Adventures of a swimming hole aficionado

Cade and I decided to spend the last two days of our trip visiting swimming holes on one of our favorite California rivers: the South Yuba. We checked out some new swimming holes near Purdon Crossing yesterday, and we returned to Lemke’s Lagoon and the Highway 49 area today. I’m not dedicating a separate entry to the latter since I’ve already blogged it and don’t have many new developments, so this entry will mainly focus on our explorations at the Purdon Crossing area.

Since yesterday was a Sunday, we figured all parking areas for the river would be crowded. However, Purdon Crossing seems to be slightly less popular (which is not saying much) than Edwards Crossing and Highway 49, so we decided it would be better for a weekend. A while back, I had scanned Google Earth and marked nine points of interest (POIs) on the five-mile stretch of river between Purdon Crossing and Edwards Crossing, numbered in order from downstream to upstream. We checked out POIs 1 and 2 in 2019, and we checked out POIs 5 and 9 in 2021 (6-8 were on private property, so we were unable to get to them). POIs 3 and 4 were never a high priority, as they didn’t look terribly interesting on Google Earth, but I figured we might as well complete our explorations of this section of the river since we were in the area.

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

In summary, POIs 3 and 4 upstream of Purdon Crossing didn’t top anything we’d previously seen on this stretch of the river, but they didn’t disappoint, either. Although some South Yuba swimming holes are more exciting than others, I have yet to encounter one that I thought was lame. POI 4 was much larger than 3 and had a little more going on than I assumed from first glance, but it’s also a little less accessible and doesn’t have as many flat lounging rocks that are reachable without swimming. POI 3 was still fairly large with a low jump, and it was more geologically interesting than 4. Even though these two POIs are accessible by trail, they’re still over two miles from either crossing, apparently making them less crowded even on a weekend. Now that I’ve checked out all my (legally accessible) POIs between Purdon and Edwards Crossings, I would say the highlight is POI 1 (China Dam), followed by POI 5, which is the largest and probably receives fewer visitors on account of it being more than a two-mile hike from the road in either direction. POIs 2-4 aren’t necessarily standouts, but they seem to offer a bit more seclusion since the swimming holes closer to the road draw off the exercise-averse crowds. I think it would be fun to tube this entire section of the river on a future trip, which would allow us to legally(?) float through POIs 6-8.

As for the Highway 49 area, it was nice to return there after five years. I would say Lemke’s Lagoon still ranks as one of my top swimming holes on the South Yuba. It was also cool to finally explore the chute swimming hole above Hoyt’s Crossing. It didn’t have any safe jumps, but there were some fun sliding opportunities down the sloped granite bedrock lining the river.

This concludes our fifth California swimming hole marathon (I hesitate to say “fifth-annual” since we now seem to be in the pattern of doing them every other year). Normally I rank the swimming holes we visited at the end of a trip, but the best ones were places we had already been to, and most of the new ones were bamboozled by less-than-ideal weather and/or hydrological conditions (especially the Yosemite ones), so I will have to suspend judgement on those until I can pay them proper visits in the future.

Yesterday, Cade and I went to Camp Nine on the Stanislaus River, and today we went to our favorite California swimming hole: Blue Streak on the North Fork Stanislaus River. I’m not dedicating a separate entry to the latter, as I’ve already blogged it three times (in 2017, 2018, and 2019), so this entry is mainly about yesterday’s excursion to Camp Nine.

After the cooler weather in Yosemite the past three days, we were ready for the California swimming hole weather we know and love (i.e., hot AF with a zero percent chance of rain). It looked like yesterday was going to deliver. We decided not to do a fourth day in Yosemite, so we headed up to Murphys to hit Blue Streak. However, Cade wanted to save it for tomorrow when we could get there earlier, which meant we needed a filler excursion for today that was on the way there. I had considered the Preston Falls Trail on the Tuolumne River, but given the unseasonably cold water temperature of the upper section of the river the day before, I decided it would probably also be cold downstream of Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. Camp Nine, on the other hand, was near Murphys and on the Stanislaus River (downstream of the confluence of the North and Middle Forks). I’ve known about it since our first California swimming hole marathon in 2017 (a waitress or store clerk in Sonora had recommended it), but I’ve always regarded it as maybe-pile material. The pictures of it in Timothy Joyce’s Swimming Holes of California book show plenty of jumping opportunities, but it didn’t look very geologically interesting. Still, I figure anything in the watershed that gave us Blue Streak deserves a chance, and it’s only a half-mile hike from the road, so we decided to check it out.

