Berry Creek, Silver
and Golden Falls
Saturday, Feb 04, 2006
The fun gang of the great
Joshua tree hike was back again with a lot of fun for the trek in the
Big Basin Redwoods State Park with a bunch of spectacular falls to
view. Anya, Jean-Gab and myself lead a hike to the Berry Creek,
Silver and Golden Falls loop @ Big basin (really it was Anya's hike,
she just pulled us in :) ). Initially I was not sure how good the hike
was but in the end it turned out to be one of the better ones I had,
hats off to Anya.
The 10.5 mile hike can be looped in two ways. We (Anya) chose to take the sunset
trail at the start and skyline to the sea trail at the end. The choice
proved great since we were walking along the Berry creek and witnessed
the falls going down. The trek has three amazing falls on it's way. For
quite some time we weren't having a clue if the falls were in site. But
when we did reach the section of the creek where the falls start, it
was spectacular.
The first one is the golden falls.
This is the smallest in height but has a beautiful cascade of yellow
stones. I guess the yellow colour gives it the name golden falls. The
cascades are so inviting that I was feeling like heading right under
it. But the fact that it was pretty cold weather and lack of extra set
of clothing kept me from my adventure :). I guess, if the creeks carry
enough water in summer, that would be a great refresher to do.
The silver falls immedietly follows
the golden falls a few meters down. This is a single drop with about
60-70 ft of drop. I am not sure why it is called silver falls, most
likely coz the smooth rocks around it shine due to the water given it a
silver finish. The good thing about this fall was we could walk over
way to it's bottom and get to see it's nice fall. There was a large
redwood tree that had fallen at the bottom of the falls and we decide
to use it to have our lunch ( we were almost half way of the hike). It
was a good decision since later I didn't see any good clearing for a
group of 22 to sit :).
The next in line was the amazing
berry creek fall. I guess this was the highest of the three with about
100 + drop. One can't get near to it but there is a lookout from where
you can really appriciate the beauty of the fall. With 22 of us, the
look-out was really croweded :).
After the feast for the eyes of the
three falls most of the hike looked sort of dull with a mix of downhill
and uphill. Towards the end it was mostly downhill. Though there were a
lot of redwood trees all along the way, I guess the ones along the
skyline trail were one of the tallest and biggest in the whole loop. I
guess it would take around 6-7 people arms streched, end-to-end to wrap
up the trunks of these trees. The magnificient trees were a great way
to end the trail. It was nice to know that most of the members did like
the hike.
Distance: 10.5 Miles
Time: 5:30 hrs
Difficulty: ***
Recommended: ****
Official
hike description
Photos
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