I Go Swimming Again

July 22, 2023

I Go Swimming Again

Well, I figured if I could reach the fall by traveling up the creek, I could also reach it by coming down creek from above. Google Earth, and my experience with the area seemed to suggest that it would be easier too. With the passage across the basin clear of water, this would be the day to find out.

swimming with a helmet - what will they think of next?

With a few things to check off my to-do list today, and getting a later start than I would have liked, I took the quickest route through the wash, stopping only once - to have a brief chat with RM who was having a fine morning ride on the single tracks Out There (though also wishing he'd gotten off to an earlier start).

I avoided heat stroke getting up and over the dam and, while there was not the slightest remnant of trail through the thick-growing hemlock and mustard across the once water-logged basin, memory served me well enough and I was able to slowly push my bike through the stuff to higher ground. Once there, the hemlock fell away leaving just mustard and thistle and the faintest trace of last years' trail through. Eventually even that disappeared again, the stuff grew thicker and ripping my right foot from the pedal a couple times, put me back on my feet again. That last little line of willows before reaching old Mountain was the worst; I don't know how many hitch-hiking spiders I picked up, but one stuck with me all the way back home.

From the willows the way was clear; I reached the creek crossing as I suspected, hike-a-biked back down a ways, stood at the top of the fall looking down, waded back upstream, took a refreshing dip (not skinny) in one of the pools, before calling it a successful morning. I passed over the same trail heading back out, but really it needs a few more riders before it can truly be called open again - and honestly, who wouldn't want a swim in cool mountain waters on a hundred degree day?