Hiking Angel Falls

Saturday morning we went hiking at Angel Falls. We were already in Oakhurts, CA, having driven there yesterday and staying overnight after hiking in the rain at Corlieu Falls. Hiking in the rain wasn't the plan, though staying overnight always was. Thus it was only a 15 minute or so drive out to the falls in the morning. We could have gone at 7:30am if we'd wanted. It was cold early in the morning, though, like not much above freezing, so we relaxed in the hotel until 9. And even so, we bundled up in heavy sweaters at the trailhead.

One benefit of getting an early start on was that we had the place to ourselves— at least to start. There was one other car at the trailhead when we arrived. Its owners were already well ahead of us; we'd pass them, briefly, going opposite directions on the trail later.

The solitude was a nice change of pace. Later in the day, and especially later in the season, this trail gets busy on weekends. Today we're early on both counts. Not only is 9:15am at the trailhead earlier than most people stir on a Saturday but March, even late March, is early season in the Sierra Nevada. Even in the lower reaches here at 3,500' elevation.

Watch on YouTube

For this trip I've put together a 4 minute video of clips from various places along the falls. This seemed like the best way to share it and to convey the connectedness of the experience. Angel Falls may be the name of just one cascade, but the whole experience here is one of multiple falls—more than a dozen— of different heights in rapid succession. And of being able, in many cases, to simply scramble up the rocks from one cascade to the next. Trail? You seldom need a hiking trail out here, if you're bold and careful.

Hiking Red Rock Falls

Saturday was a hiking two-fer for us. Thanks to staying overnight Friday night in Oakhurst we had plenty of time and energy even after hiking Angel Falls Saturday morning to add on a quick trek to Red Rock Falls around noon.

Red Rock Falls is on Lewis Creek, the same waterway as Corlieu Falls. We hiked Corlieu Falls Friday afternoon! We'd loosely planned that we could hike Red Rock Falls after Corlieu, making Friday a hiking two-fer, but the weather was crummy up at Lewis Creek on Friday afternoon. It was raining up there, hard. It was partly sunny and dry down in Oakhurst, though. The difference is that Oakhurst is at elev. 2,300' while the trailhead for Corlieu is at 3,900'. The rain was in the mountains, not the foothills. And Red Rock Falls is even higher, at around 4,200'. We saw small patches of snow near the trailhead on Saturday afternoon!



By hiking from the upper trailhead— the one with patchy snow— it was just 1/2 mile easy walk to Red Rock Falls. Well, the first 1/2 mile was easy; then a steep side trail dropped down to the falls. And even that just dropped down to the top of the falls, shown in the photo above. Waterfalls generally don't look great when you're standing right on top of them. Fortunately, here, a steep trail drops down to the left to reach the banks of the creek below of the falls.



We lingered for a bit below the falls. It was beautiful but also damp. The previous day's rain had left things soaked. Plus here, below the falls, it's shady and gets spray from the falls, so even on a dry day above it's wet down here.



In these latter two photos I managed to capture— or perhaps evoke— something that didn't seem to exist when and where I snapped the photos: a sunny day. Up here it was gray, at best bright gray, all day. But look: in these photos there's sunlight on the falls and blue in the sky above! For me, at least, seeing such things after the fact is one of the rewards of spending time taking pictures and touching them up afterward.