Leon Turnbull Photography

It is my tradition now to go out hiking on Black Friday. It is my favourite day of the year to go hiking. While everyone else is out shopping, I go out into the wilderness. It is beautiful and peaceful, and no one else is out (no matter where I go), so I have it all to myself.

This year, however, the weather did not fully co-operate. I had plans to do an epic hike on Friday, but the forecast was calling for heavy rain on Friday morning. Actually, I looked at a number of different weather forecasts, and there was a huge difference, ranging from light showers to heavy rain. I couldn’t decide if I should go out or not, so finally I determined it would be better to go hiking on Saturday instead of Friday. I let my wife go out and brave the shopping crowds on Friday while I stayed with the kids. On Saturday, it was my turn to go out. I chose Wagon Creek Falls at Mt. Shasta City, a 6 mile hike which shouldn’t be too difficult. ha!

I woke up at 4AM, ready to start my day with a good Dutch Brothers Coffee before the long drive up to Mt. Shasta. But it was closed! This place is supposed to be open 24×7! I was thoroughly upset. Not to mention tired! How was I gonna drive 1.5 hours without any caffeine in my body! Well, I did it, but it really made me very tired for the entire day.

Anyway, I arrived at the trailhead and it was still dark. I wasn’t exactly sure of the route and not confident of hiking it in the dark, so I figured it would be all right to start hiking once it got a bit lighter out. It was also EXTREMELY cold and windy, reminding me of the Black Friday hike I made a couple years ago, which was the coldest day I have ever hiked. Not quite so cold today, but I still had to wear my winter coat.

The hike to Wagon Creek Falls starts out with a shotgun blast to the heart. You have to climb 1000 ft. to the top of a small mountain, in less than a mile of hiking. This trail does not fool around. It goes straight up the mountain. And I mean straight up. It was relentless and grueling. Finally I made it to the top of the ridge. It was just past sunrise now. There were great views of Mt. Shasta from the top, but I did not take out my camera because I was a bit late for sunrise, plus it was so darn cold, and there were no clouds in the sky anyway. I think it would be a good spot for sunrise if the conditions were better, but I don’t think I’d want to climb up that hill ever again.

Once you finally make it to the top, you get more bad news. The trail starts descending on the other side! That means I’d be coming back up this other side on the return trip. Fortunately, the descent wasn’t quite so steep as coming up. But it wasn’t all gentle and flat either. In fact, there were no flat spots on the trail the entire hike. I was either going up or going down. What a crazy hike! After a couple miles of hiking, I got to the turnoff for Wagon Creek. Here was another killer steep ascent up a ridge. Then at the top, it had a killer descent down to Wagon Creek. Holy macaroni! There was quite a bit of snow on the ground, and as I made the descent to Wagon Creek, I was following in bear tracks in the snow, heading down to the creek to get his morning drink? Hmmm … aren’t these guys supposed to be hibernating now? Fortunately, they were not fresh tracks.

Wagon Creek is nestled in a steep little gorge. I could see the waterfall from the lip of the gorge, but how to get over to the waterfall? I started bushwhacking up towards the falls, looking for a descent route to the creek. I found one, and was able to make my way down to the creek without too much difficulty. But I still could not make my way up to the falls on this side of the creek due to all the brush. It seemed easier on the other side, so I hopped the creek, and climbed up the bank on the other side to find this nice overlooking ledge of the waterfall. The waterfall was flowing ok for this time of the year, about what I expected. It would of course be a rushing torrent in the spring, but it may be a lot more difficult to get to the falls in the spring as well.

After enjoying the waterfall, I made the long slow hike back up and down and up and down the mountain. The uphill parts weren’t too horrid (except for a couple of them), and I thoroughly enjoyed the downhill sections. But that very last steep descent, I had to take quite slowly, as the steep downhill is very hard on the old knees. All in all, it was an enjoyable November morning hike.

I debated two options for going out on Saturday morning: Lake Tahoe or Curtain Falls in Oroville. I chose wrong. I wanted to try Curtain Falls again, but I knew there would be less than a 50 percent chance of being able to actually get to the falls (without swimming … and I had no intention to swim). Nonetheless, I had hopes of finding a way around the big pool at the base of the falls by scrambling on the cliffs. Worst case scenario, I figured I could at least take a long distance shot of the falls from the pool. Well, there was an even worse scenario then that!

I started early. The alarm rang at 3AM. It is a long 2.5 hour drive out to the Curtain Falls trailhead. The morning started out interesting enough as I opened the door to my house to hear a couple owls hooting away. I couldn’t see them of course, in the dark. The drive was uneventful enough and quick thanks to no traffic (going home was an entirely different story – man I hate driving through Lincoln!). I did almost run over a rabbit that decided to hop right in front of my wheels. Fortunately, I missed it.

It was still dark as I started the hike at 6AM. And it was slightly freaky hiking through the forest in the dark down to the river. I did talk to God a lot on the way down. That’s always a good thing. I didn’t see any critters except for a couple large moths that tried to punch a hole in my eye, as they were attracted to the light on my headlamp. As I approached the river, the sun was rising, though I still had lots of time before it got into the canyon.

