Leon Turnbull Photography

I returned again to Dutch Creek in Coloma and this time I came away with what I was looking for.

The forecast was for a steady rain all day long. I was prepared to get wet. But it is difficult to take photos when it is raining hard (not to mention that I would be totally soaked after 5 minutes of hiking). But I woke up to a very light rain in Folsom. Okay I thought, I can deal with this. This is nothing. Almost perfect hiking weather. Off I went to Coloma. Of course, by the time I got to Placerville that light rain turned into a hard rain. Oh I thought, maybe I can’t deal with this after all. Nonetheless, I continued on to Coloma, and by the time I got there, it was back to a nice light rain again. Sweet. The entire hike up to the waterfalls was perfect, just a light rain, and a very lovely hike.

Except that the trail had turned into an obstacle course. There were a large number of downed trees across the trail from the recent storms we had in January. The last time I was here (which was this year, before the storms) the trees were not down. Interestingly enough, there were well worn paths around the downed trees. That meant that a number of people had been up here in the last month. I was a bit surprised about that, because I didn’t think this was such a popular trail (I’ve certainly never seen anyone else hiking on this trail). Dutch Creek was flowing along nicely, not too crazy, but a definite good flow to it.

Now of course once I arrived at the waterfalls, the nice light rain had turned into a hard rain again. Doh! I scrambled up to the top of the waterfall on Johntown Creek in the now hard rain. It is a difficult scramble up to the top. It is also a dangerous spot right where the two creeks (Johntown and Dutch) come together forming two beautiful waterfalls side by side. I was a bit worried about that spot, as the rain makes the rocks and dirt very slippery, and a fall there would not be a good thing. But I found a way around that spot, an easy and safe path leading up to the top (though steep of course). Once at the top, I continued up to Upper Johntown Creek Falls, which was my primary goal for the day. First though, I continued hiking on the trail past the upper falls. I was curious how far the trail went, and if there might be additional waterfalls along the creek. I did not find any more waterfalls, just one small cascade, but the trail continued for quite a distance, and I followed it until the creek leveled out in a little clearing, then turned back.

Upper Johntown Creek Falls is 60 ft. high. The last time I was here, the creek was in flood and it was roaring. I could not get a good photo of the falls at that time because I could not get close enough to the waterfall due to the raging creek. That was also the time I almost lost my wallet, due to a broken zipper on my backpack. This time, I had a new backpack, firmly zipped up, and the creek was not in flood. Still though, in order to get close enough to the waterfall to photograph it, I had to cross the creek twice. And that required getting wet (actually, I was already quite wet due to the rain). I had anticipated this though, and I had brought my water shoes. So I put them on, and was able to cross the creek without too much difficulty. On the other side, I had to scramble a bit upstream, then cross back again, in order to get in this position right in front of the waterfall. It is a tough beast to photograph, as the creek makes a right hand turn halfway down the falls, in a steep narrow canyon. Thankfully, by the time I got ready to photograph the falls, the rain had subsided. Indeed, it had stopped. It was supposed to rain all day long, and now the rain had completely stopped. I was able to go back and photograph the other waterfalls, and had no more rain for the rest of the day – that was a very pleasant blessing.

This one is from my outing last weekend.

This is the third waterfall on Arroyo San Jose (35 ft. high). It is probably my favourite of the four waterfalls on this creek, and it is probably because of the difficulty getting to it. It is quite dangerous to get down to, requiring a very steep descent, on a slippery slope, with not much to hold onto. Once down at the falls, it is particularly difficult to photograph as well. You cannot get right down to the creek, so I was taking the photo on the side of the steep slope, planting my foot against a tree for support so I would not fall, and trying to setup my camera and tripod in a stable enough spot. It worked, and I kinda like how this photo turned out, actually. It is not clean due to the branches at the bottom, but I do not think they detract from the photo, in fact I think they enhance it in some odd way.

This is the second place I went to in Novato last weekend: Pacheco Creek.

Pacheco Creek was not flowing very well at all, compared to Arroyo San Jose. I was thoroughly disappointed as I hiked up this canyon. I was also a bit disappointed at the height of this waterfall. It is 24 ft. high, and I had been told it was quite a bit higher than that. Still though, it is a pretty one and worth seeing, though it would be better when the creek is flowing much higher.

