A Visit to Hedge Creek Falls

Two weekends ago we drove to northern California to enjoy hiking in the Trinity Wilderness northwest of Mt. Shasta. As I've written in several blogs recently, we had to contend with smoke from the enormous Park Fire blazing near Chico— plus smoke drifting down from fires in southern Oregon. 🥵 The latter caused us to cancel our plans to hike in the Trinity Alps Sunday, even after we hiked there comfortably on Saturday, so instead we picked a pair of shorter hikes further south.... in between the clouds of smoke from the various fires.

One of those hikes was a short walk to an old favorite, Hedge Creek Falls. It's just off I-5 in Dunsmuir, a tiny town between Mt. Shasta and Shasta Lake. In the past when we've visited it's been a hidden gem. Typically we shared the trail with just a few other groups. But on this particular Sunday two weeks ago there were more than 20 cars parked at the trailhead.



The crowds don't make the falls less pretty. Well, not until over-visitation by careless people trashes the place. 🙄 Thankfully that hasn't happened here... yet.



We stayed at the falls for a while, at least twice as long as any of the other visits. We watched two or three sets cycle in and out. I had fun making slow-exposure photos with my nice camera and tripod— even though I'd lost one of my lenses in an Alpine swamp the day before. You can see two of the motion blur pictures above. Here's a short video I made:

Watch on YouTube

In beauty I walk.

Another Friday, Another Friday Night Halfway

Here it is Friday night, in the summer, and once again we're halfway to somewhere else. 🎵 Woah, we're halfway there! 🎵

In a 1:1 this afternoon with my boss we were discussing weekend plans, and he said he finds it inspiring how much Hawk and I travel on weekends. I explained to him this Friday Night Halfway travel technique I started using years ago. The idea is simple: Drive a few hours on Friday night and stay in a hotel in some nondescript location to get a head start on going somewhere, typically in the mountains, Saturday. Use the extra time to do a fun thing on Saturday and get all the way home Saturday night so Sunday is an open day at home for rest, chores, etc.

If it seems like I've blogged Friday Night Halfway a lot recently it's because we've done it a lot recently— 4 times this summer, starting with one in June, and now 3 times in 3 weeks. This evening's trip is just in time, too, as it was just this morning that I finished blogging about these recent trips. 😂

So, where are we tonight? We're in Auburn, one of our usual suspects for Friday Night Halfway. It's a town in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada along I-80. We like it because it gives us a good jumping-off point for adventures up in the mountains.

Sometimes Auburn hotels get pricey, though, so maybe half the time we come through here we also stay down in the Central Valley, hanging our hats for the night in or around Sacramento instead. Tonight our usual haunt, the Holiday Inn, was expensive, but I found a good rate at a Best Western. We'll see what it's like staying at a lower-rung property... without elite status. 😱😂

The drive up to Auburn this evening was rough. I'm glad we were able to leave early. What would've been a 2.5 hour drive without traffic took closer to 4 hours of driving. Adding in stops for dinner and ice cream (yay!) we arrived at the hotel just before 9pm after leaving home at 4.

Tomorrow we'll drive up to the Grouse Lakes Basin, another common haunt. We visit that area for hiking generally at least once a year, sometimes twice. Why keep going back? So. Many. Lakes. It can still feel a bit repetitive, so we mix it up with different hiking routes. This time we're thinking of doing a peak climb we've never done before. We should be able to see lots of lakes from up there! And staying tonight in Auburn means we should have only an hour or so pleasant drive to the trail in the morning.