Leon Turnbull Photography

This is a view of the North Fork American River from Yankee Jim Rd., a couple hours after sunrise. I was hoping to shoot sunrise from here, but the fog layer was just too high. A couple hours later, the fog was still hanging around, but the light was a bit better as the sun was trying to shine through the fog, so I tried a shot and this was the result.

This will be my last post until the New Year. I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. See ya next year and here’s to a great upcoming waterfall season!

Well my sunrise shooting plan did not come together this weekend as I had hoped.

I initially thought I would go up to Lake Tahoe for sunrise and I was all set on doing that. However, on my way back home Friday night from Cameron Park, I noticed it was very foggy, especially in Cameron Park. I came up with a second idea, that being to shoot fog in the North Fork American canyon in the morning. That sounded like a better plan to me than go up to Lake Tahoe. It was closer to home too, and that meant I could sleep in a little bit more. That’s always a good plan.

I was hoping there would be fog in the North Fork American canyon down by Yankee Jim’s bridge in Colfax. As I drove up in the morning though, it wasn’t very foggy at all. There was a little bit as I drove through Auburn, and that was all. As I drove down Yankee Jim Rd., I noticed a little bit of fog, but it was high above the river. It was certainly not what I was hoping for. I realized my sunrise shot was a bust. Too late to go anywhere else. Oh well. I did take a shot of the river with the high fog, and I kinda like it, so I will post that one later.

All was not lost, however. I wanted to get back to Shirttail Creek Falls to get a better photo, and here I am in the area, so off I went. I drove by Devils Falls with nary a glance. I did look at it, but I did not get out of my car. It was not flowing too well, and I already have some good shots of this waterfall. Shirttail Creek Falls is just up the road, then down a steep bank to the creek. It is very tricky to get a decent view of this waterfall. You have to scramble out on a narrow, slippery ledge, with a steep drop-off down to the creek. I did this extremely carefully, as I was afraid of losing my footing on the slippery dirt and rocks. That would not have been pretty. Then I had to carefully set up my tripod and camera to take the shot. Not an easy task on that ledge, but I managed.

After my long snowshoe hike into Bassi Falls, I trudged down the road from my car to the bridge, and slipped on down to the creek to get a shot of half frozen Bassi Creek surrounded by winter snowy goodness.

I was dead dog tired after my snowshoe. I think snowshoeing 4 miles is about equivalent to hiking 12 miles … or something like that. With the snow being kinda soft and squishy (as opposed to being hard and easy going), it makes snowshoeing much more difficult. Even though it was all downhill coming back from the falls, I was trudging along very slowly and quite spent by the time I got back.

I was also quite worried about the snow. It was falling very heavily on the hike back to the car, and I was worried that the road conditions had deteriorated considerably, and it would be rather difficult driving back down Ice House Rd. Well, I had no worries in that regard, as it turned out. There wasn’t that much snow on my car or the road when I got back. Not only that, a snow plow had just gone by clearing the way for me, less than a minute before I got to the car.

But finding the energy to get down to Bassi Creek for this photograph was a different matter. I went slowly. But I did it. And it was beautiful.

Okay now here’s a real winter waterfall that is flowing.

This is easy Bridal Veil Falls, located right alongside Hwy 50 on the way up to Lake Tahoe. Normally, I do not stop at this waterfall. It is too easy to get to, plus the traffic whizzing by so closely at 80mph kinda freaks me out. However, on this day I noticed that the waterfall was flowing very nicely, and had some nice winter snow around it, so I made the stop (in the rain), and got out my camera gear to take the shot.

When I arrived there was a family of four stopped here, and they all had to get their photo taken in front of the waterfall with their cell phone cameras, including every combination of people in the photo amongst the four of them, with all four of their cameras. I waited patiently for them to finish. Finally they left and I got out to take a quick shot, carefully composing the photo to not include the ugly graffiti that is found here on the rocks beside the falls.

I was hoping to find a nice winter waterfall this weekend, though I wasn’t sure where to go. With a big storm coming in, I didn’t want to go over the passes to Tahoe, or I might get stuck over there for the weekend. I decided to try snow shoeing in to Bassi Falls, though I knew that waterfall probably wouldn’t be flowing too great.

I think God must have wanted me to get up and go out on Saturday morning because when I woke up it was not raining in Folsom. If it had been raining, I would have most certainly gone back to sleep. But since it wasn’t, I thought it might not be too bad up in the mountains, so I decided to head out. Of course, as soon as I got to Placerville, it started raining and raining hard. Well, it was too late to go back to bed, so I figured I would just continue on and see what I could see.

Once I got up on Ice House Rd., the rain turned into snow, but it wasn’t too bad yet. A snow plow had gone on ahead of me, clearing the road. The last time I went to Bassi Falls in the winter, there was no way to park along the road. I was a bit worried about that today, especially with the snow storm. I didn’t want to get stuck, or have a snow plow block me in somewhere. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find a large clearing directly opposite the turnoff to Bassi Falls. Perfect! I put my snowshoes on and started the long slow trudge up the road to Bassi Falls. In the summer, it is an easy 0.5 mile hike to the falls. But in the winter, it is a difficult 2.5 mile snowshoe, all uphill for the first 2 miles. The snow started falling more heavily on the way up, but it was definitely beautiful.

I knew that Bassi Falls would not be flowing all that great, and I knew it needs a lot of water for it to be even decent, but I did think there would be a lot more flow than there was. The waterfall was non-existent, and there was just a small amount of water flowing in Bassi Creek. I tried to find some kind of composition showing some water flow. There were not many options. In fact, I just found one small little cascade on the creek, and that was it. I crossed over to it carefully, wondering if I would sink through the snow into a deep pool of water. I didn’t. I setup my tripod, took the photo, then began the long slow trek back to Ice House Rd. At least it was mostly downhill on the way back, but it is still a long snowshoe and I was quite tired.

By the way, if you are thinking of heading out to Bassi Falls in the early spring, beware. There is a fallen tree across the road. In fact, it just fell while I was up at Bassi Falls. It was not me who did it! But I came across it on the way back and was quite sure I did not climb over it on the way up to the falls. Good thing it did not fall on me while I was crossing there. Anyway, you might want to bring a chain saw or something if you come up here in the spring before the forest service people get up there.