Like Arroyo San Jose, it does take quite a lot of work to get up to it, and requires hiking along steep, narrow paths, with dangerous drop-offs. That is just par for the course, I suppose.

After doing these two hikes in Novato, I had initially thought of going to Cataract Creek on Mt. Tam, and I knew that one would be flowing very well. But all this scrambling and steep hiking made me much too tired, so I decided to leave that hike for another day.

I had a very nice morning outing in Novato. Though will I ever return to these two waterfalls? I do not know.

This weekend I decided to head on over to Marin County to find some new waterfalls. With all the recent rain we’ve had, I figured this was the best time to seek out waterfalls in the Bay area. The vast majority of waterfalls in that area only flow well right after heavy rains. We did have heavy rains. But the thing is, the last rain was about a week ago. Would I be too late? The answer is yes and no.

My goal for this day: Novato.

I had heard about some new waterfalls in this area, and I figured this was a good time to check them out. Sometimes I like going to waterfalls that I have visited in the past. Sometimes I like going to new waterfalls that I have not visited before. This weekend I wanted to see some new ones.

The name of the first set of waterfalls I found was Arroyo San Jose Falls. I cannot pronounce it (just ask my wife), but I can tell you that this creek holds some gorgeous waterfalls. There are actually four separate waterfalls on this creek, all in the range of about 25 to 60 feet high. The one pictured here is the first waterfall you come to (37 ft. high), a very short easy hike up the creek from the trailhead.

In order to get to the upper ones, however, requires a bit of work. The trail continues up above this first waterfall. It is steep, it is slippery, it is narrow in places, and it has dangerous drop-offs. After last week at Canyon Creek, I was not really in the mind of doing any difficult or dangerous scrambling. But I have come to realize that virtually all waterfalls can be quite dangerous. Even if it is an easy and safe hike to the waterfall (like this first one here), if you do any scrambling around the waterfall (like trying to get to the top of it, for instance), then all of a sudden you are in a danger zone and need to be extremely careful. So … I was very careful of course, as I scrambled up to waterfalls two, three, and four. Number two was the smallest one, and it was fairly easy to get to. Number three was the most difficult, requiring a steep, dangerous, descent down to the creek. I almost didn’t go down to it, but finally found some branches to hang onto, to guide my descent. Number four was the biggest one, 55+ ft. high. All of them were quite pretty, though not all easy to photograph. And the creek was flowing fairly well too, a week after the rains, but it was not “rushing”, and I was hoping that it would be flowing a little better than it was. That is the trouble with most of these Bay area waterfalls. You really need to get to them the next day after a storm. Still though, this one was sure pretty nice.

It is a long two day drive from Rossland to Folsom. On the way back, we always stop overnight at Bend Oregon, about half way. Usually, I like to get up in the morning for sunrise photography in the Bend area, if I can.

This time … I got my family up as well. My idea was to drive up to Sparks Lake for sunrise. I did not realize, however, that the road to Sparks Lake is closed in the winter. This idea was just a last minute whim, and I did not do any research prior, so that is my excuse. I did know and have seen many beautiful photos from this lake, so I knew it was a place I wanted to shoot and I thought this would be a great time to do it. I got the family up very early, and we headed out, all the way up to Mt. Bachelor ski area. Then the road disappeared! What happened to it? I finally realized that the road that continued on to the lake was closed. Dang! So much for that great idea.

It was a bummer too because it was looking like a pretty wicked sunrise was coming on. Off in the distance to the east, I could see some amazing color starting to happen. But no place to shoot from. We turned around and instead of going back to Bend, we took the turnoff down to Sun River, which would be a short cut for us on our way back to California.

All the way down that road I looked for an opening through the trees where I could shoot sunrise. Nothing. Finally, at the bottom we came to a crossing of the Deschutes River, and I said “this is the spot”, slamming on the brakes and stopping the car on the side of the road, and then scrambling down to the edge of the river, just in time to get the last of the really nice sunrise color. Not too bad at all.