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

In summary, I was not really a fan of Camp Nine. It was like a colder, murkier version of the “Green Bridge”. The vertical elements were there, but the combination of the cold water and turbidity made it difficult to scope out the jumps. The water quality was no better than an Appalachian swimming hole (in fact, I’ve been to nicer spots in the Linville Gorge). I would liken it to the Guest River Gorge, although the water was not quite as nasty-looking. If the water were crystal clear and/or about ten degrees warmer, then this would be a great jumping spot, but it just wasn’t very pleasant under yesterday’s conditions. Blue Streak, on the other hand, was primo as always. After a streak of bad weather and cold swimming holes, we knew we could count on Blue Streak to make it all better.

Today, Cade and I kicked off our fifth California swimming hole marathon by hiking to Chilnualna Falls in Yosemite National Park. This creek was one of the first swimming hole spots I had put on my list when researching our first trip back in 2017, but we didn’t end up making it to Yosemite that year or on any of our other trips for one reason or another. The closest we came was in 2018, but they closed the park due to the Ferguson Fire three days before we arrived, and we couldn’t get out of our vacation rental, so we ended up having to resort to smoky backup plans outside the park. This time, we booked hotels with flexible cancellation policies, as you never know what’s going to happen in California, but I’ll admit that a tropical storm is the last thing I would have expected. The original plan was to do Chilnualna yesterday and do the touristy stuff in Yosemite Valley today, but yesterday's forecast called for scattered showers and a high of 68 °F with the remnants of Hurricane Hilary passing through, so we swapped the days and did the valley yesterday. We were hoping the weather would be better today, since this was our last day staying in Oakhurst (near the southern entrance of the park in Wawona, where Chilnualna Creek is), but it was still partly cloudy and in the low 70’s.

Chilnualna Creek boasts two sections of interest. The lower section near the trailhead features two swimming holes known as The Ledge and Honeymooners, and a short distance upstream from those (as the crow flies) is the Big Pot. I had marked another point of interest on Google Earth about a quarter mile upstream of the Big Pot, but it looked like it might be in the middle of a waterfall, so I was unsure if it would be accessible. The upper section of interest is Chilnualna Falls, which is a three-tiered waterfall about five miles up the trail. The uppermost tier features a large swimming hole at its base, and several teacup cascades above the main drop. It was unclear from pictures if the teacups were accessible, as the terrain around them looked pretty steep depending on the angle, but I was interested to find out. I knew we probably wouldn’t be able to hit all the swimming hole highlights of the creek in one day, so my main objective for today was to check out Chilnualna Falls. This meant we would probably have to come back another time to see everything on the lower section, but I still wanted to check out the Big Pot, as it had been the swimming hole that initially piqued my interest for this creek.

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

In summary, Chilnualna Creek would be a great swimming hole destination in hot, perpetually sunny weather. Today’s hike offered some great views, but the cool, overcast weather made it disappointing and uninviting from a swimming hole standpoint. The increased flow and freezing cold water did not help. Chilnualna Falls was swimmable, but the creek picked up a few more tributary streams between there and the lower swimming holes, making the Big Pot a little too rough. Even though I didn’t really get into any of the pools today (other than the base of upper Chilnualna Falls for a few seconds), I’m thinking the best swimming hole would be the uppermost significant tub above Chilnualna Falls. It was large in diameter, appeared deep, and had a perfect rock diving board (if the water under it is deep, which I didn’t check). I would like to revisit Chilnualna Creek in a more typical year, so I can do a proper exploration of the Big Pot, and also check out The Ledge and Honeymooners. Even though hiking all the way to Chilnualna Falls is kind of a drag, the payoff would be worth the effort in nicer weather, so I would consider going back up there again as well.

For day four of our trip, Cade and I returned to the Emerald Pools on the South Yuba River to do a proper exploration. We had briefly stopped here on the way back from Island Lake on our 2017 trip, but we didn’t get to Emerald Pools until 6 PM after the sun had set. The water was 54 °F that day, which was in no way going to be pleasant for swimming. The main reason I had been wanting to get back to Emerald Pools is that I discovered it was the location of a mystery swimming hole I had seen in a YouTube video prior to our first trip in 2017. The video features two swimming holes, one of which I recognized as God’s Bath. The second swimming hole looked really enticing – clear blue water, a side waterfall spilling in, and numerous ledges for jumping, but I could not for the life of me figure out where it was. I spent hours (okay, weeks) on Google Earth scanning pretty much every major California river I could think of to no avail. Finally, after our 2018 trip, the uploader revealed the location as Emerald Pools. With that massive clue, I was easily able to find the mystery pool on Google Earth, but I never would have guessed I had been so close to it. I suppose the main spots, known as the Lower Emerald Pools (where the jumpers go) and the Upper Emerald Pools (where families go), had distracted me from the lesser-known pools on that stretch of the river.

