Osprey Falls

By the way, the name Bunsen might be familiar to you if you've taken a course in chemistry or used the Bunsen burner in a chemistry lab. Yep, that peak was named after Robert Wilhelm Eberhard von Bunsen who made contributions in the 19th century to the study of geothermal phenomena in Iceland.

The overall hike is about 8 miles and it took us between 4 to 5 hours. The trail around the southern end of Bunsen Peak (about the first three miles of the hike) is pretty flat and easy as it passes through a mixture of mostly grasslands and some new sproutlings (apparently this area was pretty hard hit by fire). Bunsen Peak always looms to the left and you might even spot hikers wishing to check out the view from up there.

In addition to being flat, the first three miles is also pretty exposed to the sun as a result of the lack of shade thanks to the lack of mature trees providing shade. We remembered this stretch of trail for another problem that confronted us when we did it - lightning in a thunderstorm!

You can imagine if lightning is going off all around you and you have no extensive shelter, that could easily make you the lightning rod (we were just as tall if not taller than most of the sproutling groves we encountered). Needless to say we were quite scared and we were quite fortunate to weather the storm, so to speak. And based on this experience, perhaps it's a good idea to get an earlier start than we did (we started at almost midday) to minimize your exposure to an afternoon thunderstorm.

Eventually, you'll be towards the eastern slope of Bunsen Peak. Here's where a signpost indicates a fork in the trail where the fork leads downhill into the Sheepeater Canyon to your right. Other forks in the vicinity lead you either around Bunsen Peak or up to the summit of the nearly 9000ft peak.

The Sheepeater Canyon part of the trail descends steeply in several switchbacks in about a mile. You'll pass through more fire-affected forest as most of the trees are hauntingly bare and stickly providing not much shelter or shade.

Finally, at the base of the descent, the narrow trail eventually gets close to near the base of the waterfall. You might want to exercise caution around here as the slopes are both loose (making them slippery) and steep. Use careful judgement if you decide to scramble closer to the river for a better waterfall photo.

TRIP REPORTS

• June 23, 2004

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NEARBY WATERFALLS

• Rustic Falls
• Undine Falls

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