Leon Turnbull Photography

If you can’t trust the weather man, who can you trust? Whenever I go out hiking, I always check the weather beforehand. I find that accuweather.com usually has a fairly accurate forecast for the most part. Well, not this day. It was supposed to be a cloudy day, with the “light” rain showers on Friday all done with by Saturday morning. Well, I woke up in Folsom at 5AM, and found out it was still showering out. Okay, well, that’s not too bad. It would probably be fine by the time I started my hike. Up in Nevada City, my destination for the day, it was not just showering, it was “raining”. That was not on the agenda for today, let me tell you. Oh well, I don’t mind hiking in the rain. I just don’t like trying to take photos in the rain. It is rather difficult to keep water off the lens, while composing the image and taking the photo. The rain showers were off and on during my hike down to Humbug Creek Falls. But by the time I got to the waterfall, it was raining again. Hmm, okay, this will be fun trying to take a photo of this waterfall. I think I managed all right, though. It wasn’t really raining too hard, but it was a bit of a challenge.

It was quite difficult getting down to the base of the falls though. I had been here before 5 years ago, and I knew it was steep, but I thought it was do-able to get down to the falls. Well, it was steep for sure. The last part was down a steep section of slippery rock. The only way down to the bottom was on my bum. It wasn’t too far, so I wasn’t worried about hurting myself. But I was a bit worried about climbing back up on the slippery rocks. I might still be stuck down there, but I made it, and it wasn’t too hard after all.

After going to Humbug Creek Falls, I wanted to try to find a new waterfall on Kenebec Creek, which is along the same road to Malakoff Diggins State Park (Humbug Creek). A couple people had told me about one there, but the directions I had were not adequate. I found the creek all right, but it was a very small creek with hardly any water in it, despite all the rain. I also could not see any waterfall. I was expecting to see the waterfall from the road, but there was none to be seen. I saw where there could be a waterfall, as the creek seemed to drop quite steeply. But I could not see the creek at this point, it was too far off the road, and I could see no easy way down to it anyway. So if there is a waterfall there, it remains a mystery for now.

I posted earlier about the SPOT Satellite Messenger that I recently purchased, and indicated I would follow up with some info on how it actually works out in the wilderness. This device allows you to send a signal using GPS to your loved one to let them know exactly where you are (or a 911 help signal).

Well, I am happy to report, it works very well (if used properly). It is a little more finicky than a regular GPS device. In particular, it does not work while you are moving (hiking or driving). When you send a signal, you need to be in one place, with an open view of the sky, for about 10 minutes. I made the initial mistake of trying to send a signal while hiking. That did not work. But if you are not moving, it works very well. Essentially, what I do is send a “OK” signal (to my wife) before I begin my hike, as soon as I get to the trailhead. That gives it some time while I get all my hiking gear organized. Then I send additional signals when I get to a destination or am going to be resting for awhile. I find it needs about 5-10 minutes to send a successful signal.

There is a $50/year option (which I did not get), which allows you to send continuous signals every 10 minutes or so. But considering that the device only works well while you are staying still, it seems to me that this optional add-on would not work very well anyway. I’m glad I did not purchase that (I didn’t really see a need for it, anyway).

Also, it is difficult to determine if the signal was sent successfully or not. You can easily tell if the signal was NOT sent by the flashing lights. But unless you are constantly watching the device for 5-10 minutes, you have no idea if a signal was sent successfully. You can guess it was sent successfully after a 10 minute period, but you can’t really be sure. I wish it would beep or something when it was sending the signal.

In other news, I got a bad case of poison oak all over my legs, on my latest hike to Bear Creek Falls. I never used to get oak at all. But now, it seems I get it if I just look at it. It is agony I tell you. Will getting poison oak deter me from hiking to these out of the way, beautiful, waterfalls? Not likely.

