"Cinnamon Creek" - Part 2

I originally wasn’t planning on doing anything this weekend, but I saw that Saturday and Sunday were both supposed to be in the 80s and dry in the mountains, which will probably be the only time that happens in the foreseeable future, so I quickly decided on Friday that I was going to go to the mountains. My main goal for this weekend was to finish “Cinnamon” Creek. That isn’t the creek’s real name, but rather the alias I gave it in my first entry to keep the location secret. I had originally planned on doing Cinnamon Creek as an end-of-summer trek, since it is pretty high on the treachery scale, and I wouldn’t want to break my ankle or something right at the beginning of summer and be out of commission for the rest of swimming hole season. However, with all the coronavirus restrictions, I don’t have high hopes for this being a productive swimming hole year, so I decided to go ahead and go for it. It has rained pretty torrentially for the past few weeks, so I knew the creeks and rivers would be high, which is bad for larger waterways but works to the advantage of smaller streams like Cinnamon Creek. My brother Brian, who had gone with me to Cinnamon Creek last time, said he was free both days this weekend. We originally planned on Saturday, but he remembered he had something going on that night, so we changed to Sunday. I figured I would hit a different swimming hole on Saturday, so I made plans with Miranda to go to Upper Creek Falls. I knew the creek would be high, but I thought that also might make the slides better. I went by Kohl’s on Friday after work to get a new swimsuit, since the only one I had that was good for butt-sliding and had good pockets got ripped at California’s Rock Creek last summer.

( Click here for the full trip report with photos and videos )

In summary, I’m glad to have finally conquered all of my points of interest for Cinnamon Creek. There ended up being seven waterfalls in total (eight if you count the ten-footer halfway between the road and the main waterfall zone, which I didn’t mention in this entry). Cascade #4 had a legit swimming hole with a low jump, and cascades #5 and #7 had pools that were deep but a little too small in diameter to be ideal for swimming (illegit swimming holes, I guess?). From a waterfall viewing standpoint, I would say the highlight cascades are #5, #7, and #2, in that order. As I predicted, the creek was a little higher this time, so the waterfalls had a bit more volume than last time. This is not really a place you would go if your main objective was to see a waterfall or go swimming, because you can do better in both departments at more easily accessible areas. The allure for me was more the adventure of finding something completely on my own without being spoon-fed any information whatsoever by published sources. I probably wouldn’t go to the trouble of bushwhacking to and then climbing down these waterfalls a third time, but this was still a cool little secret spot.