Leon Turnbull Photography

I headed up to Lake Tahoe this past weekend with my friend, Rob. Our plan was to shoot Fall colors and hit Fallen Leaf Lake at sunrise. But I guess God had another idea for us. The weather report was “iffy” at best, calling for snow overnight, then “partly sunny” skies at around sunrise, then clouding over with more snow later on in the morning. And very cold cold cold. We decided to take a chance and go up there anyway, despite the probability of frost bite. When we arrived at Tahoe, Mt. Tallac was socked in, nowhere to be seen. My envisioned shot of Tallac and Fallen Leaf Lake was not in the forecast. But sunrise over Emerald Bay, on the other hand, looked a lot more promising. There were a lot of clouds over the lake but they were more broken up. We decided to head over there, and we were not disappointed. It was a glorious sunrise, as the rising sun colored the ominous but scattered clouds in the distance. But it was darn cold, about 20 degrees with a cold wind to boot. I was all bundled up in my winter gear and gloves, so I was pretty peachy. But Rob forgot his gloves at home, so I imagine he had some troubles pressing the shutter button as the sun rose up above the horizon. I hope he got at least one good shot in. 🙂

I had not been to Fairy Falls in the Columbia River Gorge before. I had seen many photos of it before, and had determined it was one I must go see. It is one of the little jewels of the Gorge. I was not disappointed.

But I did not have too much time. I wanted to go to Multnomah Falls first thing in the morning, then Wahkeena Falls, then take the trek up to see Fairy Falls. But I had to get back to the motel by a certain time to pick up my family. Time was short. And the trail up to Fairy Falls is a steep one. It is short, but it is steep. I was huffing it up there as fast as I could.

When I got up there, I found another photographer there. It turned out to be one of my contacts on flickr, Darren White. It was surprising and funny to meet him up there so unexpectedly.

We chatted for awhile, but I didn’t have too much time to stay there. I was behind schedule, so I quickly took my photos of Fairy Falls, and literally ran back down the trail to the bottom, hopped in the car, and drove back to the motel to pick up my family.

Now that you’ve had a bit of a break from waterfalls, let’s get back to it. 🙂 I have just a few more to share from the Columbia River Gorge trip. I ended up seeing about 15 waterfalls in a 24 hour period, and I had really good light for most of those waterfalls. So I was darn pleased, though there are just so many waterfalls there, it is impossible to see them all in one day. I did miss a few that I really wanted to see. I’ll be back there for sure.
Wahkeena Falls is a very pretty waterfall, located beside and overshadowed by towering Multnomah Falls. It is also incredibly difficult to photograph. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a photo of Wahkeena that I really really really love (including mine), though I have seen some good ones. It is usually too hard to get an up close shot of this waterfall because there is just too much spray. This one was taken from right in front of it, and even in the late summer, it was hard to keep the spray off the lens as I took the shot.

With my family gone for the week on their annual “coast trip”, no adult males invited (did I say that before?), I figured that I had better get out and do some photographing while I had the chance. So after work one day, I drove up Hwy 50 towards Tahoe looking for some fall colors. I knew of a place along the South Fork American River that had some pretty fall colors from last year, and I had it on my list of places to go for this year. I found the place all right, but I guess I was about a week or two early to see a great display of colors. I took a photo anyway, since I had driven all the way up there. It is a nice little spot right along the highway, and it was close to sunset, so the light shining on the trees was nice and warm. I’m going to try to return here next week when the colors will be a little better.

You know it’s gonna be a bad day when … you dump all the grounds from the coffee you are making all over the floor and your clothes. Then after you clean up all that mess and try making some more, you spill the coffee beans. Then you end up making the coffee too weak cuz you are not paying attention to the amount of water you are putting in. SIGH. Then as soon as you get to work (late), your boss gives you a (crap) job because the person who should be doing it is away. I suppose I deserved that. At least it is Friday. I hope your day is going MUCH better.

Here’s another image from my morning on top of Monitor Pass. The colors were very vibrant that weekend. It will be interesting how the colors will change this weekend though, with a storm scheduled to come in. I suspect the colors will change very fast now. Hope Valley will probably be looking very nice after this storm, but I suspect Monitor Pass has already seen the best it will be for this year. So get out and enjoy the fall colors while you still can.