Leon Turnbull Photography

Well … I had plans for a very cool epic hike this weekend, and it involved my favorite of favorite trails and my favorite of favorite series of waterfalls, not to mention my favorite of favorite rivers. And did I mention a brand new waterfall to see as well?

Unfortunately, something got in the way of my epic plans. More like hundreds of things. Little things. Little annoying things. Very bad things.

My plan was to hike down my favorite trail, the Canyon Creek Trail to the North Fork American River. Canyon Creek is a waterfaller’s paradise. There are at least seven significant waterfalls on this creek, all of them are fabulous, though some are difficult and dangerous to get to. When it is rainy, this trail can be very treacherous in places. But today, the trail was dry, not so treacherous, and the creek and waterfalls were still flowing very well.

I started out hiking before sunrise. Since it was a sunny day, I wanted to be down at the Big Waterfall as early as possible. Everything was going pretty good until I got down on the Canyon Creek trail proper. That is when I noticed little black things crawling up my leg. Bad things. Ticks! We’re not talking about 1 or 2 ticks, we’re talking about hundreds of them along the trail. I could see them on the grasses along the trail. But so many I could not see. At this time of year, the grasses are quite long, overgrowing onto the trail, and it is impossible to avoid brushing against them. In the two miles or so down to the first waterfall on Canyon Creek (pictured here), I literally had to pluck AT LEAST 50 ticks off my legs and pants. I am seriously not exaggerating. I was stopping about every 30 seconds or so to check my legs for new buggers. They all seem to know exactly where to go once they get onto your leg. Up. Up to certain “softer” areas that are “juicier”. How do they all know this? Some of these ticks were HUGE too. There were some that I would say were 10 times larger than the normal tick. Dang, I’m sure glad none of those ones bit into me. Actually, none of the ticks bit me. And I am very thankful for that. My constant checking every 30 seconds seemed to work, as they did not have enough time to crawl up under my shorts (though some came rather close).

But I found all this incredibly dis-heartening. They totally ruined my hike. My favorite of favorite hikes. Indeed, this might not be my favorite hike anymore because of all the ticks I had to brush off today. And it is really making me re-think all the other grand hikes I had planned for this spring as well. One or two ticks I can handle. But 50? No way. I decided to turn around before I got down to the Big Waterfall on Canyon Creek. I knew that the lower section of this trail and where I wanted to go would be more overgrown than the top part, and that meant the tick situation would be even far worse down there. I think I made the right decision but I was quite bummed about having to turn back. Well, at least I got to see one waterfall today.

One last thought for the day though: I am indeed very thankful that I did not get any tick bites, and I thank God for this. I did get a tick bite on my hike to Stevens Creek last week, the first one I’ve had in years, and tick bites can be really bad (not to mention, darn itchy!). And interestingly, I think God was protecting me last week. I actually had intended to go to Canyon Creek last weekend instead. It was a cold and rainy day, however, and I decided to stay home instead. If I had gone, I think I would have ended up with a ton of tick bites. I would have been wearing my black rain pants on that hike, and I would not have been able to see the ticks on my legs. I’m quite sure that I would have ended up with many bites. But today it was sunny, and I was wearing my light colored shorts. It was quite easy to see all the ticks on my bare legs and shorts, and I was able to pluck them off before they did any damage. Anyway, just my thought for the day … though I still wish I could have finished my intended hike.

Last week after work I went to visit Stevens Creek Falls in Colfax. Technically, the creek is actually not named Stevens Creek and the trail is called Stevens Trail, not Stevens Creek Trail. The creek is really called Robbers Ravine. But everyone calls this Stevens Creek Falls. Go figure. Anyway, the creek is flowing fairly well right now, and it is a good time to visit the waterfall. That is, if you love poison oak and ticks!

It is a very easy trail to the waterfall, but poison oak abounds along the trail. It can be avoided if you are keeping your eyes open. However, once you get to the waterfall, if you want to get a decent view, you need to scramble off trail, and that means pushing through a swath of poison oak. I was trying like crazy to avoid the stuff, but it was pretty much impossible. Nonetheless, I only ended up with one very small bit of itch on my stomach afterwards, so I guess I did pretty well. But not so well on the ticks. I picked up four of them while scrambling up to the falls, and one of them bit me pretty good. Dang! Ticks are far worse than poison oak and some of them carry awful stuff along with them. But I think I got it out before it did too much damage and I just ended up with a big red spot that itched for a couple days. That is the first tick bite I have had in quite a few years, and I was not happy about it.

