Leon Turnbull Photography

Why does the Devil always get nice places named after him anyway? Hmmm? Devils Falls? Devils Peak? Devils Punchbowl? Devils Canyon? That should not be allowed, I think.

Here is the standard view of Devil’s Falls, or the one that I like to shoot the most anyway. It involves crossing the creek, which is always tricky because the rocks are always wet and slick. You really gotta be careful doing this. I was, and there were no unfortunate mishaps. We have a little bit more rain coming tonight, but I don’t think it will be too much. It is still early in the season. I must keep telling myself this. 😉

I said I was not going to share my photo of Shirttail Creek Falls. I lied. Here it is. It is not a great shot of this waterfall by any means, but it turned out ok. There is a huge dropoff here into the creek, and a narrow, wet, slippery ledge, with no handholds, that you can walk out on to get a view of the falls. I was not feeling too daring so I did not go out very far this time. Next time … next time I think I will try to get to the bottom of the falls. Not sure how, but perhaps if I approach it from downstream, I will be able to get down to creek level. Maybe.

So does everyone know how Shirttail Creek got its name? It is a pretty interesting story. Back in the year 1849, two miners were prospecting in the area and happened to come across another miner panning for gold. He was wearing absolutely nothing in the way of clothing except for a shirt, not overly lengthy. Embarrased, the newcomers asked the other miner what the name of the place was. After glancing down at his outfit, he answered, “do not know any name for it yet, but we might as well call it shirt-tail, as anything else”. Thus, the creek was named.

In my strange mind waterfall season begins after the first storm of the winter. That storm happened this week, mid October. The mountains in the Tahoe area received anywhere from 2 to 3 feet of snow from this storm, not a bad start to the year as this is much earlier than usual for our first storm. So all this means that waterfall season has begun! To celebrate, I headed over to Devils Falls after work on Wednesday. I was anticipating the area would have had much more rain than they actually received on Wednesday so I’m not really sure what effect the rain had in the creek’s flow, but it was pretty low. I tried for a different view of the falls from the left side this time. After shooting this waterfall I went down to Shirttail Falls but it was almost dark when I got down there and I was not happy with my photo so I’m not sure if I’ll share it. That creek had low flow as well. I was also freaked about that ledge and I did not venture as far out on it as I have done in the past. There is nothing to hold onto and the ground was wet and potentially slippery (with a huge dropoff). I think I’m also getting more wimpy in my old age. Haha.

The other main reason for going to Devils Falls was to check out the effects of the forest fire that happened here in the summer. It began very near Devils Falls, however I had heard that the lovely greenery around Devils Falls was not touched by the fire at all. Well it is true that the falls did not seem to get burned but everything around it on all sides sure did. Indeed it is very strange that Devils Falls itself was untouched. The scourge from the fire can be seen from Yankee Jim bridge all the way down the North Fork on the east side of the river as far as I could see. Indian Creek Falls was very likely burned. Shirttail Creek Falls was definitely burned and even the south side of Shirttail Creek was burned. I did not venture up to Mexican Gulch Falls as it was dark (but now that I’m thinking about it, I realize I should have). It was definitely very interesting to see the area and the fire’s effects. It also seemed that the road down to the falls is getting worse, which may or may not have anything to do with the fire. It seems narrower and more eroded than ever before. It is probably just my imagination.

This past weekend our family went up north to visit the in-laws to celebrate a couple birthdays in the family. It was definitely nice to get away from home for a bit. On Saturday, I went out hiking with my son, Jadon, to this waterfall in Lassen National Forest, called Lower Deer Creek Falls. I have been here before, and although I tried, I could not really get any different kind of photo from here. The creek was flowing a bit too strong to get across it, but I did get into the middle of the stream as far as I could to take this photo. As usual, it was extremely c-c-c-c-c-old. However, after standing in the stream for awhile, my feet got numb enough such that I did not even notice the cold. haha.

Anyway, though I have been here before, I chose this spot again for a couple reasons. One, I wanted an easy enough hike that I could take Jadon on. Second, it was on the way to Chico where we were having lunch with the family afterwards, so it made perfect sense to go here. Third, I was hoping to see the California gray wolf.

California has one wolf as of right now (despite some peoples’ thoughts that there are plenty more), and currently it has been hanging out in western Plumas and eastern Tehama counties for the past couple months or so. This kind of thing interests me a lot, and I have been following its trackings on the Dept of Fish and Game website. They do not tell you exactly where it is, just a vague general area (which of course makes a lot of sense – you would not want any bad people out trying to find it to harm it, for example). I would have loved to have seen the wolf on an early morning hike, but of course the general area of eastern Tehama county is a huge area, and the odds of seeing it on this morning would be astronomical. You would have much better luck finding a needle in a haystack, literally. Indeed it would have been a miracle to see one. Well, I did pray for that miracle. I think the trouble is that my prayers were canceled out by my sons’ prayers, because he was praying that we would NOT see a wolf. And I am quite sure that God likes him much more than me. haha! Ah well, we did not see the wolf of course, but we sure did have a very nice hike together, along with our old dog, Kaya, who also made the trek with us, and I think she probably enjoyed it the best of all of us.

In other news, we are getting our first snow of the year here. Whoopie! It looks like we’ll get about 2 feet of snow or more in the mountains this week. That is pretty amazing for October. Here’s to a great winter (I hope!).

This is the third waterfall in Lundy Canyon. It is 30 ft. high, and one of my favorites in this canyon. I took a bit too much time here though. The fourth waterfall is immediately above this one, and by the time I was done shooting this waterfall, the fourth one was already in the sun. Too late to photograph it. If I was thinking properly I would have shot the upper one first, then came back down to this one. It was too early in the morning to think properly. Ah well, c’est la vie.

The bit of fall color on the left here was really nice, though it was past peak for color, and I really liked the little swirly in the foreground, so I used a nice long exposure to bring it out prominently. The log across the middle of the falls I did not like, and it was not there last time I was here, but it seemed like it would be far too much effort to try to get it out of there, so I left it for nature to remove on its own will.