Leon Turnbull Photography

I don’t know what I was thinking with this one. I knew it was iffy getting down to the bottom of Lower Battle Creek Falls, and that was in the summer when there is no snow. In the winter, it is downright treacherous. I should have known that. But I naively figured I could find a way down there. With my dog too.
Well, I wasn’t actually planning on going to this waterfall anyway. I was looking for another waterfall on Battle Creek. But snow stopped me on that quest. I didn’t want to just go home without having anything to show for my getting up so darn golly early, so I figured to try this waterfall since I was in the area. It was rather a fun hike from the highway down to the creek over the snow. Other people had gone down there, so it was easy to follow in their tracks. Once down at the creek, I needed to work my way downstream to the falls. No more tracks to follow. Without snowshoes, it was difficult, and I often fell through the snow. But the snow was hard, so it wasn’t too bad. Battle Creek was a winter wonderland, with plenty of snow and ice all around. The trail goes right along the creek, and it was impossible to tell where the creek was and where the land was. It would have been easy to plop right through the snow into the water. Not a good thing. I decided to take the high road, well above the creek. Eventually, I made it down to the top of the falls. Okay, it was a lot more steep and treacherous than I remembered. With the hard snow, one slip and I would’ve been down at the bottom in a couple seconds, and it would not have been pretty. I stood there pondering the situation for quite awhile. How could I get down there? My dog is apparently much smarter than I am. She was having none of this pondering nonsense. No way was she going to go down to the bottom. Eventually, I decided to heed my dog’s advice and give up trying to get down. But I just had to get some sort of photo out of this adventure, so I took this shot from the top of the falls. It was a bit dicey shooting from this location as well. It is not a great shot, but it does show just how pretty this waterfall is in the winter. Too bad you can’t get down to the bottom without killing yourself in the process.