Potem Falls & Hatchet Creek Falls

[flyminion]

For the second day of our 2019 California Swimming Hole Marathon, Cade and I went to Potem Falls and Hatchet Creek Falls (aka Lion Slide Falls) northwest of Redding. These had both been on my radar for our first California trip in 2017, but we didn’t end up going this far north. Potem Falls was supposed to be the main event for today. It didn’t really look like anything exceptional from pictures, but people’s trip reports I had read online gave it high praises, so I decided that perhaps photos didn’t do it justice. Hatchet Creek Falls was not one I was terribly interested in. It kept coming up when I was researching California swimming holes, and I wasn’t sure what the big deal was looking at pictures. It looked like a good local swimming hole, but probably not something I would bother with when visiting from across the country and looking to hit the highlights. However, it was only about eight minutes up the road from the turnoff to Potem Falls, and Potem Falls didn’t seem like it would be an all-day affair, so I figured we might as well check out Hatchet Creek Falls while we were there. If anything, it looked like it would provide some jumping opportunities if Potem Falls came up short in that department.

We checked out of the Super 8 in Redding and were not sad to be leaving. We got breakfast and then drove out to Potem Falls, which took about an hour and fifteen minutes. About a third of that was driving down Fenders Ferry Road, which was gravel for the last 5.5 miles. The road was in fairly good shape and did not give us any problems.

Shortly before we got to the pull-off for Potem Falls, we crossed a super high bridge spanning the gorge over the Pit River, just downstream of where it flows over a low dam.



We decided we might scope this area out if Potem Falls ended up freezing us out like McCloud Falls did yesterday. We found the pull-off for Potem Falls and took a fairly easy half-mile switchback to the bottom of the hill. We could see the falls for most of the way down.

The waterfall was a narrow waterfall about 70 feet high, plunging into a crystal clear but partially shaded swimming hole.

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There were high rock walls along the upstream end of the swimming hole. The downstream end was lined with boulders, and there was a rope swing hanging from one of the trees on the river-right side of the pool.



I took the temperature, and it was 61.5 °F, which was less than ideal, but a slight improvement over McCloud Falls yesterday. There was no way Cade was going to get into this one, as he hates cold water. I eased in up to my waist, and then swam across with my snorkel to scope the depth and check for jumping spots along the cliff. The pool looked mostly about 10-12 feet deep along the upstream half. There were a few tenuous ledges on the cliff face, but there was no way to climb up to them.



I then swam across the pool to check the depth at the rope swing and under a boulder that potentially offered a low jump of about 3-4 feet.



It looked like you would have to swing pretty far on the rope swing to get over the deep water, as there was a boulder sticking up just before the bottom dropped off. It was deep all around the low boulder, so I jumped off of it and got out of the pool. I was out of breath and somewhat light-headed from the cold water at this point, so I climbed up the trail a few meters until I found a nice hot rock to lie on. After sunning myself for a few minutes, I got dressed, and we walked back up to the car.

We pulled off at a couple of spots near the bridge over the Pit River. We walked out on the bridge, and I scoped out the river below through my binoculars.

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It looked like there were a few good jumping spots, especially on the river-right, but there was also a gross-looking sudsy film on the water, so we decided not to go down to investigate further. We drove until we got back to the main road, and then we headed to Hatchet Creek Falls.
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There was a small gravel parking area just before the bridge over Hatchet Creek, so we parked there. There were two trails out of the parking lot, and I forgot which one we were supposed to take, so we took the lower one that looked like it stayed closer to the creek. It took us down to the creek and then ended, so we had to boulder hop until we were able to take a scramble trail back up to the higher trail that we hadn’t taken. When we got to the falls, we had to maneuver around and under some fallen trees and muddy inclines to get down to the water.

Hatchet Creek Falls was about a fifteen-foot waterfall with a large dead tree leaning on it that someone had carved little steps into for climbing (the log is sort of the identifying feature of this swimming hole).

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The swimming hole was crystal clear, which didn’t really come across in any of the photos I had seen, although some written descriptions had mentioned it. I waded around in the water and thought it felt a tad warmer than Potem Falls, but not much. I estimated the water to be 65 °F, but it was actually 61 °F. I guess the slightly warmer feeling came from the pool receiving more sunlight. After taking pictures, I quickly snorkeled the pool to scope out the depth beneath the log and the cliff next to the waterfall. It looked at least ten feet deep all along the upstream half of the pool. There had only been two or three people when we arrived around 3 PM, but it seemed like about ten people showed up shortly after we got there, so it got pretty crowded given the size of the pool. I climbed up on the log, and it was more slippery than I had anticipated. There was someone on the very top, so I jumped from about halfway up, which I guess was about eight feet high. I jumped from the log a couple more times. The last time there was no one in front of me, so I was able to climb almost all the way up. However, I was having a hard time standing up and poising myself to jump, so I hung out on the log for a little while. I had to wait for the bottoms of my shoes to dry so I could stand up on the log without using the foot holes. Cade was going to record me jumping, but his phone stopped recording right before I jumped, so this is all you get:



