Leon Turnbull Photography

I drove up to Lake Tahoe this weekend, hoping to hike up to Susie Lake and do some snowshoeing. Well. .. Fallen Leaf Lake Road was closed. I knew they close it in the winter when there is snow, but there is no snow yet. Also, the forest service website says the trailhead is open. So what the heck? Why is it closed now? I was a bit upset that I could not drive into the trailhead, but more upset that the forest service did not indicate the road was closed. It is a long drive from Sacramento to Lake Tahoe. What should I do now? The closure would add 8 miles of road walking to my hike and it would also mean I would be hiking back in the dark, but I could not think of a different hike that I wanted to do, so I decided to go for it anyway. I have done this before but there was a lot more snow at that time and snowshoes were required. Today, however, I decided to leave my snowshoes in the car because I did not want to carry them 8 miles and I figured I would not need them anyway. I would just go to Grass Lake instead of Susie Lake, so that should be very doable without snowshoes. Ummm, not quite.

I arrived at Upper Glen Alpine Falls (pictured here) about noon and had my lunch there. Surprisingly, it was in the shade so I was able to take some decent photos of it at noon. Well that’s good. Now I don’t have to come back here later in the day to take photos, so that will save a half hour of walking in the dark. It was a fantastic day so far. I was happy and very much enjoying God’s beautiful nature.

I continued on up to Grass Lake. I did not make it. There was a lot more snow than I expected, it was soft, and I was sinking in. It was getting to be quite dangerous. With snowshoes, I would have easily made it. I am so DUMB. I should have brought my snowshoes! Oh well. I turned back, stopping at Upper Glen Alpine Falls again to take some more photos.

I did not see anyone on the trail all day. No one wants to hike an additional 8 miles to go here. Except the mad man of course. When I got back to the road, however, I saw quite a few people walking up the road. They were all parked back at the gate where I did. I was very surprised to see so many people because it was late in the day. All these people would be hiking back to their cars in the dark. I barely made it back before dark myself and they were all quite a way behind me.

When I got back to the gate, I found that the gate was open. Well this is very strange. All the cars were parked on the other side of the gate as I was, so why didn’t they just drive up the road if the gate was open? Why was the gate closed in the morning anyway? Why was it open now? What am I missing here? This makes no sense.

There was an even stranger thing. My car was in the middle of the road! What? I had parked on a hill, so obviously I made sure to set the parking break, however, it was icy. My back wheels were on ice, but my front wheels were on solid ground; I figured it would not be a problem. It looked fine to me. Apparently not! My car must’ve slid down on the ice to the road. Thankfully, it did not block the road but it was sticking out a little bit. It looked like a very bad parking job. I am so DUMBER. Anyway, no damage done. I drove home. It was a great day at Lake Tahoe.

 

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It is September! Summer is almost over! The mosquitoes are pretty much done! The weather is cooler! Time to get back to hiking!

I was just joking with a friend, who went to a certain waterfall for the fourth time. I said to him, you do know there are other waterfalls in California, right? Now having just said that, where did I go hiking? Horsetail Falls of course! And how many times have I been to Horsetail Falls? I had no idea, but I was curious, so I counted them up, by looking at the dates of all my photos. This would be the 15th time I have been to Horsetail Falls! There may be a couple times when I did not take any photos, so it could be more than 15. You think I like this waterfall? The first time I went was 2003, so that is 15 times in 16 years. Not bad, not bad, but I think I had better go one more time this year to make it all even. LOL. (I think I might do it, too).

It was Labor Day weekend, the parking lot was full. It is always full in the summer on the weekend, but on a holiday weekend? I prayed for a parking spot on the drive up the hill. When I arrived, I found one and only one parking spot. God saved me that spot! Thank you Lord.

There were tons of people on the trail, as expected. My plan was to hike up to Pyramid Lake, and hopefully photograph the waterfalls up there that I have not photographed yet. It has been 7 years since I have been up to Pyramid Lake. I did not quite make it. When I arrived at the bottom of Horsetail Falls, there is that one very difficult and crazy section you need to climb up. I struggled getting up it, this time. I did not have my regular hiking boots on, and with less traction on my feet, my shoes could not get a foothold on the slick rock. Finally, I managed to wedge myself up and over. Meanwhile, a Japanese man watching from below was laughing at me the whole time. Anyway, I made it up. After this one section, there are a couple sketchy parts, but mostly it is not difficult to get to the top of Horsetail. It is easier getting back down, but not in the dark. Finding the proper route in daylight is difficult, but in the dark it could be disastrous.

Thus I arrived at Gefo Lake and it was already 6PM. This was my last ditch turning around time. I still had 30 minutes to Pyramid Lake, and I would not make it. According to my notes it should only take 3 hours to Pyramid Lake, but it had been 3.5 hours and I was still not there. Argh. Anyway, the other waterfalls were not flowing. I will have to return earlier in the spring to get those ones. I got back to the Ropi Lake Falls viewpoint, and it was just coming into shade, so I ate my dinner and photographed that waterfall, then I booted it back down as fast as I could. I arrived at the bottom of Horsetail just as it was getting dark. The rest of the hike back to the car was in darkness. (I did have a light of course). Once again, even though it was a holiday weekend, I was the last one off the mountain. It was a great Labor Day in the Desolation Wilderness.

