Sardine Falls

Sardine Falls (also called Sardine Creek Falls) involved a little bit of an adventure for my Mom and I given that we had to get our feet wet in icy cold water while doing a little bit of route finding since the “trail” was kind of ill-defined in spots. The hike itself was not officially marked, and we had our doubts about whether we were up for this adventure given it was one of the last waterfalls we had visited after being waterfall-fatigued on a waterfall-laden visit to Northern California. Fortunately, the hike was not all that tough, and it just took a little persistence and will power for reasons you’ll see shortly. The payoff? Well, as you can see from the photo at the top of this page, we were treated to a very worthwhile 75ft falls (possibly higher due to additional drops and cascades further downstream). In fact the falls was so well-positioned that we were even able to glimpse it from the road backed by mountains still clinging onto their remnant snow along the Sonora Pass Highway. But aesthetics aside, sometimes it’s the adventure combined with the reward that makes the experience so memorable, and we can definitely attest to that in this case.

We started off from an unmarked pullout at Sardine Meadow (see directions below). The only hints that we could leverage were a couple of signs – one saying “No Motorized Vehicles” and another saying “Be Extra Careful With Fire”. From here, we followed some faint tire tracks probably from a 4wd vehicle that essentially blazed the “trail” here. The tracks passed through Sardine Meadow with some parts of it depressed enough to form puddles and mud. Barely 10 minutes into the hike through the meadow, we encountered a crossing of Sardine Creek. This particular crossing caused us to take off our hiking boots, then wade across the ankle-deep stream in sandals or just barefoot. The water was icy cold, and had the crossing been any longer than it was, then it might not have been doable without inflicting additional pain and possible damage.

Beyond the creek crossing, after putting back on our wool socks and hiking boots, we then continued following the tire tracks, which were once again pretty obvious to follow. At some point, the tracks because dirt trail, and eventually, the “road” stopped near a hill, where the trail narrowed even more while it was clear that further progress had to have been on foot. The uphill was mild, but since this hike was taking place at 8,000ft, I could see how it could be taxing had we not been acclimated to the altitude. Anyhow, beyond the hill, we meandered through more conventional trail as it skirted Sardine Creek in spots (even revealing some unnamed informal cascades) and even branched where there was some overgrowth (where we had a choice of whether to go through the overgrowth or take the more open path – they both led to the same place). Throughout this stretch, we were treated to nice views of attractive mountains (some of them with a reddish color) still clinging onto snow while also contrasting with the deep blue skies in morning light.

Roughly 20 minutes or so beyond the hill, we encountered another minor stream crossing before we were finally starting to see Sardine Falls. In order to improve our views, we had to cross parts of a segmented Sardine Creek, where we managed to keep our feet dry though we needed to find some rocks or fallen trees in the creek to do so. Eventually, we were able to hike all the way to the base of the main drop of Sardine Falls after a pretty steep scramble just to get up to a part where the waterfall had cut a slit through a rock at its base. While we were enjoying the falls, we noticed some refreshingly fragrant mint smells, and it turned out that they came from wild mints that were growing in bunches near the falls.

After having our fill of Sardine Falls from this spot, we scrambled a little more for more direct views of the falls. The photo you see at the top of this page was the result of that effort. I’m sure we could have tried to figure out a way to cross another segment of Sardine Creek while keeping dry to get even closer to the waterfall though from a very different (and more direct) perspective than earlier, but we were pretty content to not do that. And so after having our fill of the falls, we returned the way we came. The going on the return was much easier, and we even chose the more overgrown paths that we had avoided on the way up when the trail forked or it was more obvious to rub elbows with the bush. Once again, we had to change shoes and wade across the initial Sardine Creek crossing before regaining the faint trail across Sardine Meadow, but that was the last obstacle we faced before finally regaining our parked car.

Overall, we had hiked around 2.5 miles round trip, which took my mother and I a little over two hours to do (including the photo stops and the time spent changing shoes for the one big creek crossing). Our visit was during late June on a typical snowpack year so depending on the conditions, the waterfall’s size as well as the associated creek crossings could be more or less than what we had experienced. I suspect that the timing of our visit was such that it was probably close to the height of the early Summer snowmelt as much of the high altitude snow around us had pretty much melted.