Leon Turnbull Photography

This is Heenan Lake at sunrise, up on Monitor Pass. I really thought this might be a great location for sunrise and showing some Fall colors from the Aspen trees around the lake, but I was wrong. For one thing, because this is a lower elevation, the Aspen trees hadn’t really started to change color yet. And for a second thing, I just didn’t really like the lake too much and I could not find a good composition that I liked. I waited around until the sun rose above the mountains and shone on the trees and lake. I did get a nice reflection but I just am not overly happy with the photo otherwise. Maybe I’m being too picky. Maybe I’d like it better if the Aspens were in full color. Ah well.

The lake I also found to be rather “dirty” and “yucky”. I had my dog with me, and I just KNEW she wanted to get in that lake. I told her NO WAY are you getting in that lake, my dear puppy. I had to tie her up on her leash beside my camera bag so she couldn’t wander on down to the lake while I was busy taking my photo. She didn’t like that too much, mostly because there wasn’t any comfortable place she could lie down on all these rocks at the end of the lake.

Hi folks. Just wanted to let you all know that I have a new “Current Conditions” page on my website. Click here:

http://www.waterfallswest.com/current.php

If you have been to a waterfall recently, please tell us what the conditions were like (the flow of the waterfall, trail conditions, etc.). This will let everyone know what the waterfalls are currently like before they plan their trip or hike. You can even submit pictures too! The more people that use this feature on my site, the more useful it will be to everyone. Thanks.

I figured you folks might be tired of all the waterfalls lately, so here’s something a bit different.

My wife and kids are on their annual pilgrimage to the California coast. Male adults are not invited. It really makes me wonder what they do there all week. I am home alone with just my dog and cat. It’s quite lonely with no one else around here. I absolutely needed to get out photographing this weekend. I had a plan to go on a big hike in the dark to be at a certain lake for sunrise, but I just did not feel like getting up so early and going on a difficult night hike this weekend. So instead, I thought I would just drive up to Monitor Pass and see if I could find any fall colors. It is a bit early in the year and the reports I read indicated there were not any colors up there yet, so I was not expecting to find much of anything. Boy, was I ever wrong. The colors in the Aspen trees are out in full force at the top of Monitor Pass right now. Lots of yellow everywhere, and a bit of orange as well. I was very surprised and very pleased to find this color so early in the year. Down at the lower elevations (Hope Valley), it is still mostly green there (with some yellow). They need another week for the colors to turn there, but up at Monitor Pass it was wonderful.

There are some really nice large Aspen groves at the top of Monitor Pass. You could almost get lost wandering around in them. I think I almost did get lost. They’re also quite thick, at least where I was this weekend. I didn’t find too many good shots that I liked. But I did find this fallen tree which I thought worked pretty well for a composition. If nothing else, at least my dog had fun wandering through the thick Aspen trees with me.

After my morning jaunt to Multnomah Falls at sunrise, I went back to the motel to collect my wife and kids and dog. We had a quick breakfast at Shari’s restaurant (no, the dog did not go into the restaurant), then scooted on up the road to the Eagle Creek trailhead, where we met Ara, a friend and fellow waterfall hunter who lives in the Portland area. I have to say, if you are a waterfall hunter, this is probably the best place in the world to live. She’s got it made. Anyway, we hiked up to Punch Bowl Falls, but the light was very harsh at that time of morning. Then we hiked back, had some lunch, and then made the short hike up to Elowah Falls.

One thing about the Columbia River Gorge area is that there seems to be a lot of car break-ins here. We saw quite a bit of smashed glass in parking lots, there were warning signs everywhere, and Ara even told us to park at the furthest lot at Eagle Creek trailhead, to avoid a possible break-in there. Interesting. That kind of thing seems to be a much bigger problem there, then here in California. It is rather upsetting, actually. Also, after eating at Shari’s, I went back to the car and while I was waiting for my family, a big black guy came up to me and asked me if I wanted to buy this gold watch that he showed me, for dirt cheap. Umm, who sells an expensive watch to someone for dirt cheap, in a parking lot? It sure looked stolen to me. I told him, emphatically, “no thanks!”.

Back to hiking … my son Jadon did very well hiking all day long. I was quite proud of him. Nekoda, who was carried on the Eagle Creek hike, decided she wanted to walk on the hike to Elowah Falls. Well, it is a bit steep on the hike up there, so I carried her to the top of the hill, then let her walk down to the falls from the top. She hiked all the way back on the return trip. She did great.

Elowah Falls was at very low flow. It was so low, that it was just blowing all over the place in the wind. It reminded me of Bridalveil Falls at Yosemite in low flow. When it was really blowing, it seemed as though it just disappeared in mid air before it got to the ground. It is rather difficult to take a photo of a waterfall blowing around like crazy. I was pretty surprised my photos came out half decent. I wasn’t expecting them to. This shot is taken from a “somewhat” secret off-the-path location a bit downstream from the bridge, which Ara took me down to see. I think you get a slightly better perspective of the waterfall from this location.

Of course, for any tourist, the mandatory stop at the Columbia River Gorge is Multnomah Falls, the jewel of the Gorge, towering over everything at 611 ft. high. Although widely advertised as being the 2nd highest year-round waterfall in the entire U.S. (or the 4th highest in the nation), it is nowhere near that. There are plenty of waterfalls higher than Multnomah. Nonetheless, it is magnificent. And it is a zoo. We came here in the evening around sunset and there were just far too many people around to take a decent photo of the waterfall. It was a bit of a bummer because the sunset light on the waterfall was really nice, but I didn’t even bother taking my tripod out of the car, and I only took photos of my family. Well, I did want to get a photo of Multnomah Falls, so I came here the next morning at sunrise. What a difference. There was no one else around at all, and I had the waterfall all to myself. It is wonderful to experience a great waterfall all to yourself with no one else around. One other couple did arrive a bit later and went up on the bridge and into my photo, but I did manage to get in a couple shots before they arrived. This is a high resolution 25 mega-pixel stitched image.

On a somewhat related note, I just finished reading a book called “The Shack” by William Young. It is very popular in Christian circles right now, and also controversial because it has some theological problems with it. I am not going to get into that. The reason I am bringing it up, though, is because the book is really centered around a waterfall, Multnomah Falls to be exact (I know I am stretching that to the utmost extreme). The book talks about the legend of Multnomah Falls, where a young princess of the Multnomah people sacrificed herself by jumping off the cliff here and thus saving her people and lover from a horrible disease. You can read the entire legend here. The legend really has many striking similarities to the very real sacrifice that Jesus made for all of us, when He died on the cross to save us all from eternal death.

Well, that is probably enough rambling for today. Have a good one.