Leon Turnbull Photography

Eastern Sierra Waterfalls Part I ….

This backpacking trip in the Eastern Sierra has been on my list for a long time. They say the views on this trail are among the best, if not the absolute best, in the entire Sierra Nevada. Well, I made it a priority to do it this year. I dragged my son Jadon along with me, as well. He actually came willingly, and not kicking and screaming. Timing is critical for this hike. I had to wait for the road to open (which is usually very late, but due to the drought was open much earlier this year), and early enough so the waterfalls are still flowing, and most important early enough to avoid the mosquitoes. I went the weekend after the road first opened, and I think I timed it perfectly.

We arrived at Mammoth Lakes in the afternoon and picked up our wilderness permits. The Ranger said that the trail  to 1000 Island Lake was clear but Garnet Lake was still snowed in. That was to be our second night destination. Humph, well we would just have to see. Her information was a week old, and it was a very warm week, so I had high doubts her information was still valid. We had an early and delicious pizza dinner, and then went on a couple evening waterfall hikes.

I have been to the upper Mammoth Creek Falls before but it was 7 years ago. For some reason I did not make it to the lower Falls and I do not remember why. Now there is a bike path all the way down the road from the Twin Lakes which was not there before, so you have to park up at the Twin Lakes outlet. No big deal. We walked down the bike trail and found an easy going path down to the lower Falls. It is perhaps smaller than the upper Falls but much nicer because it is more of a drop than a cascade. We then went to the upper Falls and also to the Twin Lakes waterfall, and then we drove out to our backpacking trailhead for the night. All those photos will be upcoming.

The thermometer said it got down to 33° at night but we were not cold. if you remember, I previously said on my first test of my new sleeping bag at Yosemite that I was freezing cold even though it was only about 45°. Since then, the sleeping bag has kept me cozy warm at night. Maybe it just needed a couple nights to break in. Do sleeping bags need a breaking in period? Then again, maybe I just got lucky tonight. Who knows.

Well we got up very early. I wanted to get to a couple waterfalls on the trail before the sun got to them so I made my son walk quickly for the first couple miles. It was going to be a very difficult and long hike that day but I promised him that after these waterfalls we would take it easy for the rest of the hike, and we did. The first waterfall was the Shadow Lake waterfall which I shot from a distance away. The second one was this falls on the Middle Fork San Joaquin River. This is the first of eight significant waterfalls on this river (above Devils Postpile) and they are little documented. That is surprising since the trail goes right by them. This first one is the biggest and most impressive, about 50 feet high. I had thought it might be to cliffy to get down to see this one, but it turned out to be fairly easy. Even Jadon  got down to it easily.

After seeing this falls we took it easy as promised. It is in total about a 7 mile hike to 1000 Island Lake and it climbs 1600 feet in elevation, but it is the high elevation that makes it so difficult. The elevation up at the lake is 9800 feet. I have heard that some people have done this as a day hike but I do not see how. There is no way I could do it because of the high elevation. I would die. We arrived at the lake a little before noon and we were both dead tired. All in all I thought Jadon  did extremely well. That was a very difficult hike. We ate our lunch and then found a campsite, which we shared with the Marmots and pikas; one marmot in particular was trying hard to get into our bear canister with us standing right there. He did not mind us being there whatsoever. Fortunately, marmots are not any smarter than bears and he could not open the bear canister. Something about opposable thumbs. Actually, it’s hard enough for humans to open, never mind bears.

Thousand Island Lake is lovely and the views of Ritter peak and Ritter range are astounding. But … I was not really overly impressed with it. There is absolutely zero shade at the lake and it was a very hot day and there was nowhere to hide from the sun. Also it is a very popular destination and there were quite a few other backpackers at the lake. One large group in particular quite annoyed me. Even though they were camped quite a distance away from us, they were perturbingly loud and woke us well before sunrise. I guess they got up and went down to the lakeside to see the sunrise, but they were very loud and obnoxious and their sound carried across the lake and woke us. Argh. Have some respect, people. I got up myself to shoot the sunrise, but unfortunately the sky was perfectly clear with no clouds or any color. It still would have been quite peaceful and lovely, if I could have zapped that large group out of existence. Ah well. We took it easy that morning, had a relaxing breakfast, and slowly packed up our gear for that day’s hike.

More to come …

We have had some awesome beautiful rainy weather this May after a very dry winter. It has kept the creeks flowing, though it certainly is not helping the drought situation since we need so much more rain, and unfortunately it is now coming to an end and summer is going to kick in with a vengeance this week (it looks like, anyway).

I had not been up to the sacred lake yet this year (Tahoe, of course), but it was our anniversary on Friday and at the last minute I thought Tara and I should have a nice romantic getaway for a night at our favorite lake. Even though it was the long weekend, I was able to book a night at a nice hotel at the last minute (pat myself on back). The rain prevented any nice sunset or sunrise pictures from happening while we were up there, but we had a lovely day nonetheless.

