If you don’t want to get dirty stay in the truck

I had spotted it from the pull-out two weeks before. My first time up and over the mountain this year, as the snow had stopped me on my two previous attempts.

Now I was in search of the waterfall I had first heard, then spotted from a mile away. Today I was going to spend the morning and possibly the afternoon trying to reach it. It had rained overnight making the trail muddy and under brush wet.

Once the truck could find its way forward no longer, I Parked and continued on foot. I could hear water rushing forth, although this did not mean it was the waterfall.

I had my bear spray handy and gun in backpack. You never know what or who you will run into up here.

After a short muddy, wet, dirty walk, I arrived at the top of the waterfall. I guessed in to be seventy five feet to the pool below. “How great would it be to get to the pool and rock canyon at the foot of the fall?” I asked myself.

I picked, slid, and scooted my way down and around trees, rocks, and drops. I figured, “if you didn’t want to get dirty, you should have stayed in the truck.”

After about half an hour I stood next to the pool looking up at this magnificent tumble of liquid. The sound was all around, it bounced off the rock walls surrounding the pool of clear blue.

I was in no hurry to climb, or try to climb out of this bowl of beauty. First of all, I was tired from the climb (controlled fall) down. Secondly I now began to doubt my ability to crawl up and out of this wonderful place. Lastly did I mention I was tired?

So after spending forty five minutes exploring the bottom of the falls, I decided to start what was an arduous climb up and out. My first obstacle was a large boulder/wall, in my younger days, I would have leaped up swinging my leg over and continued up and out. But it was today. I stood and looked at this stone cliff, that was taller than me. I’m not sure what I expected to happen as I stood there staring at the first of many difficulties? Maybe if I looked at it real hard, it would come to me, how the hell I was going to get back up this canyon. “Forget about the canyon, how are you going to get past this gateway boulder to well, what I was sure would be more difficult transitions?”

What followed was not a picture of grace. Instead, I sort of slothed, beached, pulled myself up onto and over the rock. I was glad the weather was not nice, as that may have brought others to the falls. The thought of them having to watch me, possibly with impressional children made me shutter.

Amazingly enough, after this first humbling crawl, I was able to get up and out. Once back at the truck, I decided to see what the rest of these mountains had to offer this day.

When choosing to stay clean and dry, or explore, always choose the latter.