Leon Turnbull Photography

Instead of spending a second whole day at Joshua Tree NP, we took a drive down to Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge, about a hundred miles from where we were staying. It seemed that another whole day at Joshua Tree would have been too much, and I went back and forth about it in my head. I think we probably should have spent another day there, I could have gotten up for another nice sunrise shot or two at Joshua Tree, and I regret only having the one really nice sunset shot from there. But it is not that Salton Sea is not an interesting place, it really is. We saw tons of birds there, and some of them from really closeup, right beside the road, such as these cattle egrets. So I got quite a few good bird shots, and I will likely share some more.

On the way back to Twentynine Palms, we went back through Joshua Tree park, with plans of shooting sunset there. But the clouds rolled in at the last moment, and I got nuthin. We did have a very interesting drive, however, as we took some back roads to get back to JT, including a stop at a border patrol station hundreds of miles north of the border. They asked us all our citizenship and had a dog sniffing our car. What is up with that?

On our way down to Disneyland we first stopped off for a couple days at Joshua Tree National Park. The first night there we had a pretty darn nice sunset, but unfortunately we were not in a great “scenic” location. This was taken from the Indian Cove area, where we hiked along a loop before sunset. I wasn’t happy about the location (and my composition in particular), but the sunset colors more than made up for it. This was the only decent photo I took at Joshua Tree. It is my own fault, I should have made more of an effort there, but we did other things instead. I really liked the park and the desert, it is incredibly interesting. I was hoping to see more wildlife, however. The most interesting thing we saw was a jack rabbit, and that was on the first evening here (when I took this shot). We spent the entire next day wandering around the park, seeing the sites, and hiking the easy trails. I think everyone (kids included) really liked the desert and the park. They loved climbing around on the rocks and exploring beside the trails. By the end of that day I was totally beat. We got back to the hotel, I took a nap, and ended up missing a second nice colorful sunset. That did not make me too happy. The third evening we tried for a sunset shot, but the clouds rolled in an hour before the sun went down, and it was a washout. Bummer-ness!

A surprise rain in Southern California, and it got the waterfalls down there trickling.

We were down vacationing at Disneyland for the week. My initial plan on going to Disneyland in February was that I figured I could take a couple days and go waterfallin’ while we were down there. I had not yet been to any SoCal waterfalls, and I was really hoping to add to my collection this year. God had other plans, however. No rain in December and January meant the waterfalls were bone dry. I did not even take any of my maps or GPS down to SoCal, figuring it would be completely pointless to try going to any waterfalls. Instead, we took a side trip first to Joshua Tree National Park, then continued on over to Disneyland. It would have been pointless for sure. but then the surprise rain came.

It was not much rain, about an inch at the most. But I thought, what the hey, maybe the creeks got enough water in them to make a waterfallin hike worthwhile. So I quickly planned out a couple easy waterfalls to hike to the next morning.

I got up super early. I did not want to deal with any traffic through Los Angeles. Even at 5AM, there was a ton of traffic on the road. This should not have surprised me, but it did. Yikes, that is crazy, but at least the traffic was moving along quickly. It was still dark when I arrived at the trailhead to Sturtevant Falls, and I started my hike down to the waterfall, a steep descent along a paved road. Once down at the bottom of the canyon I began to have second thoughts. There was not a lot of water flowing in the creek. I continued on up to the falls. The flow was about what I expected, but I was certainly hoping for more. Nonetheless, Sturtevant Falls is a pretty 40 ft. high waterfall, and fortunately it does not need a lot of water flow to look nice.

I finished taking my photos quickly because there was a second waterfall I wanted to get to before the sun got too high. As I was finishing my last shot, a group of Japanese men came up the trail behind me to the falls. What? I was a bit shocked to see anyone out on the trail so early, and especially on a week day. If this was northern California, there would certainly be no one out so early (not counting Yosemite of course). On the hike back, I saw even more hikers coming up the trail. I guess that is just the way things are in Los Angeles but I prefer having my waterfalls all to myself, which is one reason why I always get to them so early in the morning.

On Saturday we headed up to Chico for lunch to celebrate my wife’s birthday with the rest of the family. We went to La Hacienda, or what I like to call La Barfienda, since I have never had a good meal here, and it is the absolute worst Mexican restaurant that I have been to. However, for some strange reason, my wife and everyone else really likes this restaurant, and since it was my wife’s choice, well, guess where we went? I managed to find something edible on the menu this time, however, so I can’t complain too much.