I had planned to tie up this loose end during our 2019 trip, but we ended up blowing it off that year because we had hit a string of unpleasantly cold swimming holes, and we knew the Emerald Pools were not going to improve that situation. The pools are only about a mile downstream from the Lake Spaulding dam, which means the water is cold year-round since it doesn't have much time to warm up after being released from the bottom of the lake. On top of that, both 2017 and 2019 were record snowfall years where the rivers were colder than normal. However, 2021 has been the opposite (record low snowfall and warmer water than normal), plus the area is currently under an excessive heat warning, so I figured if there was ever a year Emerald Pools would have a tolerable water temperature, this would be it.

We had originally planned to revisit Royal Gorge today (which entails a strenuous 7 mile round trip hike) since it’s a Sunday and Emerald Pools is highly popular, but yesterday’s hike kind of destroyed Cade, so we decided to swap the days and just deal with the weekend crowds since the hike to Emerald Pools is less than a mile (although it does entail some minor rock climbing).

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

In summary, Emerald Pools is a great cliff jumping spot, so it’s no surprise that it’s one of the most popular spots in northern California. The cliff walls are so textured that there is a jump from pretty much any height you could want up to 70-ish feet. However, I wouldn’t really call it a great swimming hole per se because the water is too cold for a swim to be enjoyable. Even at today’s unusually “warm” water temperatures, it was really only tolerable for jumping in and quickly getting out. The water also wasn’t very emerald-y today due to all the brown filth swirling around, but I suppose that’s the price one pays for the water temperature not being in the 50’s. I would likely hit up the Emerald Pools from time to time if I were a local, but it’s probably not a place I would return to when visiting from out of state unless I were with someone who wanted to go. If I did go back, I would like to explore the rest of the box canyon downstream of the mystery pool (I guess I can stop calling it that, now that it’s no longer a mystery).

For day two of this year’s California swimming hole marathon, Cade and I took an exploratory hike along the South Yuba River to check out more of the area between Edwards Crossing and Purdon Crossing. This was a continuation of a hike we did in 2019, where we started at Purdon Crossing and hiked upstream to check out two points of interest (POIs) I had marked on Google Earth. We only made it a little over a mile up the river that time, and I had marked a total of nine POIs on the five mile stretch of river between the two crossings. This time, we planned to start at Edwards Crossing and hike downstream as far as POI 5, which was about halfway between the two crossings. POIs 5, 7, and 8 looked the most promising, so I figured we probably wouldn’t bother with POIs 3 and 4, since they didn’t look that interesting and were more than halfway to Purdon Crossing. This was going to be an out-and-back hike, and the area was under an excessive heat warning (over 100 degrees without the heat index), so 2.5 miles one way was already going to be pushing it.

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

In summary, the swimming holes at POI 5 were decent, but the surrounding canyon here was not as geologically striking as the area around Lemke’s Lagoon. POI 5 had a lot of nooks and crannies to explore, and there were a few decent spots for some low jumps, but probably nothing that would appeal to thrill seekers looking to “send it” (that’s what the kids say these days right before they do crazy backflips off huge cliffs). POI 9 was nothing remarkable, and we had to blow off POIs 6-8 since they were on private property. The water temperature was moderate and cool enough to keep us from having a heat stroke during this even-hot-by-California-standards heat wave. There was barely any shelter from the sun in this part of the canyon, though, so we definitely added to our sunburns today. The water was clear, but the silt and algae on the bottom made it look dark, and not the striking blue color we saw in 2017 and 2019. Hopefully there will be a big snowmelt next spring that scours the rocks and makes the river look cleaner.
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Update: We returned in 2023 and checked out POIs 3 and 4. Click here for the trip report.

A montage of my swimming hole exploits from 2017-2019:

For the sixth and seventh days of our 2019 California swimming hole marathon, Cade and I decided to devote two days to the North Fork Stanislaus River to accomplish our two objectives for that area: finding an elusive swimming hole upstream of Candy Rock, and giving Blue Streak (one of our favorite swimming holes) our undivided attention. Today was devoted to the former objective, which we knew would require a time-consuming boulder scramble and creek walk.

This entry is a follow-up to the entries “Candy Rock & Blue Streak” from 2017 and “Candy Rock & Blue Streak - Part 2” from 2018. To save you the trouble of reading those, here is a brief recap of our previous adventures in the Candy Rock area that led up to today’s excursion.

