The Elusive Waterfall

Tales of a Dopamine Junkie's perpetual search for adventure

Author’s note: My last post examined how I’ve tucked away my more wild tendencies to conform with societal norms. This post tells a story about the impulsive, novelty-seeking parts of my ADHD brain…

Back in my mid-20s, many moons before I knew I had ADHD, and long before children or marriage, I communed with my wild and impulsive side and embarked on a mad quest.

I was in relentless pursuit of a fabled waterfall in the California backcountry.

This wasn’t your average waterfall. Oh no. That would be too easy. Too touristy, too “found”. It was a hidden-in-the-hills magical one, complete with a clear, aqua-tinted swimming hole and life-giving spring water. One could only reach it by way of an unmarked, overgrown wilderness trail through the mountains.

An online description of the journey reads, “the trek to the [waterfall] entails an adventure up the wild and trail-less river to an otherworldly scene of clear pools, delicate waterfalls, and precipitous cliffs deep in a lush, redwood filled canyon.”

I’d overheard rumors of this waterfall. A veritable Eden, people had said. A near-perfect swimming hole. Springs so pure you could put your tongue out and lick the mineral-laden moss on the canyon wall. I could hear the whisper of these distant cascades calling my name. I felt the caress of fine mist against my skin, its negative ions recharging me. I could practically taste the life-giving sweetness of spring waters flowing from the mossy sandstone walls. It was less than an hour drive to the starting point, and I was obsessed with the idea of finding this place.

I chose a weekend and set out. Mad visionary that I was, I dragged some unsuspecting friends along for the ride. One cohort we’ll call Kevin, who was my boyfriend at the time, and pretty much went along with any harebrained idea I suggested (to his own peril). The other two were a close friend, we’ll call her Hannah, and her man of the hour, who she’d just started dating (poor fool).

We set out much too late in the morning, searching for where the trail supposedly started, nothing more than a wide spot in a winding, old coastal road between two mileposts. There we no trail markers, and we only passed a couple of other hikers all day. We navigated our way with a paper topographic map of the wilderness area, squinting to make out the contours and lines. Each time the primitive trail vanished into the overgrown brush we did our best to make out where it continued.

Picking out the right path was slow work, and we were averaging about a mile an hour. Several hours passed, and there was no sign of either a redwood canyon or a mighty river. No sound of pounding falls could be heard in the distance. The hot sun pounded down, though, and then slowly made its way behind a canyon wall.

Soon, it would be dusk. We’d have to head back. But I’d convinced us to forge ahead for far too long, reluctant to give up my mad waterfall vision.

Practically speaking, it was too late to turn around. If we couldn’t find a way out soon, we’d be stuck spending the night here in the shrubs with no tents and little food and water. There was no way we’d be able to navigate our way back to the car in the dark on a practically nonexistent trail. We had no flashlights.

We quickly realized that cell phone reception was a pipe dream. No helicopter was on its way to lift us out. Our only hope was what appeared to be an overgrown former access road, perched high on a ledge several hundred feet above our current location. If we could scramble up there, we reasoned, we’d have more daylight and a better view of where we were. It looked like the road could also – possibly – lead us back to where we’d parked.

So we climbed up the treacherous hill (more of a cliff, really). Pure adrenaline got us up there. The slope was slippery and unstable, its sandstone rock crumbling underfoot. For support, we grabbed onto vines of what turned out to be poison oak.

Our scrambling turned out to not be in vain – there was an abandoned road on the ledge. It was easy to walk and light enough to see, and it even led us most of the way back to where we’d parked before dark. It was a miracle. Relieved, we laughed and chatted lightly as we made our way back to civilization.

Hannah headed to urgent care to get her poison oak treated. The rest of us fared better with mild rashes, but her sensitive skin broke out in hives. Once she’d been given the all clear, we all went out for a late dinner and cocktails, laughing about our misadventures. It made a good story in retrospect, we figured.

But I couldn’t stop obsessing about the waterfall. My curiosity and persistence would not let it go.

The very next weekend, I told Kevin that we were going back to find it. This time, we’d go for the entire weekend, and bring the backpacking gear.

We. Were. Going. To. Find. The. Waterfall.

Did I mention that I can be stubborn and impulsive?

For some reason, he agreed, and we went. We started out early this time, with plenty of food and water, camping gear, and headlamps. It was a long haul, and the trail went from hard to make out to completely nonexistent. But we came across a Boy Scout troop leader who knew the way, and he showed us how to pick our way through and endless series of bushes and rocks until, several miles later, we arrived at a large clearing.

By dusk, we were setting up camp in a lovely grassy field a few hundred meters from the river. We could hear the waterfall roaring in the distance as we slept.

We spent the next morning drinking from the springs, swimming (or, more accurately, shivering), in the too-good-to-be-true circular pools. The water was freezing, but I told myself it was amazing. In my memory, it was. We’d made it to the elusive waterfall, and it was glorious. When we finally left, picking our way back through the shrubby landscape, our bellies were full of mineral water and magic.

What does this story say about me? Well, I can be stubborn and impulsive. I constantly seek out novel, new experiences. I’m not terribly pragmatic, yet drawn to adventure. Not sure these would all be conventionally considered the best qualities, but they’re part of the fabric of who I am.

When I ponder the peak moments of life, though, pretty much all of them revolve around impulsive decisions that probably weren’t “advisable”. That summer I spent in South America before grad school backpacking with friends when I was broke and “couldn’t afford it.” Dropping everything to jump in the car and respond to a family emergency three states away. Trips to weddings, reunions, and visits with old friends. The day I took off with my one- and five-year-old and a Bob stroller and bushwhacked for five miles to walk them to the beach, right before we moved away from it. The time I lost my job and took off to California a couple weeks later to go backpacking in the wilderness. A spontaneous cross-country road trip for an internship in Washington, DC that paid next to nothing. Six months studying abroad in Costa Rica, with a two-day-a-week school schedule allowing for random cross-country bus adventures with fellow exchange students the other five days.

Now that I’m older, in mid-life, with two children, a mortgage, and a full-time job, I miss the days of serendipitous waterfall quests. As screens, routines, and mind-numbing adulting responsibilities slowly consume giant chunks of “modern” life, these types of adventures seem much too rare.

Life is nothing if not a series of moments. The one thing I’ll never regret is following my intuition and doing the things that brought beauty, joy, connection, and vision to my days.

And if an elusive waterfall offers a little magic in this mad world, I’d say it’s worth hacking through the poison oak to find it.