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On the way back down from Half Moon Lake, I wanted to make one pit stop to a second new waterfall. We had time, and it was still fairly early. This would be a quick little detour.

There is no trail, said Nekoda. Yeah I know that, I said. On the way up to Half Moon, Nekoda asked me if I ever went on hikes that were straight up the mountain without any nicely graded trails (such as the one we were hiking on). I said, yes, lots of times. That must be very hard, she said. I said, definitely much harder than this hike. I think now she must have been getting an anxiety attack when I started off trail on this little side trip.

She had nothing to worry about, it was a very easy little side trip. However, when we got over to the creek, I could see that to get up to the falls, we were going to have to do some bushwhacking through some brush. Nekoda did not want to do this. She was already pretty tired. Any extra effort would take all her energy away for the hike back down the mountain. She wanted to just sit down and wait. I insisted she come with me. It would not be too hard or long. The waterfall was hidden in a slot canyon, and we had to jump across the creek at the bottom of the falls to see it. It was an incredibly gorgeous 76 ft. high cascade, shooting down a very narrow slot, and fanning out at the bottom. It was much much nicer than I expected it to be. Stunningly beautiful. I think Nekoda was glad I made her come after all. Even though this is just a short detour from the main trail, I do not think hardly anyone knows this waterfall exists. Did you? We relaxed a bit, took photos, and then headed down the mountain. We still had quite a hike to do, and we just got back to the car a bit after dark.

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It would be back to Lake Tahoe and the Desolation Wilderness once more for me, and this time my daughter Nekoda wanted to tag along. I like it when my children want to come with me. It seems like such a rare thing.

My initial thought was we would backpack up to Half Moon Lake for one night. However, since it was last minute I could not get a permit, so thus I decided we should just do a day hike instead. It is only 6 miles (1 way) and a 1700 ft. elevation gain. We can do that in a day, right? Nekoda can do that in a day, right?

We arrived in Lake Tahoe around noon, stopped at Subway to get lunch and brought it to the Glen Alpine trailhead. I was shocked to see the parking area completely full. I would expect this on a Saturday, but this was not a Saturday. I prayed for a spot. There was a car ahead of me, but he turned off to the right. After he turned, another person waved me into the one remaining spot, located right at the trailhead sign. Perfecto! Thank you once again, Lord. It would really suck to have to walk an extra mile just to get to the trailhead. This was going to be a tough hike as it was.

We sat down by the lake and ate our lunch. The local chipmunks joined us, literally climbing up on our backs to get any morsels we would give them. Ok not literally, but almost. They were all over us and not shy at all. I suspect they get plenty of handouts in this area.

I heard the mosquitoes have been bad in this area in recent weeks. I have experienced them here in the past, and it was not pleasant. I was prepared for the worst. However, I could not get a very recent report and the last one I got was a couple weeks ago. Perhaps they have subsided since then. I hoped so, anyway. As it turned out, we did not see any bugs on the hike up to the lake or while up at the lake. Only on the hike back down in the evening did the mosquitoes come out to feast, but once we put on bug spray, they left us alone. So all in all, not too bad at all.

About halfway up the mountain, Nekoda almost bonked. Apparently this was a tougher hike for her than I thought it would be. She does not hike much, but she is a dancer, and she is dancing about 5 days per week usually, so she should be in great shape. Now since it is summer, she has not danced in the past couple weeks, but she should not get out of shape in only two weeks. Thus, I figured this hike would be fairly easy for her. Humph. Well, I really wanted to get up to this waterfall, but I also know Nekoda is more important than the hike. If I take her on a hike that is too hard for her, that is all on me. My fault completely. I told her that and that it was perfectly ok to turn around if she needed to. I can do this hike anytime. But Nekoda is a trooper. She always has been a trooper. Remember the story of her continuing the hike with me last year after she was stung by a bee? She wanted to continue on, so onwards we went. Before too long, the terrain leveled out and got much easier the rest of the way to the lake.

When we got up on the ridge the views were astounding. We could see over to Susie Lake and Susie Lake Falls (roaring), and the drainage above Susie Lake. There was still an incredible amount of snow above Susie Lake. It is the middle of August. I could not believe how much snow is still up there.

When we finally got to Half Moon Lake, we could see the waterfall on the other side of the lake, and it was flowing very strong. Awesome. There was still snow at the base of the waterfall. Nekoda thought it just looked just ok, and not so awesome. Wait til you get up close to it, dearie. You will be impressed. We are still a long way away from it. It was a longer hike to the end of the lake than I anticipated. The trail became quite overgrown now, but it was not too difficult. We were early however, so we went down to Alta Morris Lake to spend an hour or so.