PREVIOUSLY, AT CANDY ROCK:
On the last day of our first California swimming hole marathon in 2017, Cade and I visited the swimming holes Candy Rock and Blue Streak on the North Fork Stanislaus River for the first time (Cade had actually been to Candy Rock once before, but not Blue Streak). We liked Blue Streak a lot, but we thought Candy Rock was just okay. After returning home from that trip, I realized we had not actually seen the spot from the photo that initially attracted me to Candy Rock (hereafter, “the mystery photo”, which you can see here). I e-mailed the person who took the photo, Swimming Holes of California author Timothy Joyce, and he said that spot was further upstream than the main Candy Rock swimming hole, but he did not remember the exact location as he had taken the photo in passing about ten years ago. I also noticed from Google Earth that there was a large pool just above Candy Rock that we had somehow missed on our first visit, so I wanted to go back and check it out. I couldn’t find anything that matched the spot from the mystery photo on Google Earth, except for possibly one pool about half a mile upstream of Candy Rock with no trail access.

We returned to the area in 2018 near the end of that trip. We wanted to hit Blue Streak for a quick pick-me-up after missing out on Yosemite earlier that week due to the Ferguson Fire and having to resort to backup plans. However, I also wanted to venture down to Candy Rock to take a stab at finding the pool from the mystery photo. We found the pool we had missed just upstream of Candy Rock in 2017, and we started boulder scrambling upstream to the mystery pool, but after making it only a quarter of the way there in 20 minutes, it became obvious that we would not have time to see the mystery pool and go to Blue Streak in the same day. Cade just wanted to get to Blue Streak, so I blew off finding the mystery pool on that trip. It was obvious that we would have to devote two separate days to this area if we didn’t want finding the mystery pool to keep us from getting to Blue Streak.


AND NOW…

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

In summary, we found a few small swimming holes and one big one, but none of them were the pool from the mystery photo. That means either we did not go far enough upstream, or that the photo is from a different location (it actually looks more like Rock Creek than the North Fork Stanislaus River). The main pool we found upstream of Candy Rock was a legit swimming hole. It was large, deep, and had a couple of good jumps. However, I felt uneasy there because of how treacherous the approach was, and the difficulty of a potential rescue in that area if something happened. Unlike Rock Creek, which somehow seemed a little safer, the boulders and rock faces at the North Fork Stanislaus River are a lot more smooth and slippery, and one slip could lead to big trouble in such a remote area not accessible by trail. So yeah, the main pool we found today was a good swimming hole, but it seems kind of pointless to bother with such an arduous and treacherous approach when the superior and more accessible Blue Streak is available downstream on the same river.

For Day 4 of this year’s California swimming hole marathon, Cade and I went to Rock Creek, a tributary of the North Fork Feather River outside of Oroville, CA. This was sort of part 2 of my “what if?” curiosities from Day 5 of our 2017 trip. On that day, we intended to go to Seven Falls but couldn’t because the road was closed, so I had to choose between Curtain Falls and Rock Creek as a backup plan. I went with Curtain Falls and couldn't decide afterwards if the swimming hole was really worth the effort, so I have always wondered if Rock Creek would have been a better choice. Rock Creek has numerous swimming holes. Timothy Joyce’s Swimming Holes of California book lists a lower, middle, and upper Rock Creek. Middle Rock Creek seems to be the most popular from what I have seen, as it boasts a large, deep pool of crystal clear water and a natural water slide. It looked like there was going to be too much at Rock Creek to see in one day, so we opted to start off at Middle Rock Creek and play it by ear from there. Upper Rock Creek sounded like it would be quite a challenge to get to, so while it didn’t look like it would be a highlight swimming hole, I sort of wanted to get to it just for street cred.

After eating breakfast and stopping by Wal-Mart in Chico to get a replacement pair of sunglasses to preemptively replace my current pair that is on the verge of breaking, we drove about an hour to Rock Creek. We drove through an area damaged by the Camp Fire last year, and it looked pretty devastating. There were a lot of homes that were destroyed to the foundation (I noticed one where only the chimney remained), and it looked like people in the area were mostly living in motorhomes. The damage ended only a few miles away from the confluence of Rock Creek with the North Fork Feather River.

The canyon that the North Fork Feather River flows through was pretty spectacular and almost rivaled the scale and ruggedness of Kings Canyon, which we drove through last year (I didn't blog that day since we didn't go swimming). There were areas where the road was at least 1000 feet above the canyon floor. We had to drive through several tunnels as we neared Rock Creek. When we pulled in, we went under a train trestle and passed up the trail for lower Rock Creek, which was close to the entrance. We took the gravel road up the hill for a couple of switchbacks until we found a small parking area with enough room for about four cars. There were already two vehicles there. One was for some school, and the other was for some sort of adventure/discovery group. Before we got started, I decided to only take a small gym bag, as my regular backpack would be a huge pain for the amount of boulder scrambling and ledge scaling that probably lay ahead.