I would say this jump was about 10-12 feet high. I was pretty cold by this point, so I climbed to the top of the waterfall to warm up, as the area surrounding the swimming hole was mostly shaded, and the sun was hitting the top of the falls. I was vaguely considering jumping from the cliff, about 20-25 feet. It looked doable, but then I saw people do it, and it looked like they fell a long way before hitting the water. There were also a lot of people watching, and I didn’t want to step up to the edge and have them pressuring me to jump, so I climbed back down. I pondered going back up, but I ultimately decided not to. A group of college kids who had been there a while climbed up to the top, but one of the girls got stuck and had to be helped back down. The rest of them jumped. Several had already jumped earlier in the day. A couple of the guys in the group had borrowed my diving mask earlier in the day to scope out the depth, and one of them had lost his glasses when he jumped, but he was unable to find them with my mask because it kept fogging up. I thought about offering to look for them, but I wasn’t feeling swimming face-down again in the cold water. I decided I wasn’t feeling the jump, as my jumping confidence had been kind of rattled by feeling unstable while on the log, and there were no other ways to work up to the higher jump.

We headed out about 5 PM, and the college kids left at the same time. We took a higher trail, and they went through the creek. Along the way, we saw this guy on the trail looking through binoculars at the waterfall, and he had a bottle of liquor at his feet. We thought this looked a little sketch. The trail back to the parking lot that we had not taken on the way in got us there much more easily, but it was a small stream bed with running water, so it was pretty muddy. The college kids asked us if we knew any other good spots in the area. We told them about the South Yuba River and God’s Bath (which are kind of far away, but they were the closest highlights that we were both willing to divulge and thought were worth recommending). They told us about Deep Creek near Redding, which apparently has some good jumping spots, but they said it wasn’t much warmer than Hatchet Creek Falls.

We headed back to Redding, got gas, and headed to Chico. We were not sad to be leaving Redding behind. I wanted to stop at this restaurant and tube rental place near Chico along the Sacramento River that had been featured on a Rescue 911 episode. It had good reviews on Facebook, so I wanted to eat there for dinner, just for the novelty of it. However, when we pulled up, we just saw a bunch of condemned-looking shacks and junked cars. There was one little building that looked like it was still operational, which was the restaurant. Cade was sketched out, as was I, but I thought we would go in and give it a chance. When we walked in, it looked really old and rundown, and it was hot and stuffy inside. The woman behind the counter said she had just shut down the kitchen, but she could fire it back up for us. We insisted that was not necessary and left, because we both wanted to just get out and not look back. I wanted to get a picture of the tubing takeout, but that would have required getting out of the car again, so I didn’t bother.

We drove into downtown Chico, dropped our stuff off at our room in the Quality Inn, and walked a few blocks in the stifling heat to Madison Bear Garden for dinner. I was attracted to this place by pictures of their curly fries, which look like the ones from Jam’s Deli in Greensboro, NC. The burger and fries at Madison Bear Garden were excellent, but the functionality of the restaurant was annoying as hell. It seemed like it was primarily a bar that had a kitchen as an afterthought, even though they put as much effort into the food as a legit restaurant. We had to order and pay for our food at the kitchen window, and then order and pay for our beverages separately at the bar. It was also crowded with college students, even though it was a Monday night, and we had to sit at an annoyingly low counter that we could barely get our legs up under while sitting on the bar stools and bend over while eating. We probably won’t go back there again, which is a shame, because their food per se is actually really good. We were hoping to escape the sketchiness of Redding when we got to Chico, but we definitely walked past a prostitute on the way back to the hotel, and there were homeless people bathing in the fountain in the middle of a downtown square.

Anyway, in summary, I actually ended up liking Hatchet Creek Falls a little better than Potem Falls from a swimming hole standpoint. Potem Falls was a fairly tall waterfall compared to some of the other waterfalls we have seen at California swimming holes, and the water was clear and blue, but the novelty of that has worn off for me at this point, and I just sort of expect it in California. The water was too cold for an actual swim to be enjoyable, but the temperature was sufficient for a quick depth-scoping and a few jumps with a quick exiting of the pool, except that there wasn’t really anything noteworthy to jump from (except the cliffs along the top of the waterfall, which I won’t do). There was the rope swing, but I wasn’t sure if I could swing out far enough to clear the rocks. Hatchet Falls was another cold one, but it at least had cliff jumping opportunities and a log to climb on and jump from. Ease of access from the main road made it a little too popular, though. It was a little crowded, even on a Monday. Still, Hatchet Creek Falls saved today from being a waste of time, for me at least. I would say that both Potem and Hatchet Creek Falls are decent local swimming holes, but not really worthy of national attention.