Afterwards, as per a prior agreement I had made with Tara, I left everyone in Chico and drove back down to Hwy 70 and into the Feather River Canyon to check out some waterfalls. It could be my last waterfall trip for awhile as there is now no more rain in the long range forecast. We seem to be looking at a drought year here now for sure, which I am rather depressed about at the moment. It is very hard to keep up hope after such a very dry winter thus far.

Anyway, my first stop was Elephant Butte, where I found quite a large crowd of people here, not waterfallin but rock climbing. I could see the waterfall from the road, and I could also see that it was not flowing much. It would be pointless to try to shoot it, so I continued to Jackass Creek. This one was flowing much better, and I was hoping to get down to it, but when I arrived I could see it was very steep and brushy. With a good ankle, I could have done it, but it would be foolish to do it right now. Did I mention that my son gave me a good kick (accidentally of course) in the ankle at lunch? Oooh, did that ever hurt. The ankle is fine now if you do not touch it, but just the slightest touch is quite painful (and that kick was a lot more than a slight touch).

So Jackass Creek was strike two. I had one last chance for a good waterfall before I had to get back to Chico to pick up my family. I have been to Bear Ranch Creek Falls before, and I knew it was an easy hike. Only about a mile long, and it is all on a defined trail. I had no troubles hiking up to it and my ankle was perfectly fine. I realized after this hike that I can hike anywhere now as long as I stay on trail. Once I get off trail, the terrain gets much steeper, and much rockier, and it is just too difficult and dangerous with a bad ankle. So I just need to do all my waterfallin’ on established trails until my ankle heals completely. The trouble is that pretty much all the waterfalls on my list to see this year are off trail. Perhaps it is good (a blessing in disguise?) that I hurt my ankle in a drought year (if I had hurt it last year for instance, I would have killed myself! – just kiddin – sort of).

Anyway, Bear Ranch Creek Falls is a really nice 81 ft. high drop, and as I said, it is very easy to get to. In high water, it is next to impossible to get a photo of it from this location, as there is so much mist here. In low water flows, like it is now, it is actually quite a lot nicer and a lot easier to photograph.

After I got back to Chico we drove down to Oroville for dinner at Jakes Burgers. Mmmm, now that is so much better than La Barfienda. LOL.

The first big rains of the season came this weekend. It was enough rain to get the waterfalls rolling again. Unfortunately, it is not looking very good for the long term, as the long range forecast is showing more dry weather for the next couple weeks. Just when I thought things were finally turning around, now we are going back to square one again, perhaps.

Well, you know me. When it rains, it is time for me to get out waterfallin. The problem right now is my badly sprained ankle, which was the only thing preventing me from getting out hiking. The solution: Go to a roadside waterfall of course. I needed something extremely easy to go to, so Devil’s Falls was the ticket for me this weekend.

I arrived at Devil’s Falls first thing Sunday morning. It was not raining, though more was expected later in the morning. The waterfall was flowing ok, not amazingly great, but it was just about exactly as I expected it to be flowing. So that was good. In order to photograph the waterfall, though, I soon realized that I needed to cross the creek for the best composition. Hmm, with my ankle as it was, I was definitely hoping to avoid this. But there was no way around it, so I took off my hiking shoes and donned my water shoes, putting the shoe over my ankle brace, and I carefully, and doubly carefully, crossed the creek, not wanting to make any sort of slippage on the rocks. I made it over without incident, and setup my tripod in the stream and took my photos.

I tried something a little different with this shot. The dilemma with photographing a shot like this is to try to get everything in the frame in perfect focus. Usually, your foreground (the rocks) is either going to be out of focus or your background will be slightly out of focus (the waterfall). Normally I use something called hyperfocal distance to get the best focused image possible, but it is not a perfect method. This time I tried a different approach. I took two shots, one focused on the foreground, the second focused on the background, and then combined the two in Photoshop. This way, everything is in sharp focus. It worked, and I was really quite pleased with the result. This would not work in all situations, but I think I will be doing this more often in the future.

After Devil’s Falls, I debated long and hard about going down to Shirttail Falls. I really really wanted to. But it is not such an easy one to get to. It is a very steep descent down to the creek, and it looked quite slippery with the wet ground. Though it is not hard to do with two working ankles, it is not so easy or smart with only one. In the end I took the smart option, and instead drove into McDonalds in Colfax to get breakfast and a coffee, before going to church to repent of my sin of going waterfallin’ with only one working ankle. Or was it to repent of going to “Devils” Falls on a Sunday? Something like that. I was quite happy, though, when I got back home. Thinking I would be in a lot of pain after going out in the morning, instead the ankle is doing much much better; going to a waterfall seemed to even help it! I might even be ready to go out hiking next weekend.