Leon Turnbull Photography

This waterfall shall remain nameless for fear of incriminating myself. ha ha, just kiddin. sort of.

Okay … so Saturday morning the forecast was saying it would be cloudy and overcast. A perfect day for waterfall hunting. And a perfect day for hunting out a brand new waterfall that I have had my scope on for awhile. I get up early, but not too early (because it would be overcast, right), and head out towards Nevada City. But what to my wandering eyes appear, but stars and clear skies! Yes folks, that is correct. The weather man is wrong again. Shocker. We have a big storm coming into the area next week, starting tomorrow. It is supposed to rain all week and a lot. Next weekend should be awesome for waterfallin’ if what I hear is true. But today (Saturday) it should have been cloudy. Alas, it was mostly sunny today. And if I didn’t get to my destination in time, the sun would be wreaking havoc with my newly discovered waterfall while I was trying to photograph it.

But the sun was really the least of my problems.

I approach the trailhead on a very rough road where four wheel drive is definitely a necessity. I have been on this road before so I knew what it was like. But my destination today is different. The trailhead is gated. I knew this would be the case. There were plenty of signs here, such as “dangerous”, “bridge out ahead”, etc. I suspected there would be such signs here.

So I turned around of course and went home.

This was out in the wilderness. Up ahead was an old abandoned mine, thus the reason for the signs. It was the winter. The creek ahead was flowing high, and possibly not crossable (certainly it won’t be crossable two days from now). There was no one around.

And there was a waterfall ahead. Or so I thought.

First though, the creek had to be crossed. It was flowing pretty hard. As I drove over the bridge on the main road up to the trailhead, I could see there was a lot of water in it. The hike follows a road high above the creek and I could hear it roaring. I highly doubted I would be able to cross it up ahead. As I approached the creek crossing, I came upon an old abandoned truck. According to the license plate, it had been there for 12 years, but it looked like it still might start (except that the hood was up, indicating not so). I meandered around the old “bridge” which was now “out”, found a very old tram that crossed the creek (I definitely would not be using that), and eventually found a spot that looked crossable. I waded across. The water only came up to my knees. No problem whatsoever. But if the creek was too much higher it probably would not have been cross-able.

I continued up to the old mine. More signs around now. I saw one very old rust beaten car falling down the hillside – amazing how the miners could drive these cars up these 4×4 roads without 4 wheel drive. Lots of old mining buildings around too, seemingly abandoned. One sign saying “active mining claims” but it was very old. One sign saying “no shooting – people area” (and “thank you” on the back of it); that one was a bit unnerving. I came back to the creek, and saw a couple small waterfalls. Only a couple small waterfalls.

I heard about this place from the late Russell Towle. I would never have known about it otherwise or suspected there might be waterfalls here. He had indicated in his notes there was “a very pretty triple waterfall twenty feet high, and just below it another waterfall perhaps twenty five feet high”. Hmmm … all I saw were two small waterfalls both about 15 feet high. This was one of them, a nice pretty double falls, but not what I was expecting. I did explore further up the canyon. But as I look back at Russell’s notes now, I realize that I may not have gone far enough after all. There could definitely be (and likely are) nicer and bigger waterfalls further up the canyon. Bummer! That means I just may have to go back here someday after all. Hmmm …

In the winter, the town of Rossland BC is often steeped in fog for the entire day. It is gloomy, overcast, blah. Sometimes though, if you go up skiing, you will get above the fog and it will be sunny on the top of the mountain. It is a very cool thing to look down on a sea of fog from the top of Granite Mountain. Sometimes you do not even need to go up to the top of the mountain.

On this particular morning I just drove up the highway, and a short distance past the ski hill, I drove out of the fog and into the clear. I found a turnout and walked back down the highway to this spot (which is at the Hanna Creek drainage). There was a nice beautiful glow on the horizon prior to the sun rising. The sea of fog in the valley is just so incredibly cool. I’ve been wanting a shot like this for a long time. It would have been better if there was some nice clouds for sunrise, but this will do for now, I guess. The valley shown here is actually Warfield/Trail, you can’t see Rossland from this view (if the fog was not there, I mean).

After my great outing at Deer Creek Falls, I stopped at nearby Tulip Creek Falls on the way back. What a difference! Tulip Creek was almost completely frozen over. I could easily walk across the creek on the ice, and indeed, I was standing on the ice to take this photo. It was certainly a very interesting experience, and much different from when I have been to this waterfall in the past.

I was of course not surpised that the waterfall was frozen. The temperature in the area had been very cold for quite a while. When we arrived in Rossland, it was 10 degrees Fahrenheit (-12 Celsius). It did not get much warmer than this the entire week we were there. On this particular morning at Tulip Creek, it was probably even colder than this.

The cold temperatures did not stop my kids from having fun, however. They do not get to play in the snow much in California, and they took full advantage of the time they had at Grandma and Grandpa’s house in Rossland. My parents have a great house with a huge backyard, and it has a steep hill which is great for sledding. I spent many many hours as a child sledding down that hill (and quite a few as an adult too). Both Jadon and Nekoda had a great time this Christmas going out to play and sled down that hill, especially Jadon. He went out every day we were there, no matter what the weather, or even if he was the only one out there. He definitely had a fabulous time there, and I am so happy he took advantage of his time up there.

