Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

Hawk and I have made our own Super Bowl Sunday tradition. Since we don't care for sportsball we take advantage of the day everyone is inside guzzling chips and guacamole while glued to their TVs to go hiking instead. For this year's not-watch party we drove up to the North Bay, to the Marin Municipal Water District on the flanks of Mt. Tamalpais.

What's there? Among other things, a bunch of waterfall trails. And the weather we've had the past week— rainy most of the week but clear and sunny Saturday and Sunday— made it a perfect time to hike waterfalls. In particular we headed to the Cataract Falls Trail, with an option of doing Carson Falls nearby as a two-fer later in the day.



It's a surprisingly long drive out to the Cataract Trail. ...Not because of how far it is; it was only 70 miles or so from home, most of those miles on freeways. But the last 10 or so miles winding into the mountains from the town of Fairfax, California are on narrow, twisty Fairfax-Bolinas Road. Making it even slower than normal was the fact that there are still a few construction spots where Caltrans is still repairing washout damage from a few years ago.

Speaking of a few years ago, it's been two years since our previous visit to Cataract Falls. So while we've been here a few times before, it was clearly time to visit again.



The trail begins at the back corner of MMWD's Lake Alpine on the flanks of Mt. Tamalpais. As you can see in the pic looking across the lake it's a clear and sunny day. But quickly the trail turns into the deep Cataract Canyon, and suddenly everything is cool and damp and dark.



The trail passes by several waterfalls as it climbs the canyon. For many of them, like those in the latter two photos here, there are small use-trails to get closer to the water. One of these photos I made while actually standing in the water. Yay, sturdy hiking boots instead of shitty trail shoes.



There are more individual waterfalls on this trail than I can even count, let alone share photos for. I've included these two for now. I'll post a Part Two soon with photos of the biggest cascade.

Stay tuned for more!

This past Sunday, almost a week ago now, we hiked to Carson Falls near Mt. Tamalpais. It was the second hike of an epic, three-hike day. The trek to Carson Falls was the longest trek of the day. Though our morning hike along Cataract Falls was so jam-packed with waterfalls. we covered probably little more than a mile and about 400' of ascent on that trail. Here we'd cover nearly 4 miles roundtrip and over 1,000 feet of gain. And the trek started with unexpectedly good views along Pine Ridge.

This trail is the Carson Falls trail, though, not the Pine Ridge trail. It would still be nice without the falls, but the falls are what make it special.



The first tier of Carson Falls plunges over the side of a narrow canyon in a drop of 20 ~ 25 feet. There's a small rocky ledge opposite the falls that's nice to sit on and enjoy the view.

As we were headed to the rocks to pick a perch, a nature volunteer approached us and asked us if we'd come to see the frogs.

"We're here to see the falls," I said, gesturing to... well, everything visible around us.

"Oh, but do you know about the yellow-legged, shitsicle-licking frog that came in last place in the leaping frog of Calaveras County competition?" the guide asked. ...Okay, he didn't really use all those descriptors for the frog, but that's how annoying he was already coming across with his boisterous insistence on questioning us about frogs.

"We saw the display near the trailhead at the fake taco truck," I responded.

"Oh, the Tam Van!" he corrected me.

"Yeah, the fake taco truck," I insisted. "I was really hoping for a hotdog and an ice cream."

Hawk wandered off somewhere else, apparently not wanting to be part of the "Who can be the biggest jerk?" competition I had engaged the old coot in. The difference between us was that I was doing it on purpose, trolling. The old guy was apparently completely self-unaware how annoying he was.

He was also completely unaware that I was trolling him to shut him down. He kept talking. IDK, maybe everyone lambastes him about the fake taco truck. I suspect more likely he was lonely and my trolling was the longest conversation he'd had with anyone all day.

By the way, there are at least two of these endangered, never-praised-by-Mark-Twain-for-their-jumping-ability frogs in the picture above. I could only spot one with the binoculars the guide lent me. At maybe 4 inches across It's too small to see in the photo as presented here.

After a while I handed the guide back his binoculars and made my way down to the next perch.



The second tier of falls is even more impressive than the first. It's partly because these falls are even taller and partly becuse the viewpoint is better. Here there's a rocky perch near the bottom.

You might notice both these pictures (and the next one, too) are slow exposures because of the motion-blurred water. I did slow exposures of the falls in Cataract Canyon, too. But here I had to employ two tricks with my camera to pull it off that I didn't have to there.

First, here, because there's strong daylight I had to use a darkening filter to slow my camera down to 1/4 second exposures. In the deep shade on the previous hike I could do that without a filter. Here I used my ND6 filters— which block out about 98.5% of the light.

Second, I didn't have my tripod on this hike. A tripod is important when making pictures with slow exposures like 1/4 second because it stabilizes the camera. I left it back in the car on this trek because it's a longer trek and I didn't want to lug it so far. So I was shooting hand-held. For these pictures I braced the camera against my knee or a rock to hold it steady. The technique worked fairly well. Especially at this spot, where there was a big rock in exactly the right place.