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

In summary, I rather enjoyed Rock Creek, even though boulder scrambling normally gets on my nerves. Most of the strenuous and technical stuff we did today was optional. The granite rocks here were textured enough that they were pretty easy to maneuver around on, and there was a good mix of small and large rocks that created incremental steps to various height gaps when we needed to get up or down. I joked that the two most important exercises one should do to prepare for Rock Creek are dips and lunges, as I definitely used my arms just as much as I used my legs to get around today. I did do a couple of things today that were probably sketchier than I should have done in such a secluded, rugged area, but the only casualty was my swimsuit. It’s kind of sad that it won’t be making it home from this trip after all of the swimming holes it has been to with me. I now only have one swimsuit left in my suitcase for this trip, and it has no liner. We are planning to do another boulder scramble at Candy Rock the day after tomorrow, and I’m thinking I might have to do that one in my underwear, since my second swimsuit doesn’t have a liner.

Anyway, back to the swimming hole situation at Rock Creek. The swimming holes here were gorgeous and crystal clear, ranging from emerald green to sapphire blue. The water temperature was cool, but not so cold that it took the fun out of swimming (at least not for me). It was kind of a bummer that the slide had a downed tree across it, though. I would say Middle Rock Creek is the highlight swimming hole. Upper Rock Creek was nice, but I would really only recommend it if you just want to do it for the adventure and satisfaction of conquering it, as the swimming hole per se isn’t necessarily any better than Middle Rock Creek. Getting there was basically a half-mile jungle-jim of boulders and logs. We didn’t get to see anything below Middle Rock Creek today (other than some obscured views from the cliffs above), so I would like to come back in the future and explore Lower Rock creek.

So, did I make the right choice two years ago when I chose Curtain Falls over Rock Creek? I would say yes, because I eventually got to do both, and I wouldn’t have actually known that Curtain Falls was more trouble than it was worth without having gone there. Curtain Falls looks more impressive in pictures, so I probably would have lived with a bigger ghost if I had passed that one up.

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.

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

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.

Yesterday, Cade and I finished this year’s California swimming hole marathon by re-visiting our favorite swimming hole from last year: Lemke’s Lagoon on the South Yuba River. I don’t have any new pictures or anything new to report for that one, other than that the water was warmer than last year (79 °F this year compared to 74 °F last year), and the bottom of the river had a lot of silt and algae on it. The water was still clear, but it appeared darker and less blue than last year. The hike there was ridiculously hot (I think it was 100 °F outside or close to it), so we stayed at the swimming hole until late afternoon. The sand next to the river was blisteringly hot at 145 °F, and the rocks ranged from 115-130 °F. We spent a while jumping and snorkeling around in the pool. On the way back, we stopped at Hoyt’s Crossing, which I took pictures of but didn’t actually get into last year. I snorkeled the pool this time, and it was 8-10 feet deep in most areas. There were several people skinny-dipping, but I didn’t drop trou because only women were doing it at first, and I didn’t want to be the only naked guy. A few guys went skinny-dipping after I had gotten in, but my bathing suit was already wet at that point, so there was no point in taking it off now. After I was done swimming, we drove back to where Cade and his roommate live in the Bay Area, and we got donuts and Outback on the way.

We had to end our trip today because Cade wasn’t able to get off work tomorrow, but I had a couple more vacation days, and my friend Brook from Denver happened to be off work today, so I decided to take a detour to Denver on my way back to Raleigh. We were trying to decide what to do beforehand, and Brook suggested I find a swimming hole within reasonable distance of the city. From what I could gather, Colorado is not exactly bursting at the seams with swimming holes, but I had marked a few on my swimming hole list. The closest one I could come up with (aside from flat spots on rivers) was Guffey Gorge, also known as Paradise Cove, a little over two hours south of Denver. Brook picked me up from the airport, we had lunch, and then we headed out to the swimming hole. Traffic was pretty congested most of the way, so it ended up taking us closer to three hours to get there. Temperatures were near the 90s in the city, but they dropped to the high 70s/low 80s when we got to Guffey. The visibility of the mountains had also been bad, as with California, although it was unclear if this was also due to smoke.

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

In summary, Guffey Gorge was kind of a disappointment to see in person (granted, I have been up since 4 AM today, so I may be a tough crowd). It’s one of those places that looks bigger and more impressive in pictures. On top of that, there were too many people there, and this was relatively sparse compared to the crowds this place sometimes gets. The result is that it’s a small swimming hole that you jump into and then exit to get out of the next jumper’s way. It’s one of those places that might be a cool little hideaway if it were secret and no one knew about it, but its redeeming qualities kind of collapse under the weight of its popularity.