On the way back I was wanting to do a waterfall hike with Tara to somewhere, but where. I hummed and hawed about where to go. The rain was coming in for one last drenching. I finally decided that we should go home the long way around, up around the lake to the north. A stop at Incline Village and a short hike leads to this small waterfall on Third Creek (though it is not on Third Creek, it is on a small tributary of Third Creek). The drainage is small on this creek, but it had some decent flow due to the rain.

I measured this falls to be 24 ft. high. It does not look that high, in fact it looks more like 15 ft. high or so, but the measuring sticks do not lie (usually) and it will qualify for my website. I continued following the trail up the mountain, I was sure there were more waterfalls on this creek, and I went quite a ways up but I found none. I could see a bigger one, possibly, far up the mountain, but that would have been impossible to reach. Anyway, this one is a nice little waterfall on the way home, and we had a nice time (in the rain).

This is Hell Hole Falls. It is a pretty cool little waterfall dropping into the reservoir. When the reservoir is full it is completely inundated, but of course now the reservoir is about empty. I estimate it is about 25 ft. high maybe a bit higher. I did not have my measuring sticks with me this time, to help save on carrying weight. As you can see, it is impossible to get up close to it, unless you want to swim. Not for me, it would have been mighty cold to do that.

Well I bought all this fancy equipment for backpacking, I figured it was time to try it out. The idea being that with backpacking I can get to more waterfalls then I could on just a day hike. I tried. I got to two waterfalls but I had three others in mind that I could not get to due too steep terrain and crazy thick brush. I was hoping to take my son with me this time but he was feeling a bit sick this weekend. I did not let that stop me, however, and this became my first ever solo backpack and it was pretty darn good.

I would backpack to the end of Hell Hole reservoir where there are two waterfalls and camp in the vicinity. Good plan. Easy smeasy. Right? Not quite. It is a long drive to the trailhead and it was rather interesting. This was my first time driving through the King fire that devastated this area last summer. The destruction is catastrophic. Wow. When I drove through the Rim fire earlier this spring there was lots of growth and wildflowers blooming abundantly everywhere. Not so here, not even close, but give it another year perhaps. I thought the Hell Hole area would be equally devastated but it did not seem to get hit hard. I was surprised but pleased about that.

The trail follows a jeep trail on the north side of the reservoir. This is not any jeep trail for the casual driver. It is only for the sick. Crazy steep descents, and huge boulders to manipulate. It is 6 miles to the end with a descent of 1000 ft. It was not going to be fun coming back up the next day. There were other cars at the trailhead which meant some of those “sick” people were out on the trail with their jeeps. I would not drive this trail even if I had one of those jeeps. I wondered if I would see them, and yes I caught up to them 3.5 miles in. A whole bunch of them. They were stopped right in the middle of the road at a particularly nasty steep section. I asked the first guy I saw if they were stuck. He said no, just hanging out. Really? Hanging out in the middle of the road? The next guys I talked to said their car was broke and they’ve been there since 3am. I was not sure what to believe now. I continued on my way leaving them behind in the dust of my boot tracks. They seemed nice but I did have to pick up one of their beer cans on my way back. You have a car and you can’t take your trash but instead have to let the weary backpacker with a heavy load pick it up? Argh. At least it was only one can. If I had to pick up two my back would have broke.

The jeep trail ends at 4 miles officially, but not exactly. It continues straight through the middle of the reservoir instead of alongside it. Well that’s ok I guess because the reservoir is so low due to the drought. I had been fairly certain (though I’m not sure why, now) that a hiking trail continued from here but I found no such thing. So instead I just walked through the reservoir. It was very easy. In the meantime the jeepers got their car fixed (or whatever) and passed me up along this section (quite noisily I might add), but I caught up to them again at the end of the reservoir. I found out they were going to camp at the first waterfall. Ok then, I’ll not be camping there, I was hoping for a quiet and peaceful night, not a noisy one – but the guys I talked to did seem quite nice and talkative and generous – even offering me a ride. They said they had seen mountain lion tracks in the sand when they were here a couple weeks ago and were freaked out about that, and indeed, there were lots of animal tracks in the soft sand. The deer prints were easy to recognize, but there were also bigger prints. Bear? Lion? Yes on both counts, I think. Now I was starting to freak out myself. Well anyway, I beat them to the first waterfall (I am superhuman and can walk faster than most vehicles). Hell Hole Falls is a nice 30 footer dropping into the reservoir (the empty reservoir). When the lake is full this waterfall is completely inundated. Today it was just gorgeous.

