Candy Rock & Blue Streak - Part 2

[flyminion]

Since the past couple of days of our vacation were spent doing filler activities due to not being able to get out of our reservations near Yosemite while the park was closed, Cade and I decided we would spend the last two days of our vacation re-visiting some of the highlights from last year’s trip, rather than take a chance on new swimming holes that may or may not be good. Cade had been itching to go to Blue Streak all week, so that was our plan for today. After last year's visit, we hadn’t been super impressed with Candy Rock, which is about a mile upstream on the same river, but we had neglected to check out some of the pools upstream of the main attraction, so I wanted to do that while we were there. Specifically, there was a photo from Timothy Joyce’s Swimming Holes of California book that had piqued my interest for Candy Rock when I was planning swimming holes for last year’s trip, and after we went, it occurred to me that we never actually saw the pool in the photo. I figured it must have been upstream of the main swimming hole, so I e-mailed Tim, and he confirmed this to be the case. I marked a pool on Google Earth that I thought might be it, but it was hard to tell because the pool in the photo appeared to be partially obscured by a rock overhang.

It took us about 3.5 hours to get to Candy Rock Road from Bass Lake, partially due to surprise road construction along 49 that required us to take a 30-minute detour. When we finally got to Candy Rock Road, we were hoping that it would be open this year (it was closed last year due to winter storm damage, and we had to park at the gate and walk in). We got half of what we were hoping for: the road was open down to a parking area near the Blue Streak trailhead, but the last 1.5 miles down to the Candy Rock parking area were still closed. The closure looked permanent, as there were two dirt mounds and several boulders placed across the road to prevent vehicles from passing. The road past that point was getting overgrown, so it looked like they were letting it go. This has apparently deterred people from visiting, as this reportedly used to be a crowded area before the road closure, but there were only three or four other cars there today (not complaining).

I could tell Cade wanted to get down to Blue Streak, but I wanted to take a stab at finding the mystery pool upstream of Candy Rock first, so we followed the road all the way to the end and took the trail down to Candy Rock. A short distance upstream from the iconic Candy Rock swimming hole, we saw a large deep pool with clear, emerald water, which we had somehow missed last time, despite the fact that it is clearly visible from the trail.

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Even though it was hot (almost 100 °F outside), we passed this one up for now and headed upstream in hopes of finding the mystery pool. Rather, I hoped to find the mystery pool. Cade wasn’t too thrilled about it, as he just wanted to get to Blue Streak. It was slow going through the fields of boulders that lined the river.



According to the GPS, we were only about a quarter of the way there after twenty minutes. It was getting close to 4 PM, and it was probably going to take us close to an hour to get to Blue Streak once we got back to Candy Rock. I didn't want to deprive Cade of Blue Streak, especially after yesterday's Dinkey Creek debacle, so I gave up on finding the mystery pool for today and decided to make it a project for another visit when we had more time.

We went back to the upstream pool, and I was definitely getting into it this time, as I was pretty overheated by this point. I took the temperature of the water, and it was 70.5 °F, about 3 degrees warmer than it was last year. I snorkeled the pool, and it was pretty deep all around, probably up to 15 feet in some places. It looked like there were some jumping opportunities, but not quite as good as the ones at Blue Streak. I said I was only going to stay in the pool for seven minutes so as not to hold us up too long, but then Cade decided to jump in just as I was getting out. He only stayed in a couple of minutes, and then we headed downstream.

We saw some people sliding at Candy Rock, and I thought about doing it but decided it would eat up too much time for me to work up the nerve to do so. I didn't take any new pictures of the main spot today, but here are a couple from last year (note the clarity of the sky compared to the above pics from this year):



We could tell that the water levels were definitely lower than last year, as some of the tubs downstream of the main swimming hole were stagnant, whereas they were flowing last year.

I had forgotten how long it took to get to Blue Streak from this point. It was about 5 PM by the time we got there. Here are a couple of establishing shots of Blue Streak from last year:



I have nothing new to report on Blue Streak, although we did get some videos of me jumping off the rocks, which we had neglected to do last year. All photos and videos that have me in them were taken by Cade:





There was one jump near the waterfall about 15-20 feet high that I had kind of wished I had tried last year (I'll call it the "medium jump"), and I said I was going to do it this year, but then I decided it was too high after seeing it in person again. However, after getting my confidence up from doing the 10-12 foot jumps, I decided I would just walk up to the edge of the medium jump and see what it looked like from the top. I decided it was something I could do, so I took a couple of minutes to work up the nerve, and then I leapt off (and screamed like a girl).



Cade didn’t know I was actually going to jump (I didn’t either until I did it), so he didn’t get a video, and he wanted me to do it again so he could film it. Despite the “oh shit” feeling when I jumped, I decided I could do it one more time for posterity (including screaming like a girl).



Here is a video of several jumps from today, including the medium jump:

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After doing the medium jump twice, I felt like I might have been able to do the highest jump (about 30 feet) if I had more time to work up to it (photo from last year):



Cade had done that jump last year and wanted to do it again, but the sun had gone down behind the hill, and it was getting late, and he figured he didn’t have time to work up the nerve (and he also didn’t want to get wet again).

The first portion of the hike out was a little more strenuous than I remembered. It was pretty hot and buggy, but not as bad as it would have been while the sun was still out. We drove to Murphys and had some pretty good burgers at the Firewood restaurant.

So yeah, not a whole lot of new developments for Candy Rock/Blue Streak this time around. The pool just upstream of Candy Rock was nice and probably would have increased my opinion of Candy Rock if we had seen it last year, but we both still maintain that Blue Streak is pretty unbeatable as far as accessible swimming holes on this stretch of the North Fork Stanislaus River. Perhaps next time we will find the elusive pool further upstream from Candy Rock, but that’s probably not a project that would be worth undertaking if it cut into time that we could be spending at Blue Streak, so it might have to happen on a trip where we could dedicate two days to this stretch of the river.
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Update: We returned in 2019 and devoted a full day to exploring the river upstream of Candy Rock. Click here for the trip report.