( Click here to see my ranking for the swimming holes I visited on this trip )

Well, I guess that’s it for this year’s west-coast swimming hole exploits. It sucked that the wildfires foiled some of our plans, but the silver lining was that we got to see a couple of cool places that we probably would have skipped had the main attractions been open. We will probably make another attempt at Yosemite next time, and there are a still a few new places I want to check out in the Chico area, but we also might spend a greater portion of our next trip doing a more thorough exploration of rivers we know deliver the goods (namely the South Yuba, North Fork Stanislaus, and North Fork American Rivers) rather than check out new places. My stomach issues that I mentioned in my first entry were pretty tenuous during the trip and didn’t really interfere with my traveling ability or my enjoyment of the swimming holes.

Now that I’ll be back in the east for the rest of summer, I might hit some swimming holes in the Cumberland Plateau area of Tennessee (as I intended to do last year) within the next month if the weather cooperates. Stay tuned.

Today, Cade and I ended up checking out some swimming holes along Dinkey Creek in the Dinkey Creek Campground near Shaver Lake, California. I say “ended up” because that was not our original plan. When we first planned the trip, we had wanted to spend two days doing stuff in Yosemite, but since the park is closed due to the Ferguson Fire, and The Forks Resort where we are staying won’t excuse us from our full reservation (as per their stringent cancellation policy that apparently stays in effect regardless of extenuating circumstances), we were forced today to choose between eating the bill and checking out early, or sticking around and doing lame filler activities. I had one more swimming hole in the maybe-pile that seemed like it might be worthwhile: the Dinkey Creek Granite Pools. I thought they looked cool enough to be worth another long, winding drive to Shaver Lake, but Cade said he thought they looked dinky (not sure if the pun was intended).

Well, after we drove nearly two hours to get there, we found that the road to the trail was being worked on and was impassable about two miles before the trailhead. They were installing a new culvert where a creek passed under the road, so that spot in the road was completely demolished at present. We parked at a campsite near the construction area and crossed a small stream (Rock Creek) to check out the view from the top of the hill. The area was mostly exposed granite, so it was easy to navigate. We could see down into the valley to the approximate location of the swimming holes, and we felt like we could get there eventually, but we weren’t sure how long it would take, and we were sort of concerned that no one would know where we were in case something happened. It was already after 2:30 PM, so we headed back down to the road.

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

In summary, Cade and I both thought today was pretty lame and a waste of a vacation day. Incidentally, this is the fifth day of our trip, and a similar situation happened on day 5 of last year’s trip (the road was closed to the place we originally wanted to go, and we ended up being disappointed by our backup plan). The Dinkey Creek campground had a couple of nice pools and a good jumping spot, but, as I expected, they weren’t really the type of swimming holes that were worth making a special trip for (especially not a nearly two-hour drive when we only had a week’s worth of vacation days). On top of that, the weather was overcast, which made getting out of the water after swimming chilly and unpleasant. If I had known today was going to turn out like it did, I probably would have just forfeited the money for our last night at The Forks so that we could have headed north and had an extra day to re-visit some of our favorite swimming holes from last year’s trip. I would like to take another shot at the Dinkey Creek Granite Pools if I ever find myself back in the Shaver Lake area, because I am kind of curious about what we missed out on.

After doing some research online and buying Timothy Joyce’s Swimming Holes of California book last year, I discovered a few more points of interest along the creek that seemed worth checking out. On the itinerary for today (in order from downstream to upstream) were Angel Falls (the location of the Rescue 911 segment), a series of potholes referred to as the Washing Machine and Dryer in Tim’s book, Willow Creek Falls, and an unnamed swimming hole upstream of Willow Creek Falls. There is also a waterfall called Devil’s Slide downstream of Willow Creek Falls that I wanted to look at, but I didn’t anticipate there being any good swimming opportunities here.

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

In summary, Willow Creek is a great swimming hole location with several worthwhile spots. The pool at Devil’s Slide was easily the winner (it kind of reminded me of a combination of Screaming Right Hand Turn Falls on Steels Creek and the upper pool at Harper Creek Falls back in North Carolina). In fact, the whole creek reminded me a lot of streams in the North Carolina mountains, namely Upper Creek and Steels Creek (albeit with a more generous serving of potholes). If you had just plopped me down and told me I was in North Carolina, I would have believed it. Angel Falls was my second favorite, although I found it to be a bit treacherous. Although Willow Creek kind of lacked that California grandeur found at some of the places we visited last year, its clear water and numerous slides, potholes, and rock pools should make it a fun playground for swimming hole enthusiasts and casual hikers alike.

