Matt Smith at the bottom of the waterfall. As we were packing up it started to sprinkle. So we ducked under an adjacent overhang and had a little lunch. It rained lightly for awhile, then picked up steam and started really coming down. When the rain reached its peak, suddenly bombs started exploding out in front of us! At least, it seemed that way. Football-sized rocks were knocked off the wall above us, and they exploded into the mud in front of us. Very scary. We crouched under the overhang. Then the canyon flashed. Where we had-been picked up flow in three or four steps, until it was surging with brown water, maybe 60 CFS. It was raging. We were perched on the edge of the pool at the base of the waterfall, and the pool started filling up. Since the bombs only came down when the rain was really raging, we waited for a good lull, packed up and started hiking downcanyon. Our side of the canyon, at least the woody area we could walk on, pinched off in a few hundred yards. We found another little overhang to hang out under, and uh, hung out for a while.

Hanging out, waiting for the storm to abate, eating all our food.

Eventually the storm passed. We would need to cross the stream to get downcanyon, and at its height, this was suicidal. So we waited. And waited. After an hour, the stream was down to a reasonable level, so we went back to the pool to cross. This is the waterfall AFTER it went down, so it was at some point, twice this big!! We hiked downcanyon, sidehilling through the forest. Eventually, the flow went lower and we ended up in the streambed, hiking by braille at some points, through the murky water. Then we hiked out. A long way. It got dark. There were cows. I got tired. Matt did a great job of driving home the next day - thanks Matt. And thanks to Kip for inviting me along; and to the storm for waiting until we were out. Whew. A little too close. A little Too Wet.