Twin Bridges, CA 15 Miles East of Kyburz on Highway 50.
We arrived at the closed parking lot at 10:30AM and had to find a spot to park on the road as the parking area is still closed for the season.
The traihead starts off well defined for the first 5 minutes then the landscape changes from dirt to one big rock. We kept the creek to our right and headed up hill. We could hear some water sounds and figured they were the Lower Horsetail falls but waited for the return trip to check them out. upon reaching the wilderness boundry we filled out some permits and were on our way to the falls.
This is were it started to get a little difficult. It was pretty warm out, i would say about 80 degrees but there were still large patches of snow on the ground and some were deep enough were i fell in all the way to my upper thigh. Anyways, here i am right before the major snow patches. (not sure why its in B&W)
so on we went near the creek and ran into this little beauty
This is where it got difficult
Trying to get thru this snow was not easy. The snow was everywhere but was melting so there were little stream everywhere UNDER the patches of snow so you couldnt tell if it was 3 inches or 3 feet deep and the snow was soft so you just went right thru it. After about an hour of this we got back to a more rocky area that let in more sunlight so there was less snow. And this is when we saw the falls.
At this point it was mountain climbing time. Very rocky and almost vertical in spots. As the creek came down the mountain there where many free falls and getting to them was difficult but fun.
you can see the top of the falls at the top of the picture
one of the prettier parts
and to see how high up the creek falls from
as you can see the terrain was very rocky and the path i took was straight ahead
Here is a path I took. the whole area was covered in these bushes and they made for a great hold on some very steep parts. Nala did not need them.
While hiking up i didnt realize how pretty the area was until i took a break and looked down where i had just came from.
I thought i was as high up as I could go at this point
but i strapped on nalas leash and hoisted her up over a couple tough spots and got closer
on the way down I got out on a ledge for some different angles
It was getting hot and We were getting hungry so we stopped in a little shaded area and rested
Ash and her dog were very tired by this point
So on the way down we went over to check out the lower set of falls and had to cut across what felt like a desert
but saw some very interesting plantlife, these little trees where all over
and some cool views ( you can see this peak in the above picture also)
at this point Lexi would have liked to have been carried
Well we finally made it to the second set of falls.
Here is a pool right before the falls
the top of the falls had a old gate, which i assume was to keep people from trying to slide down
From the middle looking up
to get to the bottom of the falls you have to do some scrambling and after 4 hours of hiking it was time to just go back home. To see the very bottom where the creek quites down you just follow the well kept trail back to the parking lot and you have some really nice scenery.
The last couple pics and videos are maybe 10 yards off the trail.
On the way home the dogs were very tired and slept the full 1hour and 45 minutes home
We arrived at 10:30am and left the parking area just after 3:30pm. Was very tired and got a lot of sun. Some of the pictures and videos may be a little off as my camera is broken and i had to use Ashley's bright pink camera.
Here is where it all went down
(Scroll to the West coast and zoom in to see the location and path.)
View Pyramid Creek Hike (Horestail Falls) in a larger map
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