For the seventh and final day of our California swimming hole marathon, Cade and I went to Candy Rock and Blue Streak, two swimming holes about a mile apart on the North Fork Stanislaus River near Sonora, CA. When I first saw videos of Candy Rock, I thought it looked pretty sweet (pun sort of intended). It had been at the top of my list of swimming holes to visit in California, but I wasn’t sure if we were going to get to go when I was planning the trip because I had heard that the road was closed and the river was high. However, Cade went and checked it out about three weeks ago and said the road was still open to foot traffic; it would just add an extra 2.5 miles to the hike. Candy Rock is apparently a pretty popular and well-known spot, so I was hoping the extra hike combined with the fact that it was a Friday would deter the crowds. Cade said that he thought Candy Rock was a bit overhyped, but he had not checked out Blue Streak when he first visited, so that was his main objective for the day. I had initially thought Candy Rock would be the highlight, but given that Lemke’s Lagoon on the South Yuba River had been our favorite swimming hole so far, we now both had higher hopes for Blue Streak, since Blue Streak looked to be more similar to Lemke’s Lagoon than Candy Rock.

There were no other cars there when we got to the parking area where the road was gated off. A sign on the gate said that the road was open to foot traffic, horses (I think), and bicycles. It said that the hike to Candy Rock was 2.5 miles. The road started off along the rim of a gorge about 600 feet deep.

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

In summary, I would say Blue Streak turned out to be the highlight of today’s excursion, as expected. It seems to get less attention than Candy Rock, not because it sucks, but because it is more difficult to access. Candy Rock was okay, but I would have to agree with Cade that it is a bit overhyped. I think it gets glorified on social media because it’s low-hanging fruit (or at least it was before the road was closed), being only a short hike from the parking area. Also, Candy Rock is a bit more interesting from a geological standpoint, which makes it more visually attractive. If we had been able to drive all the way to it, then I might have thought more highly of it (although it probably would have been crowded), but I’m not sure I’d say it’s worth a three-mile hike. Don’t get me wrong; it’s a worthy daytrip destination if you live within driving distance, but I don’t think Candy Rock is really worth flying across the country on its own merit. Luckily, Candy Rock has Blue Streak to back it up, so it’s still worth visiting if you combine the two into a package deal and consider Candy Rock as an appetizer before the main course (i.e., Blue Streak). It would take a pretty tough crowd of swimming hole goers to find Blue Streak disappointing. Blue Streak had pretty much everything one could want in a swimming hole, although it didn’t quite stack up to the South Yuba River on account of the dark water. If Blue Streak had water like the Yuba, then it easily would have been the number one swimming hole of the trip.
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As I said in my first entry of this trip, the main reason I chose California for this year’s swimming hole vacation was the weather, and it was pretty reliably warm and dry everywhere we went. Some of the swimming holes were a bit chilly, but most had sun-heated rocks to warm up on. I’m not sure how I would say that California swimming holes compare to southeastern swimming holes, as both sides have some pretty good ones, but I think California definitely wins the favorable weather award. On this trip, we mostly focused on the area north of Yosemite to just north of Lake Tahoe. We cleared all but one of the swimming holes in that region that I really wanted to see (the loose end being Seven Falls in the Feather River basin). Two things we sort of missed out on for this trip were a good natural water slide and some good pothole-style swimming holes. Curtain Falls sort of had a sliding waterfall, but the flow was a bit high to go down all the way from the top on the day we visited. God’s Bath and Candy Rock were sort of pothole/tub style pools, but I was hoping more for the exquisite teacup-style potholes like those found at Steels Creek Falls in North Carolina. When I was researching California swimming holes, it looked like most of the good slides and teacups were in the Yosemite and Sequoia areas. We had originally planned to spend a couple of days in Yosemite on this trip, but we ended up blowing it off due to no budget-friendly accommodations being available on short notice. I plan to concentrate my efforts in Yosemite and Sequoia on my next swimming-hole-centric trip to California. Cade also has a thing for Big Sur, so it’s possible we could make an appearance there. Big Sur has some gorgeous but obscure Hawaiian-looking swimming holes, so it’s possible I could be enticed to go there if I can find one that doesn’t involve a backpacking trip (or, by some unexpected twist, I get into backpacking).

( Click here to see my ranking for the swimming holes we visited on this trip )

Now that we have reached the end of this year’s trip, I will say that I consider it a much bigger success than last year’s trip to Georgia. That time, five out of six of our excursions were unsatisfactory (in my opinion) due to rain-swollen rivers and/or the swimming holes being subpar. We hit swimming holes for seven days in a row this year, and I would say at least five of those excursions were satisfactory or better. Some of the places we went had an abundance of great jumping opportunities, which allowed me to improve my jumping confidence, which has waned over the past decade. Also, I think my trekking poles really helped this year. I used them on almost every hike, and my knees are not sore at all (as opposed to last year when they were angry for months after the trip).

Well, I guess that about wraps things up for this adventure. I may end up hitting another Appalachian swimming hole or two before the end of the summer, and I have plans to go to Havasupai soon, so I’m hoping this continues to be a productive swimming hole year despite the slow start.