We also took the kids out ice skating and snow skiing for the first time. They both did very well at both. It took Jadon awhile to get the hang of them, but Nekoda seems to learn things so very fast. In particular, she was a whiz on ice skates. It was as though she was born to skate, a complete natural. I was totally amazed at how well she was skating for the first time on skates (remember, she is only 4 years old). I really wish it wasn’t so expensive and difficult to skate (or ski) here in California, or we would no doubt go much more. It is just totally ridiculous how expensive it is compared to Canada. Ah well, what can you do.

The weather man did it to me again … sorta. The forecast was supposed to be all overcast and cloudy for Saturday, nothing doing for any type of sunrise. I figured if it was going to be overcast, then I should go waterfallin. I wouldn’t really have to worry too much about getting up too early, as the sun would not be a factor.

So my plan was to just go on an easy close-by hike to a local waterfall. American Canyon Creek in Auburn. It is one of my favourite hiking trails in the area because it is not killer, but it is still a pretty good workout. And the waterfall is a very pretty one too, as you can see. It is not a big one, but it drops through a tiny narrow rock gorge, into a large emerald green pool, and it is just so very unique.

It was extremely foggy on Saturday morning, perhaps the foggiest I have seen it here in a long time. But when I got into Auburn, I got above the fog, and the sky was clear with a beautiful sunrise brewing on the horizon. What happened to overcast skies? I was just a little late to go find a nice vantage point for the sunrise so I continued with my original plan for American Canyon Creek. The fog in the valley was fortunate, because the waterfall would be down below the fog layer, and so the sun would not be a factor for photographing the falls.

The parking at the trailhead has room for 3 cars only. And I was pretty surprised to see 2 cars there when I arrived at 7:30AM. And the 2 cars took up all 3 parking spaces! Argh! I had to squish my big SUV in beside them somehow, which was a bit interesting. Indeed, it was interesting to see any other people on this trail, especially so early. But I saw quite a few joggers on the trail during the day. I guess it is a pretty popular running trail, but I don’t think I have ever seen anyone on this trail before, or at least not so many people.

Anyway, they were just all jogging off somewhere into cougar-land (I’m not kidding about that), so I had the waterfalls all to myself. My first stop was Lower American Canyon Creek Falls, which is one I wanted to definitely get back to because I was not happy with my shots of that falls the first time I was here. After visiting the lower falls, I came back up the trail to this waterfall. The creek flow was on the low side, though it was about what I expected it to be. Since the gorge is so very narrow, the waterfall is actually a bit nicer when the flow is lower like this. It is somewhat difficult to get the right vantage point to photograph, as there is only one spot to shoot from, and it requires a lot of finagling of the tripod to get it steady enough to shoot, and then standing on slippery rocks on the side of a hill. Such is the life of the waterfall hunter.

Winter Waterfalls … one of my goals this winter was to find and photograph some winter snowy icy waterfalls. I love waterfalls in snow/ice, but we don’t have very many in California where I live. They are either all buried completely in snow, or there won’t be flowing, or they are at lower elevations where there is no snow. There are a few perhaps, but not many. Well, up in British Columbia there are some, and I visited a few of them while I was up there for Christmas.

The first one and best one I saw was Deer Creek Falls. It was really incredibly beautiful in the winter and was flowing quite well, but it is darn difficult to photograph.

I was fortunate in being able to get to Deer Creek Falls, actually. There was a lot less snow in the area compared to the last time we were here in the winter. I was surprised because the ski hill opened early, so I was expecting there to be a lot more snow than usual. Instead, there was less. And it was cold. Darn cold. Less than 10 degrees Fahrenheit cold.

What this all meant though was that I could drive right to the Deer Creek Falls trailhead. If there had been a lot more snow, I would have had to walk the last 2 miles to the trailhead, or perhaps not even be able to get to it at all. It just made things a lot easier to be able to drive to it. There was some snow on the ground at the trailhead, and I was walking the entire way to the waterfall through it, but it was only a few inches deep, so it was pretty easy and I did not need snowshoes.

When I arrived at the trailhead at around sunrise, I was pleasantly greeted by some elk up on the hillside. I saw about 10 of them there, and I took the time to switch lenses and try to photograph them. They were watching me, no doubt wondering what crazy man would be up there so early in the day and on such a cold day as this. After a short time, I let them be, and started the hike to Deer Creek Falls.

The first half of the trail, I was following elk prints. I guessed the elk liked the waterfall too, but I think actually they were mostly interested in the creek water, as the prints turned off the path once I got a bit closer to the creek.

Deer Creek Falls is in total about 70 feet tall in two tiers. It is a real beauty in the winter but it is just too difficult to photograph. There is just tons of debris and fallen logs, and thick brush all around the creek area near the base of the falls. I just could not figure out how to photograph the entire waterfall, both tiers. And I thought about it a long long time too. In the summer, it is worse because it is impossible to work your way through the brush to get up to the falls. It was easier with snow on the ground, and I was determined to make my way up to the base of the falls. I did it, but it was a lot of work. Finally I got to the base of the falls, and got into a tricky position to take this photograph of the bottom tier of the waterfall, positioning the tripod on a fallen log and wedging myself in a tight corner, hoping not to fall into the creek. It worked.