Karen’s Snapshots!

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Lisa, Mary, Theresa, Jason, Paige and I headed to North Table Mountain in Oroville again to tackle the waterfall loop as described on Leon Turnbull’s Water Falls West webpage.  The highlight of the Waterfall Loop route is Phantom Falls.  There are no trails in this area, so it was a cross-country trek all the way.  We had our GPS units to guide our way and we headed towards Phantom Falls.  Along the way we saw a wide variety of wildflowers, an occassional butterfly and we saw a swarm of swallows gathering mud from one of the little creeks to build their nests; coincidentally, the swallows were building their nests over as Phantom Falls, as we delightfully discovered when we arrived over there.  As we continued towards Phantom Falls, we saw and admired two unnamed waterfalls cascading down a ravine edge.  And shortly after, we came to Phantom Falls and enjoyed lunch there on the ledge across from the falls.  After lunch, we headed back to pick up the loop and try find the other four falls that are in the area.  This was the first warm spring day (finally the rain has take a break!) and the 90′F weather took it’s toil on all of us.  The area has very few trees, other than those in the ravines, which also have a lot of poison oak that we were trying to avoid.  We made our way to two more falls and we found California Newts swimming in the creek feeding one of them.  Heading back to the car, we all decided to skip the last waterfall and the map and make a more for a more direct route out of the area.  It was a long day, but a good day.  We grabbed a bite to eat in Oroville and then hit the road home.

GPS Stats: • Odometer: 8.21 miles  • Total Time: 6:46  • Moving Time: 3:42  • Overall Average Speed 1.2 mph  • Moving Average Speed: 2.2 mph

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