Cataract Falls (Marin County, California)

 

For the next few days, I will be on a multi-segment road trip, which will take me from the Bay Area, down the California Coast, across into Southern Arizona, and then finally back home to Reno. My first stop on the trip was in Santa Rosa to get my first taste of the famous Pliny the Younger triple IPA, which the Russian River Brewing Company only releases for two weeks per year. I decided to wait in line this year and give it a try. It was extremely good . . . probably not worth the wait, but still extremely good.

After quenching my curiosity and my thirst, I needed to get some trail miles in and so drove around to Southwestern corner of Alpine Lake to hike up the Cataract Falls trail. The drive to the trailhead winds in and around the coastal mountains of the Marin Highlands before crossing a spillway and then leading up a steeply inclined hill above the trailhead. As the trail appears to be pretty popular, I'm forced to park quite a ways up the hill and walk back.

As is always the case in this part of the world, the foliage is incredibly lush. Green ferns and moss cover every angle of every hillside, with the canopy above granting us ground-dwellers a shady and humid trip up the steep trail.

As I make my way up the canyon, I pass beside waterfall after waterfall. Most are 10-20 feet tall, but there are a few others that drop further. To be honest, I'm not sure which is Cataract Falls, but I suspect it is one of the larger ones.

I continue on up the trail hoping to find the obvious namesake, but after speaking with a group of hikers going the opposite direction, it seems I have passed the best of the falls already. I thank them and decide to turn and hike back to the jeep. I was able to get in about 2.6 miles total and with sunset quickly approaching, it's probably time to get on the road to my next destination.