Leon Turnbull Photography

It has been crazy and stressful at work recently. But this weekend, I was able to get out and go waterfall hunting. It’s been rain rain rain lately, thank the Lord, and the waterfalls are jumping. I just had to get out and see some.

It was Valentine’s Day too. Perhaps not a great day to go out hiking. But my wife and kids were up visiting the in-laws, and not coming home until later in the day. I had all morning to myself. My dog really really really wanted to come with me on this one too. She’s really good with those sad puppy dog eyes. But I couldn’t take here this time. State parks, unfortunately, don’t allow dogs, plus I figured I would be doing some tough scrambling. And I did.
And the day started out with a bang.

I was trying to find a couple new waterfalls in Coloma on Dutch Creek. I had heard about them from a couple different people, but I couldn’t find too much information about them. I knew that the trail was now on public land (in Marshall Gold Discovery State Park), and this is a recent development, as all the land around Mt. Murphy used to be private. A most excellent development indeed.

As I drove closer to Placerville, I found an interesting thing. Snow! Placerville does not often get snow, but there it was. And quite a lot of it (2-3 inches). As I turned up Hwy 49 to Coloma, I found more and more of it. And the road was not plowed, so it was quite slushy driving. Then I came to a tree that had fallen down, blocking half the road. Then another. Then another. Then I came to a really big tree down in the road with a policeman there, directing traffic. After that, I passed a couple more fallen trees. I was starting to think this was going to be a really fun morning. Then as I drove down into Coloma, all the snow disappeared. I was bummed. I wanted to do some hiking through the snow.

I found the trailhead easily enough. But parking at the trailhead was zilch. All private property along Bayne Rd., and “no parking” signs everywhere. Although I truly applaud the state in purchasing this land along Dutch Creek, I’m slightly miffed that they wouldn’t arrange a small bit of parking at the trailhead. I had to park way back at the bridge, and walk along the road to the trailhead. It was only a half-mile, no big deal. You cannot park anywhere in Coloma without paying the fee for the state park. But the museum was closed, and there were no parking slips anywhere. So I left a big note on my dashboard, saying “museum closed, cannot pay fee”. Hopefully, that would keep me from getting a ticket. It did.

Now I had heard that there were two 30 ft. waterfalls on Dutch Creek. But I found so much more. After about 3/4 mile hiking, I came to the first waterfall. I measured it to be 24 ft. high. It was possible to get down to the bottom of this one, so I did so, and took some photos of it. The creek was flowing well, and the spray from the falls made it difficult to take a photograph. After seeing this pretty little falls, I climbed up above it, thinking I would find one more 30 footer. Instead, I found two beauties, 87 ft. and 112 ft. high, located right where Johntown Creek and Dutch Creek come together. What an incredibly gorgeous location! But it was difficult to photograph these two waterfalls because of the steep terrain. I climbed up to the top of the falls on Johntown Creek, and had this great view looking over to Dutch Creek Falls.

It was a glorious day hiking. Happy Valentine’s Day to me.

I can’t wait to go out shooting next weekend. Firstly, we’re finally getting some rain and snow here. Well, maybe I shouldn’t speak too soon. We had a little bit yesterday, and we’re expecting a lot more for the rest of the week and into next week. If the forecast is correct. And of course, it has been more wrong than right for most of the year. But hopefully, God will provide the needed rain/snow. And then I’ll be able to go out waterfallin’ on Saturday. The second reason is that I just got my new tripod today. It is a Gitzo 1531 carbon fiber tripod and it is light as a feather. And supposedly, quite sturdy, more so than my previous tripod. I am very anxious to try it out, I think it should be really good for hiking.
Here’s another shot of the big 134 ft. high waterfall on Canyon Creek. This was taken right near the base of the falls. It would be impossible to stand here without getting totally drenched when the creek is flowing high.

I didn’t get out shooting this weekend. It didn’t rain enough here to get the waterfalls going again. We were supposed to get a big dump here (up to 2 inches of rain, and plenty of snow in the mountains), but it was a complete bust. Perhaps other areas of California got some of the much needed rain, but we didn’t get much of anything here.

I decided to stay inside and work on my waterfallswest website instead. I’m in the process of adding some cool new features to the site, using Google Maps. The maps are already up on the site, so you can check them out now and give me feedback to if you like. I’m still adding more features to the maps, including hiking routes for all the waterfalls, and overlayed county lines on the regional maps. Some of these are done now, but there is plenty of work to do to get all of them added. And in the long range future (3 months or so down the road), I am planning to include my entire California waterfall database on-line (this includes all falls in CA, even those I have not been to). This will be quite impressive, I think you will agree once you see it.
This is a Western Meadowlark, a pretty little thing I saw along the auto tour route at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge.

This is the first of seven significant waterfalls along the beautiful Canyon Creek Trail. This one drops 42 ft., and it is a beauty. When it is really flowing well, it has a second chute that is really cool looking. But when I was here last weekend, the creek was definitely on the low side, unfortunately. Every time I come here, I think to myself, I gotta get down to the bottom of this waterfall. But every time, I don’t try it because of time; I don’t want to miss out on the many other waterfalls just downstream from here. Well, maybe next time.

One of my favorite trails in the greater Sacramento area is the Canyon Creek Trail at Gold Run. Waterfalls abound along this trail; in fact there are seven significant waterfalls on this trail which drops very steeply down to the North Fork American River. The biggest and best one is this beauty, towering 134 ft. high.

It is extremely difficult to find and follow this trail down Canyon Creek. It is so difficult that I’m amazed I ever found it to begin with, a few years ago. I have gotten temporarily lost on this trail as well in the past. This past weekend, I was anxious to get back here to these waterfalls because I have not been there in a couple years. I was pleased to see BLM signs at the trailhead and along the trail. There has been private land concerns here in the past, which is why I don’t post directions on my website. I am pretty sure though, that the trail still does cross private land. It would be nice if all of this trail became public land. It would be a mighty shame if this trail gets closed in the future because of private land issues. It is certainly one of the jewels of the Gold Country.

When I got down to the waterfalls, I was rather disappointed with the amount of water flowing in Canyon Creek. This creek normally has a lot of flow in it, and these waterfalls can be just amazing. I knew that they would not be roaring this day. But with last week’s rain, I thought they would be a lot better than they were. They were still nice of course, and I really enjoyed myself down at the bottom of the big waterfall. The big waterfall is no picnic to find either, as it is tucked back in the canyon well out of view, and well off trail. I owe a lot of thanks to the late Russell Towle, who was the person who helped me find these fabulous waterfalls years ago.

The steep trail follows Canyon Creek all the way down to the river, and I would’ve loved to go all the way down. But, unfortunately, I had prior commitments and had no time to do that. So after enjoying the 134 foot beauty, I headed back on up the trail. I hope to return here again soon. That is, of course, if we get any more rain this winter.