In the Shadow of the Mountain: Burney Falls

Breakfast is a heap of pancakes with eggs and housemade sausage. We get a $30 credit ($10 for each person) at the White Mountain Cafe, which takes up the northeast corner of the building we're staying in.

It will help fortify us for the day ahead.

Hopefully, our spare tire will carry us through as we drive 40 miles east to today's destination, McArthur-Burney Falls Memorial State Park. It should be fine as it's basically a new tire that's never been driven on before and it does seem to drive just fine.

After paying our $10 entry fee, we find a wide accessible parking spot right in front of the visitor's center front door. We go inside to get a map and talk to a ranger about the most accessible ways to see the falls.

It's a hard packed dirt path that leads to the viewing platform for the falls.

Unfortunately, this is as far as wheelchairs can go but the view is very good.

Letty and I take turns walking down the stairs...it's a third of a mile to the bottom and a steep hike back up...to get a closer look and take pictures.

The falls are spectacular, among the best in the state with maybe the falls of Yosemite giving them a run for the money.

In addition to the main two cataracts streaming over the cliff face, hundreds of cliffside springs also release their waters creating a very nice bridalveil effect. It's also noticably cooler here at the bottom.

It's National Banana Split Day and ice cream sounds good. We head back to McCloud to the Frosty stand we saw there.

They had soft serve ice cream, they made sundaes, but they did not make banana splits. Thinking on our feet, we quickly jumped over the the grocery store next door, bought a couple of bananas, some cherries, and nuts. Back over at the Frosty, we improvised and turned that sundae into a delicious split.

With that yummy dessert, we'll call it a day and do some more exploring tomorrow.

Darryl Musick
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