canyonwalker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
canyonwalker) wrote2023-04-16 10:32 pm
canyonwalker) wrote2023-04-16 10:32 pm
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Hiking Little Cascade Falls
Sunday a week ago we had an epic hiking day, achieving a rare three-fer: three hiking treks. The epic-ness wasn't just three hikes... moreover it was a stunning twelve waterfalls, or something ridiculous like that. The Cataract Falls trail had more waterfalls than I could count. I'm going to call it 6 for tax purposes. Carson Falls was another 5 falls. And finally, Little Cascade Falls was just 1. That's half the reason why I've dubbed it "little".
Hikers in Marin County talk about the "Three Cs": three waterfalls treks on the flanks of Mt. Tamalpais. They're Cataract Falls, Carson Falls, and Cascade Falls. Except there are two totally different places in the area named Cascade Falls. The one we hiked Sunday is not the one with the reputation. (Thus "Little" Cascade Falls.) But it's plenty beautiful. And the trail is short. There's nothing wrong with the more famous Cascade Falls. It's just a longer trek. When you're already punch-drunk on the beauty in which you walk from seeing a dozen or more waterfalls and it's getting late in the day, things like an easy 1/2 mile hike seem better than piling on another 2-3 miles.
Little Cascade Falls is nestled in a canyon surrounded by wealthypeople homes in an affluent residential area of Mill Valley. You can tell it's a wealthypeople neighborhood because (a) the houses are huge, (b) they're actually well isolated from the hiking area, and (c) the roads here absolutely suck. Seriously, it's one-lane drives of broken blacktop with no sidewalks. It's like driving in a poor part of a developing country up in here. Wealthypeople apparently (d) hate paying taxes to do things like fix their damn roads, and (e) keep the roads shitty because improving them just encourages poorpeople to visit.
Well, they'll have to try harder to keep us out. We drove our 4x4 SUV rather than our German sports-convertible on this trip. The only parking spot left was in a ditch next to a cave? Pfft. I took it. Seriously, I parked in a ditch... next to a cave... in front of a probably $8 million house.
All the craziness of the is-this-squalor-or-wealth setting faded as we hiked up the trail into the canyon. Both the multi-million dollar houses and the crumbling roads disappeared from view, and Cascade Falls emerged. It's a tiered falls with a main drop of about 20 feet.
I'm glad I've gotten this blog out this evening. It's a week behind at this point— and I still have other stuff that's at least a week behind— but at least I've caught up on hiking. ...Well, we did a small hike yesterday I'll have to blog about sometime in the coming week. Catching up on this tonight has been fun because the touching up the beautiful pictures has reminded me how in beauty I walk.
Hikers in Marin County talk about the "Three Cs": three waterfalls treks on the flanks of Mt. Tamalpais. They're Cataract Falls, Carson Falls, and Cascade Falls. Except there are two totally different places in the area named Cascade Falls. The one we hiked Sunday is not the one with the reputation. (Thus "Little" Cascade Falls.) But it's plenty beautiful. And the trail is short. There's nothing wrong with the more famous Cascade Falls. It's just a longer trek. When you're already punch-drunk on the beauty in which you walk from seeing a dozen or more waterfalls and it's getting late in the day, things like an easy 1/2 mile hike seem better than piling on another 2-3 miles.
Little Cascade Falls is nestled in a canyon surrounded by wealthypeople homes in an affluent residential area of Mill Valley. You can tell it's a wealthypeople neighborhood because (a) the houses are huge, (b) they're actually well isolated from the hiking area, and (c) the roads here absolutely suck. Seriously, it's one-lane drives of broken blacktop with no sidewalks. It's like driving in a poor part of a developing country up in here. Wealthypeople apparently (d) hate paying taxes to do things like fix their damn roads, and (e) keep the roads shitty because improving them just encourages poorpeople to visit.
Well, they'll have to try harder to keep us out. We drove our 4x4 SUV rather than our German sports-convertible on this trip. The only parking spot left was in a ditch next to a cave? Pfft. I took it. Seriously, I parked in a ditch... next to a cave... in front of a probably $8 million house.
All the craziness of the is-this-squalor-or-wealth setting faded as we hiked up the trail into the canyon. Both the multi-million dollar houses and the crumbling roads disappeared from view, and Cascade Falls emerged. It's a tiered falls with a main drop of about 20 feet.
I'm glad I've gotten this blog out this evening. It's a week behind at this point— and I still have other stuff that's at least a week behind— but at least I've caught up on hiking. ...Well, we did a small hike yesterday I'll have to blog about sometime in the coming week. Catching up on this tonight has been fun because the touching up the beautiful pictures has reminded me how in beauty I walk.