Leon Turnbull Photography

I went up towards Donner Summit after work on Friday. I had initially intended to go all the way to Donner Summit, but I realized I did not have enough time to do the hike I wanted, so instead I stopped off at the South Yuba River at Lang Crossing. A friend had informed me about a waterfall in this area and I had to check it out.

The thing is I was not sure exactly where it was or how far of a hike it was. I was thinking it could not have been more than 2 miles, though, so off I went. At least I was sure I was on the correct trail, and it was pretty easy going. After only 1 mile of hiking I came to the waterfall. This is a man made waterfall, created by the dam at Lake Spaulding, which forms the start of the South Yuba River below Lake Spaulding. Even though it is man made, it is still quite a spectacular waterfall, dropping 278 ft. from the lake down into the bottom of the river bed. With the huge snowpack this year, PG&E are letting out a lot of water on the South Yuba, and although the view of the falls is from across the river, it is still quite an amazing sight. It would have been possible to get up closer to this one, but rather on the dangerous side as there are two upstream dams from here. To get down in the river bed for a closer view would be slightly foolish, and deadly if water was released all of a sudden from one of those dams. I did not have much time before dark to get any closer anyway. I did, however, almost lose my tripod. I took my eyes off it for a second, thinking it was stable, but it toppled over, stopping just before it went over the cliff. Geesh, that was a close one. Meanwhile, the mosquitoes were also in a frenzy here. I had to put on two doses of skeeter juice, and only that stopped them from biting me, but not from continuing to buzz around me while I took my photos.

This shot was taken zoomed in with my 100-400 lens. So although the waterfall does not look 300 ft. high from this photo, I assure you that it is. It is an easy hike to get here, and definitely worth going to see.