Hike Details:
- Elevation - 5,075' - 5,575'
- Location - From Sacramento take Hwy. 50 East. About 20 miles past Placerville take a left turn on Ice House Road. Follow this road (very windy, but beautiful) for about 18 miles. (At about 12 miles is the Crystal Basin Ranger Station on the right--nice bathrooms, worth stopping!) Continue on until you cross a bridge over a creek. Big Silver Group Campground is on the left, and the turnoff to Bassi Falls is immediately across from it on the right. Take the turn, then when you reach a fork in the road, you can go left and drive up to within about a half mile from the falls. But we drove to the right and parked in a big open area where a trail headed down to the right towards the creek. It's about 2 miles to the falls from here, see the picture below with the sign.
- Mileage - 4.5 miles roundtrip
- Hiking time - 3 hours
I didn't make this map but it's pretty close to what we hiked. The green arrow is the turnoff from Ice House Road.
The trail pretty much followed the creek the whole way so we knew we were always headed in the right direction.
As you get close to the falls, the trail sort of disappears and you just follow the cairns and/or the sound of the waterfall over a field of granite.
We rounded the corner and caught a glimpse of the falls -- a wow moment! (even though it doesn't look so wow in this picture)
closer...
closer...
Wow!
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| (Hiking with these two means we're always laughing while we walk.) |
Happy birthday to ME!!!
It's like this whole area has been designed by a professional landscape architect! Oh, wait, it has! The original Landscape Architect! And just for us, isn't that amazing?!
We met up with another friend who was hiking here on the same day. She'd told me there was a way to get to the top of the falls. We followed a trail up through the trees on the left of the waterfall.
But then got to these rocks that looked a little trickier to climb than what we wanted to do. I decided falling down a waterfall on my birthday was probably not the best way to celebrate. ;) Maybe next time?
Birthday lunch with a view, perfect!
Time to head back down the trail. So beautiful!
It wouldn't be a birthday celebration without some well-deserved ice cream! Yum!
