Berry Creek Falls, Big Basin (Saturday - April 3, 2010)

It was a pleasant surprise to get email on Friday evening from Chetan about the hike. I was thinking of doing an endurance hike with Paul at Quicksilver, Almaden; but he was already backed out of it because of back spasms. Chetan further offered to pick me up from home; that was the deciding factor, as I did not have to worry about the logistics as it was a new hike.

We started around 5:15 AM, and when Nitin, Chetan and Prasad picked me up; I was not aware if we’re doing Castle Rock or Berry Creek. It was a good idea to do Berry Creek as we had two days of rains. I remembered doing couple of hikes in Big Basin, and never had any luck finding much water in the falls. Chetan was a bit groggy (new father for 6 weeks now) and needed to find the Starbucks. When I offered Promila’s ginger tea, everybody yelped happily, however agreed to drink it at the falls. Amazingly we found Starbucks open at that time.

As expected the trail was wet and muddy, however, mud was not sticking to the boots. Thanks to Chetan who knew the trails very well, we decided to do the loop, going to the falls from Sunset trail, and then coming back on Berry Creek Trail, 10 miles, moderate elevation gain. Though it was cold, after 20 minutes of hiking Prasad was out of his jacket. Again this was a training hike for Half Dome and later Mount Whitney (August) this year.

We were all enjoying the big thick Redwood forest. And as a real gentleman, Chetan decided to give something back to nature; however he asked for everybody’s advice as which would be the worthy tree to get all that Super-filtered-no-foam-Starbucks. Frankly, it was too much information for rest of us.

Soon we came into a clearing, and out came Prasad’s new Sony camera. Apart from HD video, it has ‘smile-catching’ feature. I thought it was a joke, but it wasn’t. Soon we all were trying to guess what did that mean. And we all agreed that camera would wait till everybody was smiling together before it would let you click. By the end of the hike, I had more pain in my jawbones then my legs.

We saw a lot of newts and banana slugs on the trail. And I came to know that Santa Cruz sports team name is ‘Banana Slugs’. Now that we know that most of us, Californians, are laidback, but why would somebody pick up Banana Slugs as their Athletic team’s mascot!

We reached the top of the falls, however, Chetan soon clarified that the real fall was below this one. Nitin was the adventure geek of the group. He soon went into the fall. We all followed him, after observing that he did not slip or fall in the flowing water, to have real good background for snaps. He then made a Tarzan style jump (around 5 feet high and 6 feet wide) to land on a dry place. Nobody followed him here.

By this time Prasad was extremely hungry and Chetan, who had been cajoling him to walk another 5 minutes, and that there was a bench around the corner. It was apparent that Chetan is going to be a great father. We walked for another 15 minutes, and finally decided to sit on couple of fallen Redwood trees to eat and have Promila’s ginger tea. Nitin soon found out that tea was scalding hot. However, like a good citizen he warned everybody.

On hiking further, Chetan mentioned that this was the spot, where his wife Mansi, 3years ago, twisted her ankle and got bruised. I asked if he took that opportunity to carry her back. He replied, “Well, we were already married by then…..” He did not have to complete the sentence, we all understood that there was no thrill in carrying once own wife. Nitin chimed in that it might come back and bite you, as memories are dynamic, and in light of new information, the story could change later on.

We further went down, and finally reached a platform which was specifically created to look at the falls. By this time, we saw more hikers on the trail. I think it is a good family hike, as elevation gain is not much. We finally reached parking lot, took couple of more pictures against the roots of a big fallen Redwood tree.

Logistics Video Big Basin Directions

Parking - Park at Big Basin Redwood State Park Headquaters, plenty of parking, for day use they charge $10. If you reach early, you can put the money in envelope (like we did), and put the part of the card on your dashboard. The park headquarters is located on Rt 236 which loops on Rt 9.