An even more awesome thing about this spot than having a big rock in the right place is that it's a two-fer of waterfalls. You can see the second and third tiers of Carson Falls here! You need a really wide lens to capture both in one frame, though. And fortunately I have a really wide lens. And a really big ND6 to screw onto it.

Oh, but wait, there's more. This spot is actually a three-fer. If you have a lens that covers, like, 180° you can see three tiers of falls. My lens isn't that wide. And the pano mode in my iPhone got really confused because it expects panorama pictures to be captured on a level, not a diagonal.

And there are other falls, too. Carson Falls actually has at least 4 main drops, maybe 5. We hiked down to the lower tiers, and I took pictures there, but the views weren't that great. The lower falls are overgrown with trees right now. They showed better when we visited 8 years ago. Of course, that was the trip when it sleeted on us on the hike home!



After visiting all the falls we started our way back up to Pine Ridge for the trek back to the car. It's a few hundred feet up from the lowest falls just to the spot where Hawk is standing at a trail junction in the photo above. From there it's at least another 500 vertical feet to the top of the ridge. Whew, uphill both ways! But the trip was absolutely worth it. In beauty I walk.

Our second hike of the day last Sunday was Carson Falls. It's fairly close to Cataract Falls, which we hiked earlier in the day. (See my blogs from Cataract Falls - part 1 and part 2.) In fact we drove right past the trailhead a few miles out en route to Cataract. As we drove past the trailhead we noticed something unusual about 100 meters up the trail over a slight rise— the unmistakable shape and bright colors of a food truck!

"WTF, how did a food truck get up there?" Hawk and I said to each other, noting the locked gate across the fire road that allows only hikers and bicyclists to pass. We figured it was a special permit or something, but sheesh! Commercialization of our public conservation lands. 👎😡

As I repacked my hiking pack at the Carson Falls trailhead— removing my tripod as I figured the cost/benefit ratio of carrying it on a much longer hike wouldn't be worthwhile— Hawk stalked up the trail to see what was going on with that food truck.



Well, good news/bad news. It turns out it's not a food truck. It's the "Tam Van" with information about protecting an endangered species of frogs in the Mt. Tam watershed. Good news: no commercialization of public conservation lands. Bad news: no hot dogs or ice cream available. 🤣

This past Sunday we hiked a trifecta of waterfalls trails on the flanks of Mt. Tamalpais in Marin County. The busy day was made possible by staying Saturday night in Mill Valley. We were able to get to the trailhead by 10am without having to set alarms for 6am and drive 2+ hours. Even so, by 10am parking at the trailhead was pretty full. Fortunately we took our 4x4 with us, so parking on uneven dirt off the side of the narrow road wasn't too difficult.

The trail to Cataract Falls Trail starts about 10 miles west of the small town of Fairfax, CA. Winding Fairfax-Bolinas Road goes out past a country club on the edge of town then snakes around the edge of Alpine Lake. Along the way there were no fewer than three areas where the road had partially washed out. At least two were from earlier this season. Heavy rains have caused floods and mudslides, and in several places the ground under the road slid away causing part of the road to slide with it. I know at least two of the washouts are recent because when I looked at hiking this trail a few months ago, and the road was closed in multiple places. Now the damaged lane is coned off to a single lane in those places with one-way traffic.



Coming now that the rains are tapering off makes a lot less drama in getting there. It also makes for a lot more crowds. As I noted, parking was getting tight, and the trail was busy with other hikers. Fortunately most of them are folks seeking quiet communion with nature.



As a sign— literally! — of how busy this trail gets, this sign near the trailhead lists more regulations than I've seen probably anywhere else. The more people who use the trail, the more people who screw it up for the rest of us. The more people who screw it up, the more we need signs like this asking them not to be asses.

The trail starts out not seeming like much as it contours around one of the arms of Alpine Lake. Within 1/4 mile the trail leaves the lake behind and starts climbing into a canyon. That's where the waterfalls start.



This is one of the first waterfalls on the trail. There are many waterfalls here. I mentioned at the start our plan today is for a trifecta of waterfall trails. Note, trifecta of trails. I actually expect to see at least a dozen waterfalls, many of them on this trail!

To be prepared for photographing waterfalls I took my tripod on this trip. It's a noticeable extra amount of weight on my daypack, so I only bring it when I expect to use it. Even so, it's not just the weight; it's also the fussiness of setting it up to take a picture, then collapsing it to reattach it to my pack to hike again, then taking it back out for the next picture, etc. I made the picture above freehand, not wanting to fuss with the tripod. Then I figured, I'm carrying this extra weight; I might as well use it! I made the next picture with the tripod.



This is... second lower falls? And the previous one is... first lower falls? I don't know. There are so many falls on this trail they don't have individual names. That's why the whole area is called Cataract Falls. In beauty I walk.

Stay tuned for more!