Anyway, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. I actually arrived at the falls too early. The sun was still shining brightly on the waterfall. It is in an open area and facing south, so in direct line of the evening sun. Rather than just sit and wait for an hour, I decided to continue hiking on down the trail. I had never been past the falls before, but I knew the trail went all the way down to the river. I expected it to start descending rather quickly after the falls. But no. It stayed very high, following a contour along the river, high above it. The views were astounding, and wildflowers abundant along the trail (along with poison oak of course). Hundreds of feet below me, I saw some kayakers and rafters going down the river, and I watched them (and heard them) as they went over a rapid. The river was loud, even so far below. I continued hiking for about 30 minutes, still with no sign that the trail was going to descend down to the river, then I decided to turn around and go back to the falls.

There was still sun shining on the falls when I got back to it, so I first decided to work on the lower falls. The lower section is a bugger to get down to, however. Very steep and dangerous drop-offs. I have been down there before, and wasn’t in the mood this day. So I decided to get a picture from the top of the lower falls looking down instead. That is when I almost lost my expensive polarizer filter over the falls. I dropped it, and it started rolling down to the creek and over the falls. If it had done that, it would have been gone. But I kicked out my foot to block it just in time, and it ended up in the creek but did not go over the falls. Whew, that was a close one!

After shooting the lower section, I worked my way up through the oak and ticks to the upper section of the falls. It is a very difficult waterfall to shoot, and it is not very photogenic. The waterfall is 337 ft. high, but you cannot see much of it from any point, plus there are many obstructions of bushes and trees as well. This section here is the middle section of the falls, and to get this angle, I had to scramble up on top of a big rock. After doing so, I wondered how I would possibly get down (but I guess it wasn’t too difficult actually), and I had to spend about 5 minutes on top of the rock trying to get my tripod positioned in a secure enough spot. By the time I was ready, the sun was just starting to leave but was still casting a warm glow on the top section of the falls.

Here’s another of the many waterfalls on Table Mountain, from my outing a couple weeks ago there. This one is called Ravine Falls.

I suspect now that the waterfalls on Table Mountain have pretty much dried up. However, with the April storm we had a couple days ago, they might have new life for a couple days. Unfortunately, I just cannot take a day off work and go up there, and by the time the weekend comes, they’ll be mostly dried up again.

I know everyone around here is longing for spring and warm weather. But not me. I’m quite happy about this latest “winter” storm. It means more flow for the waterfalls. I’m already trying to figure out where I want to go next weekend. Decisions decisions. Stay tuned for more …

One day after work this past week, I headed up to my local Traverse Creek Falls. Since my family was out of town, it was a good time to head out into the hills, but I didn’t want to go very far, so I figured Traverse Creek was the ticket.

I was expecting and hoping that Traverse Creek Falls would be in “double” mode (and lo and behold, it was!). I had not yet any good pictures of it in double mode, and double mode is the prettiest of its many forms. When I arrived at the trailhead, though, I could see that the tributary creeks (which flow into Traverse Creek) looked rather full, so I kinda thought that the waterfall might still be in “torrent” mode, which would have been surprising considering that we have not had much rain recently. Once I got down to Traverse Creek, however, I could see that the flow was definitely not torrent mode, and it was actually flowing quite nicely as a beautiful double falls.

I had brought my water shoes along with me, because I knew I wanted to cross the creek this time, and take pics from the other side of the creek. The water was rather cold as I waded across it, but I was actually not standing quite in the creek to take this shot, though my tripod was (and it didn’t like it – ha ha).

Afterwards, I packed up my stuff and headed back up the hill. This is one of the places that I usually try to remember to bring a garbage bag and pick up any trash on the way out. In the past, this place has been a total trash heap. I picked up a bit of trash, more than I would like to see here, but I have definitely seen it worse. This is just one thing that I completely fail to understand. How can people be so completely inconsiderate, disrespectful, and stupid? Are they really so incapable, that they cannot take out the trash that they bring in? Why ruin such a nice area for everyone else (and for yourself, when you come back in the future)? Anyway, end rant. Have a nice day.

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Last week I took the family on a drive in a hunt for wildflowers. It has been warm and sunny here in California, the wildflowers are a popping now. We found this nice little place near Ione, a beautiful field display of poppies and white popcorn flowers. The kids had fun playing amongst the flowers, and my wife had fun taking pics with her iPhone. It was a lovely evening.