I continued on to Five Lakes Creek. Again I understood there should be a trail all the way to this falls but I could not find it. I decided to cross the creek and try on the other side. I had been expecting that all creek crossings including this one and the Rubicon River I would be able to rock hop. This crossing, however, was up to my waist and my pants got soaked. Very bad. I might need to wear them tonight if it gets cold. On the other side there was no trail either. I wandered through the forest this way and that way, and eventually found the falls. I could hear it well before I could see it. It was incredible. I was thinking this would be about 40 ft high but actually it is more like 70 ft high. Absolutely spectacular and the flow was quite strong. Amazing.

I had wanted to camp at the waterfall but there were no good spots plus there were mosquitoes so I decided to go back to the Rubicon River and camp there (but not near the jeepers). I found a nice spot, no mosquitoes, there were black flies but they were not too horrible. It was not very cold that night, the temperature was in the neighborhood of 45 degrees (thankfully – I thought it was going to be much colder), but nonetheless I still had trouble sleeping. Too wound up and over tired, I guess.

In the morning, I had wanted to explore further up river and find some more waterfalls before heading back home. That meant crossing the Rubicon. No rock hopping allowed and it sure “looked” mighty cold. I hummed and hawed, and finally decided to go for it. It was not as cold as I imagined in my head and I got across. Now .. supposedly there is a trail on the other side going up the river. It is a very old trail, however, not maintained in decades, I found traces of it here and there, but eventually it petered out into a mass of thick manzanita brush. There was no continuing possible, and I gave up. It was disappointing, but the going was just too extremely difficult and I still had a very tough hike to make back up the mountain.

I saw no trace of the jeepers on my hike back. I’m not sure where they went to, their cars were still parked at the trailhead. The jeep road must continue up river, but where? I need to figure that out for next time, it would probably be much easier than negotiating that old, mostly non-existent trail. It started to rain lightly on the hike back, threatening for more, but not materializing. It felt nice and cool on my perspiring face. As I got closer to the car, and as I was going along talking to myself and to God about the rain, I said to God: “ok Lord, bring it on”. Immediately, within seconds of saying that, He brought it. It started hailing in buckets, and soon changed into a pouring, pelting rain, which continued for the rest of the hike to the car. On hindsight, I guess I should not have said that, but I was only 10 minutes from the car, and although I was drenched, the rain sure felt good, and fun. It would not have been fun if I had to camp that night, but I did not, so hey, it was fun. One more plus thing: on the drive back home, I saw my first bear of the season along side the road. Yay, I love seeing bears! It would have been nicer if I had seen one in the wilderness while I was hiking, but I’ll take this one. A nice little cap to my awesome first solo backpacking adventure.

After the debacle at Yosemite I felt I had to get in one more good hike before going back to work. Wrights Lake in the Desolation Wilderness was the ticket. 

Getting to Wrights Lake early in spring is impossible. In a normal year it is not accessible until at least mid June. It is usually among the very last of the roads to open. Yet I’ve always wanted to get up there in spring. By mid June the creeks are not flowing much (and we won’t even mention the mosquitoes). This year, this awful drought year, Wrights Lake is already open. It actually has been open for more than a month now. I finally got the determination to make the trip. I hoped with the recent two feet of snow which is now melting profusely, the waterfalls would have some good flow happening. 

I hoped to see three new waterfalls all in good light. Eleven miles of hiking. In order to do that I had to get up at 3:30AM. Ugh. I almost didn’t make it but I forced myself. 

There was snow on the ground when I arrived so I decided to carry my very heavy snow shoes. I didn’t need them to start at 7000 ft but I would be climbing up to 7900 ft. I did not use them until I hit 7900 ft, at which point I found a lot of snow all of a sudden. I certainly needed them, I would have been skumped if I did not take them. 

The first falls was at Umpa Lake. Just a small one, it was nice but the flow was low. I was expecting a lot more snow melt and it was a bit disappointing. After that I scooted over to Gertrude Lake. I calculated I had until 8AM before it would be in sun. However it took much longer than anticipated to get over there, and I arrived at 8:30AM. Too late, right? Well maybe not. The lower section was in the sun but the upper section was not. I crossed the creek and quickly climbed up to the upper tier (which was slightly crazy and involved almost breaking my foot stepping into an unseen hole).  But I was able to get a shot. The third falls is on the same creek but further down stream. It was the nicest of the three but it was in full sun when I arrived. Which really bugged me because I had calculated it would be in shade until 11AM. I thought I had lots of time.  Not even close. The same thing happened to me at nearby Crystal Basin Falls a couple years ago. There is something weird in the terrain there. I can’t explain it. 

Well I had my lunch at the lower falls then made the long hike back to the car, getting sun burned in the process. But it was worth it. A glorious day in the Desolation Wilderness.