Leon Turnbull Photography

Well I didn’t have to spend Christmas alone at home like I did Thanksgiving, when I was laid out on my back all weekend. I thought it might happen, as my back was still not healed and driving up north had me concerned. It was going to be a painful trip. How on earth could I even think about hiking? But I WAS thinking about hiking. Heck, even if it was just an easy little one, I was emphatic that I would go hiking this weekend.

I went to Potem Falls first. That was certainly easy enough. Potem Falls was flowing ok, definitely not great, and it was easy enough to cross the stream, but nonetheless it was flowing better than I expected it to be. I will share that photo soon enough.

There is another waterfall near Potem that I have had my eye on for quite awhile. Bear Canyon Falls. Apparently it is only accessible by boat from Lake Shasta. But I was determined to get to it by land. And so I did. It was not exactly what I would call a hard hike … if I had a working back. However, it was harder than I wanted to do, all things considered, and it put my back to the strain. But I came out of it none the worse for wear and that was all I wanted. I did not want to make my back any worse than it was to begin with.

Like I said, it was not a particularly hard hike. However, there is no trail, there is poison oak, there are ticks, and at the end a very steep descent down to the creek. Well that is only partly true. There was only one tick. But that is because it was so darn cold out. And there was a trail. Actually there were two trails down Bear Canyon. They were human trails too, but they were very very old trails, and very very overgrown. They seemed to follow the canyon all the way down to the lake. I was able to follow them for the most part, but it was a challenge. How long ago did these trails see any usage? Years and years and decades and decades no doubt.

I made it down to a cliffy section and I could see where the waterfall was. Now how to get down this cliff to the creek? I found a path and carefully made my descent. It was not too hard, but there was quite a bit of oak to navigate through. Once down at the creek, I had to cross it to get any sort of view of the waterfall. I guess you could say the waterfall was BEARLY flowing. Haha, get it? Actually it was flowing not too bad though it would be very interesting to see it in high water. Nonetheless it is a highly intriguing waterfall, and highly challenging to view or photograph it. It drops through and under some huge rocks hanging over the creek in two segments, and it seems almost as if the waterfall falls underground. It is very dark under those rocks, and you cannot get up close to it or get a complete view of the falls. This is why I chose such a tight and zoomed in composition for my photograph. I think this best shows some of the intriguing-ness that I am talking about. It was a very nice hike to a very interesting little waterfall.