Today, Cade and I went to Curtain Falls on the Middle Fork Feather River at Bald Rock Dome near Oroville, CA. We had initially planned to visit nearby Seven Falls, but Cade was leery of driving his car on any more dirt roads after Monday’s misadventure, so we were trying to see if we could find any indication online of the road conditions. In doing so, we found that the road was closed for repairs, so I suggested we do Curtain Falls instead, as I wanted to hit at least one swimming hole in the Feather River system (tangent: the pun-master in me finds it amusing that the Feather River is part of the Plumas National Forest). Bald Rock Dome also requires some gravel road driving, but the trailhead is a little more “official”, so we thought the road would probably be reasonably maintained. I actually recommended this place for Bald Rock Dome more than Curtain Falls per se. By this point in the trip, we were almost certainly not going to make it to Yosemite, so I thought Bald Rock Dome might round things out by providing a little Yosemite-esque scenery.

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

In summary, I was kind of underwhelmed by Curtain Falls and Bald Rock Canyon. They were sort of like a less interesting version of Tallulah Gorge in Georgia (albeit twice as deep and with prettier water). The swimming hole itself was okay, but getting there (or getting back, rather) was kind of annoying and more trouble than it was worth, in my opinion. Granted, a lot of swimming holes can be annoying to get to, but in many cases, the payoff is worth the effort, and having to boulder-scramble and swim to get there just adds to the adventure. I thought Curtain Falls was right at “worth it” status while I was actually at the swimming hole, but the return hike left a bad taste in my mouth (or maybe that was all the flies I ate). It might have been more rewarding if the flow were low enough to allow for jumping and safe sliding, but that was not the case today. I thought this place would be pretty cool based on the pictures I had seen (in fact, I'm looking back through my own pictures and wondering how I was not impressed), as it has been my experience that many things look bigger and more impressive in person than in photos. However, Curtain Falls and Bald Rock Canyon are more of a “what you see is what you get” type of deal; I didn't experience more of a "wow factor" from seeing it in person than I did from seeing it in pictures. I might have been more impressed if this had been the first place we hit, but the North Fork American and the South Yuba Rivers are hard acts to follow. If I lived within driving distance, then I would probably give Curtain Falls another chance at lower flow, but it would not be high on my to-do list if I were only in California for a few days.

Today, Cade and I went to a lesser-known swimming hole on the North Fork American River. I learned of this one from a cliff jumping video on youtube, but the person who posted the video did not reveal the exact whereabouts or name of the waterfall, so I had to do a fair amount of search-engine detective work and scanning of Google Earth to pinpoint the location. And finding the location on a map per se was only half the battle; once I found it, I then had to figure out how to get there. There were enough clues and tidbits of information scattered about in various corners of the internet, but finding them and compiling them into something usable was sort of like a swimming hole treasure hunt. It seems that people who glorify this area as a swimming hole and/or cliff jumping spot want to keep the location a secret, so I will follow suit and only use vague location references. This place had sort of gone into the ‘maybe pile’ when I was researching California swimming holes, but Cade said the he wanted to go, so we ended up deciding to do it. I had initially dismissed it as a possibility for this trip when I first discovered it, because the only information I could find about accessing it said that it was accessible via a long hike down into Royal Gorge (reports of the trail length varied from 6-9 miles one way depending on the source), and I was only looking for swimming holes that could be done as day trips. However, when scanning Google Earth, I saw bits and pieces of what looked like a possible shortcut trail (and by “shortcut”, I mean 3 miles instead of 9). On the satellite imagery, the maybe-trail disappears into the forest a few times and re-emerges, and it was unclear whether the trail segments I was seeing were actually connected. I did manage to find one blog entry that seemed to confirm the existence of a shortcut trail in that same vicinity, but the blogger didn’t provide any information on the exact whereabouts of the trailhead. I decided to take a chance and assume that the trail I could see on Google Earth was the same one the blogger had mentioned.

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

In summary, the section of the North Fork American River we explored today has an amazing set of swimming holes. I found out afterwards that this area is part of the National Wild and Scenic River system, and it’s easy to see why. The scenery is gorgeous, and I have yet to see a place with a more ideal jumping setup. I would say that the only thing that keeps this place from being a perfect 10 is the water temperature, but other than that, it basically looks like an island paradise hidden away in a rugged Sierra wilderness. I would say that today’s swimming holes have easily been my favorite so far, and this is the type of place I came to California to experience. Despite the difficulty of access, I would say the whole ordeal was very worth it (if Cade doesn’t end up experiencing subsequent car trouble due to the rough roads). That said, there is no way in HELL either of us would ever come back here with anything less than a high-clearance, four wheel drive vehicle. I definitely see paved roads in store for tomorrow’s outing.