Leon Turnbull Photography

We left Rossland BC at 5AM. My wife was not happy. My kids were not happy (but at least they fell back asleep in the car). It is a 500 and something mile drive from Rossland to Portland, and I wanted to arrive at the Columbia River Gorge early enough to do the hike to Wahclella Falls and also get to Multnomah Falls before dark. My plan worked. Too well even.

Going through the border crossing from Canada to the U.S. is always interesting. Going the other way is always easy. The Canadian officials are always so nice and easy going. The U.S. officials however … This time, the guy asked me a question I had not been asked before. I am a Canadian citizen and have a “green card” as a U.S. resident. He asked me for how long I have been a resident of the U.S. I don’t know that! It is indicated right on the green card you have in your hand, bub. Why don’t you just look at it? I know when I came down to the U.S. (Nov. ’98), and I know when I got married (May ’99), but why would I know when I officially became a U.S. resident? The whole experience of obtaining a green card was a total nightmare I am still trying to forget. Anyway, after that question, the guy became somewhat suspicious and started asking me a whole lot of other questions. Where do you live? What is your birthday? Where do you work? What did you eat for dinner last night? What is the color of your wife’s toothbrush? Fortunately, I was able to answer them satisfactorily, and they let us through. Whew, why do they have to make everything so stressful?

Anyway, leaving so early worked out extremely well (my wife may think otherwise, though). We arrived at the Columbia River Gorge a few hours earlier than anticipated. That allowed me to see a few additional waterfalls I had not planned on seeing (gotta like that!). And we had plenty of time to make the hike up to see Wahclella Falls as well. It is a short 1 mile hike up to the waterfall. I carried Nekoda (she’s up to 40 pounds now!). My wife carried my camera gear. I didn’t make her carry the heavy tripod though. You see, I am a nice husband, aren’t I? 🙂

I had not been to Wahclella Falls before. For some reason, we skipped it on our last trip to the Gorge 6 or so years ago. It is one of the best waterfalls in the Gorge, the bottom most-visible tier crashing 81 ft down into a tremendous pool. It is a sight to see, and even in the late season, Tanner Creek has a lot of flow. I knew I wanted to get right down in the creek over on the right side to take my photos, and that is where I went straight away. As a bonus, I even got a reflection of the waterfall in the creek. Reflections of waterfalls are something that are rare to find, and when I do find them, they never seem to turn out in the photograph as clear as I would like. But this time, the reflection turned out extremely well. I was very pleased.

After I returned home from our trip to BC, I heard something a bit startling. I heard that there are quite a few Grizzly bears in the East Kootenay area of BC. More so this year than ever before. This is really surprising to me. I grew up in the West Kootenays of BC, and though black bears are very common there (we often got them in our backyard, or wandering streets of town), but grizzlies are extremely rare. I think I only heard of one there in 40 years. The East Kootenays is much closer to the Rockies, but I didn’t think there really would be many grizzlies there either (at least in the Cranbrook area). My sister said they were pretty rare when I asked her. But apparently they are not so rare as I had thought.

And here I am, hiking in the pre-dawn hours out in the wilderness, to find a waterfall. Perry Creek Falls to be precise. There were certain places along the trail which were rather dark and erie. And I came across an old mining cabin, which looked as though it would be a good place for critters to hide. I hurried on by that. But I saw no bears on the hike, grizzly or otherwise. Perry Creek Falls is a unique looking 23 ft. high waterfall. It is interesting how it shoots through the rocks in different places. But I was expecting, for some reason, a much bigger waterfall. And indeed, it seems that the waterfall continues much higher than you can see. But the rock outcropping does not allow any view of the upper section. I tried scaling up the very steep cliff side to find a different view, but to no avail. I had to settle for the view of the lower section. But it is a nice view, for sure.

So I had this great idea to hike up in the dark to Hourglass Lake in the East Kootenays to be there by sunrise. I had very little idea what it would be like there at sunrise, but I imagined it would be a great place to be at sunrise with the first light hitting the mountain peaks, not to mention that there is a 500 ft. waterfall there (though I wasn’t too sure how the waterfall would be flowing this late in the year). I was totally looking forward to this hike, more than any other on my trip. I wanted to drag my wife out to it as well, but she balked. She said it would be too hard for Grandma to watch the kids that early. She probably just didn’t want to get up so early herself. She’s not much of a morning person. So instead, I dragged my dog out of bed. She was more than willing to accompany me.

The drive out to Hourglass Lake trailhead is a long one, about 30km on a forest service dirt road (about 20 miles for you Yankees). It is not a particularly a rough road, but it is littered the entire way with very sharp shale rocks. And about 5 miles from the trailhead, one of them tore a big huge gash into one of the tires on my SUV. Ugh! It was still very dark out, and I was out in the middle of nowhere, in bear-infested country, and I had to change a tire (Rob, I’m blaming you for this one because of your recent incident at Lassen – ha ha). It took me quite a while to change the tire, mostly because I had troubles getting the spare out from where it is lodged underneath the vehicle. By the time I had it changed, it was much too late to continue up to the lake for sunrise. And I didn’t feel like going on that hike anymore either. I think God was telling me something, such as: there’s a big Grizzly waiting for you along that trail. Or maybe it was the Devil’s fault, cuz he didn’t want me to see a beautiful sunrise. Or maybe both. Or maybe none of the above. Whatever the case, I decided to turn around and head back to find Meachen Creek Falls.