Curtain Falls on the Middle Fork Feather is an incredible adventure to go to, but the hike can only be done in the summer when the river is low. I was very surprised to find the river flowing high and fast at this time of year (not spring flows of course, but still much much higher than I expected). I could hear the river well before I got to it, and when I did get to it, I realized there would be no crossing of it today. Dreamflows.com had told me the flow was low, 230 cfs, but it sure didn’t seem low to me. Nonetheless, I made my way up river towards the waterfall, in hopes of finding a way across. There are tons of very large boulders you have to negotiate your way up and around, which takes a lot of energy. I eventually came to a deep pool which I definitely did not remember the last time I was here. There was no way around this pool but to go through it, so I put on my water shoes and started across this pool under a large overhanging rock. The water came up to my feet, then my knees, then my thighs, then up to my waist! But that was as high as it got and I made it across this section. And yes, it was cold! After that section, more boulder hopping, then you come to the river crossing. There is no way to continue on this side of the river due to the sheer cliffs. The only way to continue to the falls is to cross the river, and then you eventually come to a large pool which must be swam. However, I couldn’t even get to that point because the river was just flowing too very deep and fast to cross safely. I was definitely not expecting to be stopped here. Maybe with two people linked in arms, it could have been crossed, but it would have been quite difficult and definitely deep. So anyway, I made the wise decision to return. I did get my camera out to take a photo of the river.

The hike back up to the top is slow and difficult, gaining 1600 ft. elevation. There are 31 switchbacks. I counted them, taking a drink of water on every even numbered switchback. Hey, it gave me something to do, and to take my mind off the agony. Actually, it wasn’t really too hard (I definitely remembered it being much harder the last time). It was a good hike even though I did not get to my destination.

Well … I did not find what I was looking for on my sunrise hike this morning (Saturday). I found something rather different.

After a late night on Friday, I did not want to go too crazy and get up at any ridiculous hour to go on a mega hike (that was Plan A). Plan B was to get up a bit later and just go down to Folsom Lake again for sunrise. The clouds did not co-operate, however. I’m glad I did get up, and I enjoyed a lovely morning hike down by the river/lake, and I enjoyed the sunrise on a very chilly November day, but I did not even bother to take my camera out of my pack.

With no photographs taken, I was hoping to see some wildlife on my way back to the trailhead. I thought maybe a bobcat or coyote would be pretty cool. I did not see any of those. I did see quite a few flycatchers swarming around the spot where I was at sunrise, but I did not bother to take my camera out to shoot them. I did think about it, but they’re so very hard to get close enough to photograph, and they’re darn fast. The trail back to the car followed the river up towards the old Salmon Falls bridge. There are some enormous (and very unsightly) houses hovering over the river along here, and the trail comes close to a couple of them, following right along the fence line of one. As I rounded the corner, enjoying the scenery of the river, I came smack dab into an amazing sight straight out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. More than 20 turkey vultures, all lined up in a row along the fence line, and they were very close to me. Okay, well this is definitely worth getting my camera out. The sun was right in my face though, so I had to work my way slowly around to get a better angle to photograph the birds. I counted 20 vultures in a row sitting on the fence posts, and there were more flying around. I stayed there for quite awhile, watching them and photographing them. Vultures are certainly not the prettiest bird you will see, and I normally would not bother to photograph them, but this was a special experience.

After getting as close to them as they would let me, I finally retreated back to my camera bag and continued on. The problem, though, was that the trail now continued right beside the fence line where the vultures were all sitting in a row. They looked so happy just sitting there, I really did not want to disturb them (which I certainly would have, if I had continued on the trail proper). So I decided to let them be, and went off trail, down towards the river, and then back up and around the vultures. Aren’t I such a nice guy?

Here’s another one showing all the vultures lined up in a row along the fence:

I just feel like posting a waterfall image tonight. I am just getting too antsy for waterfall season to start. It happens every year at this time. I really want to go out hiking to a waterfall, but there is not any flowing around here at this time of year. Is there any place I could go this weekend? I’m just really hoping the winter rains start soon.

Anyway, this is from our recent trip to Lee Vining in October. This is the lower section of Lundy Canyon Falls taken from across a large beaver pond.

It was 3:45PM today (Sunday), and I was at the park with my kids letting them ride around on their bikes. I kinda noticed some clouds forming in the area of the setting sun, and thought it might actually turn out to be a decent sunset. So after the kids were done riding, we went home, and I took off to Folsom Lake for sunset.

My favourite shooting location at Folsom Lake is Old Salmon Falls. There is no lake there at this time of year. It is just a flowing river. I like it that way actually, flowing rivers are cool, peaceful, and soothing. Lakes are boring. But it is not really good, I guess, that the lake is so low. Well, it will fill up again soon.

Anyway, I found a nice spot by the river just in time for sunset. It wasn’t really much of a sunset and it really didn’t look like it would amount to anything really good, so I took some long exposure shots, then packed up and left. Well, as it turned out, I did leave a little bit early. The sky turned quite a bit nicer after I had left. Oh yeah, I should have known better. Now I am just determined to come back here again and get that better shot.