What will you give me if I jump in the lake, I said to Nekoda. The lake was freezing cold. There was still snow around the lakeside. I will give you a kiss, she said. Ok that works, I said. The lake was blistering, but I dipped my head completely under for a very brief second, while she took photos of me doing it. It was fun and refreshing. You have to do this, I told her. She said, no way! Nonetheless, I talked her into it and she went under as well. Fun fun fun. I never did get my kiss, though. She said that since she did it as well, she does not owe me anything. Lame! After we huddled together to relieve our hypothermia, we went back up to the waterfall. We had to walk up a snow field to get up to it. Nekoda waited while I went over closer to the falls to take my photos. It is a magnificent 117 ft. high waterfall.

Hiking back down from the falls, I could see a large animal on the snow off in the distance. From this distance, it looked like it was getting ready to make a run for my daughter, who was way off ahead of me. It was too small to be a mountain lion, but I was definitely thinking coyote or bobcat. As I got closer, I could see it was neither of these. It was a bird. It was an enormous bird. It was a golden eagle. It was sitting on the snow, eating something or other. So I guess it was not interested in attacking my daughter, but it was definitely interesting to see it there on the snow.

We made good time hiking back down the mountain. We saw a couple backpackers coming up. Their packs looked enormous. And I thought that eagle was big.  It is not pleasant to go backpacking when you are carrying such a huge weight. I did that last year, my pack was 45 pounds. And I’m sure these two had at least 55 pounds on their backs by the looks of it. I am so glad I cut my pack weight to about 32 pounds this year. It is so much more pleasant! Backpacking is supposed to be fun! Anyway, it was getting quite late and I do not think these two were going to make it up to the lake before dark. Not at the rate they were going (which was zero mph). It was 8:30 when Nekoda and I got back to the car. Just a little past dark. Not too shabby.

It was a glorious hike up into the Desolation Wilderness, and we did not just see the one awesome waterfall. We saw a second fantastic waterfall on the way back down as well. Coming up next …

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I do not usually cross into Nevada to search for waterfalls, but when I do, I find one. Kidding. But seriously, if there are two waterfalls that I want to see that are the same distance from my home, one in CA and one in NV, I will choose to go to the CA waterfall. Why so, captain? Well it is because I want to be considered the guru of California waterfalls (or whatever you want to call me – pick a name – it doesn’t have to be a nice one), and there are just so many waterfalls still left to see in California, so I concentrate on going to see the CA waterfalls as much as I can, in order to continue to build up my bagged list in CA. But every so often, I feel like venturing into Nevada, and thus was the case this weekend.

Waterfall season is done in California (and Nevada), but I thought perhaps this one in the Mt Rose Wilderness might still be suitable, since it is a high elevation waterfall. Not great, but at least decent. So after work on Friday, I took my son Jadon and drove up the hill, eventually crossing into that other state.

I thought this was a very easy hike. It is only 2.5 miles with minimal elevation gain. Jadon did not feel the same way. He said it was a “moderate” hike. My family knows by now to always up the difficulty level from what I say it is, by one more level. They are not stupid. Easy is really moderate. Moderate is really strenuous. Strenuous is really just kill me now. I’m not sure, though, why Jadon thought this hike was “moderate”. Perhaps it was the high elevation. Pretty much the entire hike is above 9000 ft., so that could be a factor, but since it is mostly flat-ish, I did not think it to be an issue at all. Perhaps it was just his lazy, teenage mindset. That’s more likely. Anyhow, it was a good hike to the falls. It was definitely flowing “decent”, though I was hoping for a bit more water.

My tripod head broke again, making it very difficult to take photos. I had said I fixed it, and that I was the man, and avoiding having to purchase a new $200 head. Well, I guess I am not the man any longer. I could not fix it again. The screws were still tight, and I could not tighten them any more, but it is still broken. So I am definitely going to need to buy a new one now. Bummer. I tried to take photos as best as I could.

On the way down, we ran into not one but two large groups going up the mountain (to the top of Mt Rose). It was already almost sunset. It would be dark long before they got to the top. Usually I am always the last one off the mountain, but not today. At first I thought it was just a bunch of unprepared kids going up to have a party or something and not thinking about how they would come back down in the dark, but then a couple adults came trailing along behind them. They said they were going to the top to see the full moon rise, and hike down in the dark. Ok then, well that sounds like a very cool thing to do, however I’m pretty sure they did not make it to the top in time to see the moonrise. I would definitely like to go to the top sometime to be there at sunrise or sunset. That would be awesome, but not today. I was hoping to get a nice sunset view of Lake Tahoe from up on the ridge, but we could not even see the lake! It was so hazy in the valley from the fires in California, that you could not see anything down in the valley. There was a bit of nice color, and I did take a couple shots, but I don’t think I got anything very interesting. We arrived back at the car just after dark and made the long drive home. We had a good hike in the other state. 

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