Leon Turnbull Photography

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.

I decided to sleep in this weekend instead of going out hiking. I was planning a hike to see some fall colors (no waterfalls), but just felt more like staying home with the family. I probably should have gone out hiking because the Fall colors will not last much longer. This shot is from Lundy Canyon last weekend.

After shooting the waterfall from the overlook, I walked over to the base of the falls. There was a path, and it was a fairly easy trek down to it. The other early bird couple I saw at the trailhead followed me down to the falls as well, surprisingly because although there is a path, it does involve a bit of whacking through the bushes.

I was hoping to find a composition of the waterfall with fall colors but there was not really a lot of color around close to the falls. My favorite composition was this one, which doesn’t really have too much color in it at all, but it is a pretty view. This would be quite a great spot to be if the waterfall was gushing, though you would definitely get quite wet trying to get there.

Here is a closer and more intimate view of Lundy Canyon Falls from the overlook. I have lots more pictures from Lundy to process, but I have been busy this week, so I haven’t gotten to them yet.

In other news, I have just started biking to work this week. It takes about 25 minutes one way, it is only 3.5 miles from my house to work. I am excited about this so far, and I felt great the first day of doing this. If I can do this every day, I am going to get in great shape over this fall and winter, and I’ll be ready to get out in the spring to do some serious hiking. Yeah.

It seems that I have been waiting a long long time for Fall to arrive. Well, actually I have been! We had a very long summer here, the heat lasted into the beginning of October. It was crazy, and you know, I hate the hot weather. Well finally things have cooled down here in northern California, and finally the Autumn colors have arrived. It is going to be a very short Fall this year, I think, so I figured I should get out and enjoy it while it is here. So off to Lee Vining did I go on Saturday morning for my favorite Autumn hike: Lundy Canyon.

It is a very long drive over to the Eastern Sierra for just a day hike, but I figure I can manage doing it once or twice a year. I left the house at about 3AM, arriving at the trailhead at 6:30AM, and ready to start my hike up Lundy Canyon in peace. It was not quite as peaceful as I would have liked, however, because shockingly there was another couple starting the hike at about the same time.  I thought I was the only one crazy enough to get up so early for a hike. Not so, apparently. I noticed that they were photographers as well (which explains the craziness), and they caught up with me at the first waterfall.

The first waterfall was decked out in all its Fall glory, surrounded by gorgeous Aspen color. The flow in the creek was less than usual, though not surprising considering the awful winter we had this year. Nonetheless, it was flowing better than I expected it to be. There was still quite a bit of green showing at the lower elevations of Lundy Canyon, but at the same time there was a lot of yellow and orange also. I may have arrived here one week too early for best color, but at the higher elevations (above the second waterfall), most of the trees were already well past peak color.

After shooting from the overlook, I went on down to the base of the waterfall, looking for some more compositions of this lovely waterfall. I had never been to the base of it before, and it was quite easy with a trail leading down to it, but I couldn’t find a good comp that I liked with fall color down so close to the falls. Afterwards, I continued on up the canyon to the upper waterfalls. I thought about going all the way to the top of the monster waterfall, but I decided against it. There is a trail to the top, but it is very steep and a bit on the dangerous side, so instead I just looked for some new comps of that huge waterfall (which was not flowing too great anyway).

On the way back down the trail, I must have passed a hundred people hiking up the trail. It seemed like Fourth of July in Yosemite, with all the people out hiking, but I guess, for the Eastern Sierra, this is the most popular time of year for hiking. It sure seemed like a lot more than usual, however. Back in Lee Vining for lunch and to fill up with gas (at a whopping $5.09 per gallon – oh my!), then made the long drive back home. It was a long but great day in the Eastern Sierra.