF personnel.

I also learn, from John Betts, an archeologist who has worked hard to preserve and document petroglyphs in the Sierra, and who once worked for CDF, that CDF almost never hears from people who care about historic trails. It is so far off CDF radar that one might lose hope; but John says what is really needed is people like us making comments on timber harvest plans, and demanding the old trails be protected. John says CDF almost never hears about these trails, and often does not know they exist.

We wrote letters to CDF about such a trail at Lost Camp (south of Blue Canyon) not too long ago. The historic China Trail was actually marked as a skid trail, in the Siller Bros. Lumber Company harvest plan, that is, bulldozers were supposed to use the old trail to drag logs up to a landing. But our letters forced a small change, protecting the China Trail.

We couldn't stop the timber harvest at Lost Camp, but we did change the plan and protect the China Trail from what might have been very significant damage.

Such is some news about the recent damage to the Big Granite Trail. The public comment period will, it seems, remain open on the CHY harvest plan, at least until next June, when the snow will be gone, and the on-the-ground inspections can go forward.

Cheers,

Russell Towle

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