Traverse Creek Falls is one of my stand by waterfalls. What I mean is, it is easy to reach, and is close to home, so I pretty much come here at least once per year. It varies greatly in form throughout the year: from a wide torrent of water during the rainy season, to a beautiful double falls in the spring, to a single segmented waterfall in early summer, and then completely dries up by late summer. As you can no doubt see, it is currently a single segmented waterfall. I was actually extremely disappointed to see it is already in its early summer form. So much so, that I wasn’t even going to take a photo of it, but I ended up taking one anyway (heck, I was there and I had my camera with me).

I wasn’t really too much into hiking this past weekend, but I forced myself to get out. I’m still not feeling so great. But I did get out, and I found this new waterfall in Bear Creek Canyon, near Placerville. It was a lot of effort to get to it, but definitely worth it. It is 40 ft. high, and definitely much better than I expected.

My original plan was to hike down into Bear Creek Canyon from above. However, it is all private property along Bear Creek Rd., and there was no access down into the canyon. So as I was leaving to go back, this guy came up to me. Here was our conversation (pretty much exactly):

him- what are you doing here (rudely)
me- just out for a morning drive. do you know if this is all private property around here?
him- yes, it is all private property. you need to get the F*** out of here. you have no F***ing business being here.
me- well, sir, I am leaving now. But I am on a public road and not trespassing.
him- I don’t give a F***. you have no F***ing right being here on this road. Leave the F*** now.
me- yes sir, that is what I am doing. Have a Happy Easter.

Actually, I wish I had said Happy Easter – but you get the general idea. What a total jerk.

Anyway, so I decided to go to Traverse Creek Falls instead, so the morning would not be a total loss. I’ll post that photo for you later. But once there, I decided to go downstream in an attempt to find the Lower Traverse Creek Falls. I’ve known about this lower falls for awhile, but I’m still not sure exactly where it is. This was my first serious attempt to find it. But I did not end up going far enough downstream. It is apparently much further downstream than I had thought. So that waterfall remains a mystery for another day. On the way back, I debated about going up Bear Creek to find the waterfall there. I was not really into it, but in the end I decided to go for it, as I was not sure when I would ever be back down there. So off I went. Scrambling up Bear Creek was not easy. It was quite overgrown, there was plenty of poison oak, and it involved criss-crossing the creek several times. On my way back out, I slipped and fell into the creek, hitting my jaw hard onto a log. The jaw is not broken, but it is badly bruised. And now I have a nice red mark on my jaw and neck. Good times. Anyway, after what seemed like forever (it took a full hour to hike up the creek a half-mile), I finally was rewarded and came upon this beauty of a waterfall, dropping 40 ft. down into a deep pool. Whew! It was one heck of an effort to reach, but I’d definitely have to say it was worth it. One of my favourite things is finding new waterfalls that not very many people know about or have been to. I also know there are more waterfalls above this one too. I’m not sure how to get up to them, but that’ll have to be a trip for another day.

I’m still recovering from my illness. Eleven days and still counting. Needless to say, I haven’t been out hiking recently (hopefully this weekend, I will get out).

Anyway, there’s a really interesting new waterfalls book out. If you can get your hands on it, I really recommend it. It is called “The World’s Hundred Greatest Waterfalls” by famous Japanese photographer Yoshikazu Shirakawa. It is written in Japanese (with a small amount of English thrown in for good measure). But who needs to understand the words, when pictures tell so much. And his photos are amazing, including the most awesome waterfalls photographed all around the world.

What is in the book? Of course, the good old stand bys: Yosemite, Niagara, Iguazu, Victoria, Angel Falls. Also worth mentioning are these falls from North America: Bridalveil Falls, Wapama Falls, Nevada Falls, and Feather Falls in California. Plus, Helmcken, Hunlen, and Takakkaw Falls in BC.

What is not in the book? I found it interesting that there were no falls from China or Russia. Every other major region in the world was pretty well included. Or how about Della Falls in BC, the highest waterfall in Canada?

Yours truly is credited in the book for helping Shirakawa out with my waterfall suggestions and information. I received a free copy of the book in the mail as well. I was surprised and grateful to receive this because I did not think I really helped him out that much. But he must have taken some of my suggestions to heart. I definitely recommend it, but I’m not sure where you’ll be able to find a copy of it. It is not available in the USA as of right now.