Author: balroop singh

Would you call this an adventure?

I did, but one of our friends who was with us, disagreed.

Imagine driving round and round in circles and the navigator of your IPhone saying ‘reached’!

It seemed funny and we did have a hearty laugh but our frustration seemed to mount with each attempt.

I refused to give up and was sure that there was a way to reach the destination.

Were we missing something…turning on the wrong road?

Let me relate the story from the beginning. Our trip to Crater Lake (Oregon) was planned in a hurry but we wanted to make the best of every place of interest on the way rather than driving non-stop and reaching with cramps in our legs and back.

My research yielded two places, out of which we chose Dunsmuir, a city on the upper Sacramento River in California, known as the “Home of the best water on Earth.”

Further research revealed Hedge Creek Falls and Mossbrae Falls (most popular) as the top sights in the city.

We reached by four in the evening and after checking in the place we had booked for the night, we thought it was a good idea to visit Mossbrae Falls. That was the beginning of this adventure.

Web results revealed that it was a 45-minute hike and a 5-minute drive. We chose to drive to the Falls but our phone navigator took us round and round, bringing us back to the place we would start. My friend felt that there was something wrong with my phone and told us to start again, with instructions from her phone! We turned right, as instructed by her navigator, then left and then right and right again according to the names of the roads and reached the same place!

We decided to ask a local who laughed and told us he could tell us ‘how not to get there!’ He warned us that it is illegal to go there because the only path that could lead us to Mossbrae Falls was walking by the rail track.

‘Why is it listed as top attraction!’ I dismissed the thought as quickly as it had flashed.

He advised us to drop the idea of visiting these Falls.

Disappointed but determined, we came to our lodge and read the reviews on Tripadvisor. One of the reviews exactly mentioned how to get there. It also cautioned about the hazards involved and why people took the risk of visiting these falls. I declared that we would surely try the next morning.

One of our friends, a law abiding freak, was very reluctant to go as the only way to approach the Falls is a walk by the rail track and he considered this a calculated risk. Nothing could deter me.

Why haven’t the authorities developed another track? This thought still reverbrates around me.

We parked our car at the Botanical Garden parking and walked back towards Shasta Retreat. We kept walking downhill till we reached a bridge. As instructed by the reviewer, we turned right from the bridge and were at the rail track. It was a single track railway.

A long walk on uneven surfaces and on stoney sides, quite narrow at places, with warnings to each other to be careful, go slow and watch out for a train, we kept going till we reached another bridge. We could hear the Mossbrae Falls near by!

They were not very high but looked awesome. Despite the sound produced by falling water, a serenity pervaded all around. Somebody was lying in a hammock, soaking in the damp, breezy, soft spray of water. The river was shallow and we could see the pebbles below the water.

I had read that the pictures do not do any justice as the Falls are much more beautiful than they seem in the pictures. I couldn’t agree more.

We were lucky as no train passed by. We met all kinds of people on the way, even those who were carrying little children on their shoulders and one not very old man, walking with two sticks, in the center of the track.

We returned with some delightful memories.

Thank you for reading this. Please share your valuable reflections, they are much appreciated.

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Balroop Singh.