Meachen Falls is located along the same road, but is only at the 8km mark (5 miles for you Yankees). It is a very short walk to the viewpoint from the road, and my dog Kaya and I found it very easily. The viewpoint of this 85 ft. high waterfall is a pretty decent one, though it is partially obscured by trees. This is a very cliffy area, and there are steep drop-offs all around. I tied my dog up so she wouldn’t wander too close to the edge whilst I was taking photos. She has done dumb things before, like almost going over Whiskeytown Falls in northern CA. She likes to get right in the creek whenever she can. But this creek was a hundred feet below us.

Anyhow, after taking photos from the viewpoint, I noticed that the trail continues on down (around the cliff section) to the bottom of the canyon. I was not expecting this at all. I thought the viewpoint was about all I’d see of this fabulous waterfall. So Kaya and I went down to the bottom. It was steep, but do-able. Once we got down to the bottom, however, you need to work your way up the creek where you will soon come to a huge jumble of logs and rocks that you need to get up and over in order to get up to the waterfall. This part was too much for my old dog to handle, and I did not want to leave her alone while I went up to the falls. Fortunately, I had one more day in Cranbrook, so I figured I could come back here the next day sans dog. That is exactly what I did. It wasn’t too hard to get up over the logs and rocks, and I found a fabulous spot right in front of the falls to enjoy the view and take photos. Meachen Creek Falls is officially bagged. This was definitely my favorite waterfall from my trip up to BC this summer, and only because I went down to the bottom and got right up close to it.

There were two places I especially wanted to make it to on this trip. I did one: Lower Oneonta Falls in the Columbia River Gorge (the other I will explain on another post). Lower Oneonta Falls is arguably the best of all the waterfalls in the Columbia River Gorge, perhaps even topping the towering Multnomah Falls. What makes this waterfall so great is the adventure it takes to get to it. The waterfall is tucked back about a half mile inside a deep narrow gorge. The only way to get to this waterfall is to wade up the creek to it, up and over a huge, slippery log jam, then continue up the creek through waist high, cold water. It is pretty much impossible to get there in winter or in the spring when the creek is much higher and colder. Summer is the best time to go here. Unfortunately, it is also the busiest.

I met up with another crazy waterfall hunter and photographer, Ara, who lives in Portland. She led myself and my 6 year old son, Jadon, up the creek without a paddle. My wife stayed back in the car with Nekoda for this hike (too bad for her, but it would’ve been a bit tough taking Nekoda). When I say the water was up to my waist, I am not kidding. That means it was up to my son’s chest! Jadon had an absolute blast wading up to this waterfall. It was a heckuva lot of fun. Unfortunately, though, he got rather cold waiting around while Ara and I took our photos. He was shivering as we waded back to the car, and the return trip was not too fun for him.

There were a surprising number of people in the Columbia River Gorge on the day we were here. We definitely should’ve been here during the middle of the week, instead of on the weekend. However, when we first arrived at Lower Oneonta Falls, we were the only ones there. We managed to get in a couple of photos before the next group arrived. They promptly walked right in front of Ara and I, who were clearly in the middle of trying to take a photo. They had absolutely no regard for us, as they splashed and swam under the waterfall. Talk about irritating! Who is so inconsiderate that they just walk right in front of someone while trying to take a picture? Well, there was not much else we could do but go back at that point. Jadon was rather cold by then anyway, so we hurried back and got him dried and into some warm clothes.

Well, I am back from vacation. It was a whirlwind trip up to my parents in Rossland BC, then over to Cranbrook to visit my sister and her family, then a 1 day stint at the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon on the way home. I officially saw 20 waterfalls on this trip. All in about a one week span. Don’t worry too much. I won’t be posting all 20 of them on this blog (though they will probably all make it onto my main waterfalls site). But I will be posting many waterfall shots over the next couple weeks, and I am sure you will be quite sick of waterfalls by the end of it. hee hee.

Not all the waterfalls I visited were new ones. Beaver Falls in Trail BC, I have visited twice before. I was here in the winter when it was much too dangerous to get to the bottom. I was here in the spring when it was possible to get to the bottom of the canyon, but impossible to get up to the base of the falls because the creek is rushing too fast, and there is a big rock wall you need to negotiate around in order to get up to the waterfall. In the summer, however, it is quite easy to get right up to the bottom of this 62 ft. high falls. The creek was flowing about what I expected for this time of year, so I was definitely rather pleased to see a nice flow to this fabulous waterfall.

From the top of the canyon, it is a very steep descent to get down to the base of the falls. I noticed a rope leading down a “new”, well worn path to the bottom. Obviously, most people go down this way, but it looked far too steep to me. I knew there was an easier path leading down to the bottom, but that other path is now a bit overgrown. On the way back up, I decided to try the “rope” path. That was a mistake. As I got up to the top, desperately holding on to the rope on a very steep slope, I realized I needed to somehow climb up and over a large tree branch to get up the last section. If I had slipped, I would’ve been back down at the bottom of the canyon in a couple seconds. I did make it up. Barely. But I don’t understand why most people would choose this difficult and dangerous descent/ascent, rather than the much easier path.