The Falls
WELCOME TO SATURDAY STORIES. I AM SHARING SOME THINGS I WROTE DURING OUR LAST VACATION. I HOPE YOU ENJOY.
One of the hikes Jim, the owner of Big Bay Motel, suggested is the Yellow Dog River Falls Trail. He gave us a map of the waterfalls in the area. This one was fairly easy to find since to get there you start by turning on County Road 510. But this time, instead of staying on that road when it becomes County Road AAA, you make that left turn to stay on County Road 510. Sounds confusing, but once you figure it out its not so bad. There’s no cell service up here to speak of, so you have to be able to read a map and/or follow directions.
Country Road 510, after you make that left turn, is another one of those dirt/gravel roads cut out of the forest timber. It was rougher than AAA was. Washboard rough. You know you have gotten to the trailhead when you get to where 510 crosses the Yellow Dog River. There is a small parking lot there. No signs, just a place to park. Once you start on the trail there is a sign about 100 yards in telling you to use the shoe brush/scrapper to clean your shoes off of any mud or dirt that might have seeds from other places that they don’t want you planting in that forest.
There are three or four falls on the river, depending on how you count them. One of them may just be considered a rapids area. I discussed that with another man who we met on the trail and we both concluded that we didn’t know for sure.
It is about a mile of hiking before you get to the first waterfall. The trail runs alongside the river through a hardwood forest that is carpeted in places by green ferns, and in other places covered in layers of leaves and pine needles and fallen trees in various states of decay. Out of this decay are sprouting mushrooms of various types; white, brown, reddish pink; large and round, cone-shaped, small and petite.
Saplings, the sons and daughters of the ancient trees of the forest, were beginning to compete with their parents for the nutrients necessary for their growth and survival and hoping one day to surpass their ancestors in height and feel the full warmth of the sun, the light of which they only catch brief glimpses of beneath the shadows created by their progenitors outstretched arms.
The river itself is clear. You can see the riverbed at every point no matter the depth of the water. Still, the water has a brownish yellow tint to it. I assume that is where it derives it name. Possibly some mineral upstream creates that effect. It flows steadily from its source at Independence Lake and winds its way southwest, it branches off into Bob Creek and creates another small unnamed lake, before it continues its mission of filling Bulldog and White Deer Lakes.
You know you are approaching the first in the series of waterfalls you come to if you hike in from County Road 510 because the waters which have, up to that point, been playing calming classical, suddenly throw down their cellos and violins and take up the shouts of heavy metal singers. At the top of the falls the waters are forced to divide, the majority takes the route to the right and noisily cascades down the crevasses in the large rock face. The smaller band goes left and finds a gentler jump from above is required. It is more of a waterpark slide down a smooth granite surface over there than the leap off a cliff on the right. These waters, having briefly gone through this forced divorce, remarry at the bottom and carry on their way together once again.
Their unified march on the long journey toward Bulldog Lake is short lived, though, as not far down stream, a second dividing rock stands in the way. This fall is the one for which I and the stranger I met along the way were undecided. We think, and this is without any evidence other than our combined hunch, that this is not one of the official falls. It is more of a water rapids area, though it does have a drop in the riverbed here too. It is less impressive than the first, descending only a few feet on a sloping rock face, rather than a sheer drop.
The third, or second depending on your opinion of number two, falls and then falls again. The first drop, like the first falls, has the rock formed in such a way that the water divides into two columns at the top, where they do a white knuckle, chaotic, jump over the ledge with a loud roaring shout to let you know they’ve gone over, having been pushed by their friends coming up from behind because there are no water soldiers standing at the top trying to get up the courage to hurl themselves over the edge. Once they are there they jump.
The second level of this fall has a massive boulder creating a blockade on the right side. This giant rock stands like a proud man in the middle of a sidewalk, refusing to move, making all who pass by go around on one side or the other. In this case almost all chose to go left of him. A brave few sneak by on his right flank, quietly passing under his sharp, jagged, curved bottom. All the while, he doesn’t realize that these same waters which humbly submit to his demand to “go around” are slowly, steadily, surely diminishing his size and strength; taking so little of him as they softly glide by that he is completely unaware that they have taken anything away from him at all, and yet they have, and though it may take decades eventually, they will win and either move him from his place or diminish his size so much that those who come after them will not even notice his presence.
The third fall (of fourth, again depending on how you count number two) is harder to see. There isn’t a good access or vantage point from the trail to access it or get sight of it. You know it is there by the sound it makes, and you see the white water it is producing, but the details of how it is formed remained out of sight to us.
