Grouse Creek

Wild factor • 8                                                Trout rating • 5

Directions from I-80 in Auburn:

Take Foresthill Rd./Auburn Ravine Rd. exit 0.2 miles.
East on Foresthill Rd.                                    17.2 miles.
Right on Mosquito Ridge Rd.                          10 miles.
Drive past Oxbow Reservoir                          8.5 miles.
Left on National Forest Road 33                      4 miles.
Left on Cuckoo Ridge Road                            0.1 - 0.3 miles.
Park on the right. Drop 1,000 feet in elevation into canyon on unmaintained trails. 

     Environmental writer Tim Palmer was probably thinking of a place like Grouse Creek when he described rivers as "the unspoiled Eden." Trails don't go to the stream in the stretch between the North Fork of the Middle Fork of the American River and the 600-foot Grouse Falls. At this time of year, direct sunlight doesn't either. 

    The rays that make it over Cuckoo Ridge to the south light up unnamed granite spires on the north, leaving the small freestone stream in shadows. The creek drops hundreds of feet in a mile in a series of 10-foot waterfalls. Ferns and moss, dripping wet, cover the shores. Broken and rotting tree limbs hang from vines over the river.

     A dream about a car wreck awoke me this morning in the back of my truck on Mosquito Ridge Road, a loud bang into a world of snow and silence. I saw one car last night - a tow truck heading the other way lugging an SUV crushed to the size of an NEV - but at 6 a.m. I was looking at vacant roads and dark evergreen forests. One road continued up the mountain; the other, my route, disappeared under an avalanche of snow. 

     Guessing it wouldn't last, I snowshoed over it with my mountain bike in tow. I used a headlamp for the first few minutes and found more snow on the other side, stuck to the road but thawed on the hills all the way to Peavine Creek and beyond. 

     Four miles later, my bike abandoned, I sunk, rolled and hiked across the last bit of snow and down into the canyon below Grouse Falls. The stream became progressively easier as I followed it to the North Fork of the Middle Fork of the American River, but no less beautiful. 

     Feeder creeks poured in over mossy shelves. Giant ponderosa pines, peeled and water-polished, crisscrossed the water, making it easy to drop nymphs into the middle of deep holes. One little fish left its winter hide-out to take my offering but quickly shook loose. 

     I fished a few pools on the North Fork before heading back, in the remote stretch below the Western States Trail footbridge on the river. Climbing out of the canyon, I opened up a painful blister on my right foot that was crippling on the steep slopes. I took off my shoe and made better progress until, about an hour later, I emerged on Cuckoo Ridge, in a tattered sock, and worked my way to where I had started. 

    For a decent and free contour map of Grouse Creek, go to topozone. Click "view maps" and search "Grouse Creek, CA." From the torrent of creeks named after the game bird in the state choose the one in Placer County.