Carson Falls

Saturday we decided to hike to Carson Falls. The hike to the falls started out on an Pine Mountain Road, an old fire road, which gave beautiful views of Marin County, the Richmond San Rafael Bridge, and Mt. Diablo in the distance. About a mile up we turned onto Oat Hill road, and headed west, and eventually met the trail down to the falls. Once on the trail, we were in the trees, and heading steadily down hill on switchbacks. It's about a mile down hill to the falls, and it is well worth the trip, especially this time of year. The falls were running, and a docent was at the falls, showing people the yellow legged frog, a "species of special interest"

We spent about 30 min. at the falls, having our lunch and chatting with the docent, before continuing on down into the valley. This was a steep downhill, in the woods, following the creek that is fed by the falls. For each step I took down hill, I knew there was an equal step to climb back up out of this valley. once at the bottom, we were back on a fire road, The Kent Pump Road, which was fairly level, till we connected to the Old Vine Road. This is where the uphill portion of our hike started. We gained about 1100 feet in about 2 miles, which in my book is a Huffer Puffer!

The falls were beautiful, the hike down into the canyon was spectacular, if you like to hike through redwoods, next to beautiful creeks. Unfortunately my camera was in the pack, and the pack was about 100 ft ahead of me at all times, so I didn't get any photos other than at the falls. You'll just have to do this hike to see how beautiful it really is.