With El Niño this year, local waterfalls became abundant. Earlier this year, Betty and I decided we wanted to do more hikes, so naturally, we went looking for waterfalls. Personally, I’ve enjoyed waterfalls… especially in years past when Yosemite had all of its different falls flowing. This year, we ventured down to the South Bay (Big Basin), up to North Bay (Bolinas), up wayyy north to Portland and finally to Oahu and Hawai’i.

Berry Falls – Big Basin, CA

One week after a big storm, we headed over to Big Basin for the Berry Falls Hike. It was our first big hike of the year… and it was pretty big. 12mi and over 3k ft elevation was quite a bit to tackle so early. The hardest part was right after the waterfall, where we hiked uphill for 2.5mi for nearly an hour.

Luckily, David brought his tripod and I was able to capture the falls in it’s full beauty.

On our way back, we crossed this fun little stream on these metal planks, exciting! (Ansen’s Video)

Alamere Falls – Bolinas, CA

Our second hike of the season was a bit more flat, but still a good distance. This hike was peppered with poison oak, especially on the only narrow path down to the falls. The last bit of the hike was down a very steep section of eroding rocks.

The falls ended up being about 2 stories high and were running pretty strong

The water flowing to the ocean made these really cool waves, kinda like a dragons back.

Multnomah and Waheena Falls – Portland, OR

For Betty’s 30th birthday, we got together with a few friends and headed up to Portland for the weekend. Instead of purely binge eating and drinking, we decided to go on a hike so we could feel better about our gluttony. Glad we did because over the course of 48 hours, we had too many donuts, coffees and meals to justify…

Along the entire hike there were smaller falls which made this one of the best waterfall hikes I’ve ever been on.

Finally, we saw one last falls before we got back to the parking lot.

Lulumahu Falls – Oahu, HI

This past weekend we went with our in-laws to Hawaii to meet my brother in-laws’ future in-laws. Betty continued her mission to find waterfalls and we found one on both islands we visited. Lulumahu Falls is a lesser traveled falls on Oahu right off of the Pali Highway.

With no clear path and signs, we had to just follow the water up stream… This lead us up the wrong path for the first 1/2 of the hike to the falls which included tons of mud, steep grades, and some dirty legs.

We made our way to the falls and it was pretty spectacular. The falls were about 3 stories tall and went well beyond our sight, up into the hill. You could walk right under it and take a little shower to cool off.

Apparently, when we first said we were going to the Lulumahu falls, Yuree had a chuckle because “mahu” in Hawaiian is a male crossdresser common to Hawaii, particularly the Chinatown district of Oahu. Though, I doubt that’s what the naming of this falls really means… LOL

Akaka Falls – Island of Hawai’i, HI

We also spent a few days on the Big Island. The Big Island is more known for its volcanoes than the waterfalls, but once again we managed to find one. This time, we weren’t able to get as close nor was the hike really a hike at all. It was approximately a 1mi loop that was completely paved. Still worth the views…

Hopefully before it gets too warm and dry, we’ll be able to chase down a few more falls :).