Leon Turnbull Photography

This is Faery Falls, a relatively unknown but splendid 41 ft. high waterfall near Lake Siskiyou in Mt. Shasta City. I think it is a much better waterfall to visit in the spring, when the creek is flowing much higher. But it is also a lot more difficult to photograph in the spring. There are not too many vantage points of the waterfall, and in the spring, the creek is flowing too hard to cross, and there is just too much spray at the base of the falls. When my friend Brian and I were here this past weekend, we had more options to photograph the waterfall around the base of the falls, and there was not much spray. Nonetheless, I still think it is a fabulous waterfall to visit when it is flowing hard.

There are some nice little lakes up in the Mt. Shasta City area which I had not known about before. They provide some wonderful views of the great Mt. Shasta mountain. But apparently, we were not the only ones to think so. There were quite a few backpackers camping up at this lake, called Heart Lake. As we (unintentionally) trampled through their makeshift campsite in a hurry to find a spot to photograph the sunrise, I am sure we probably woke some of them up. Especially my dog, Kaya, who has to go sniff everything in sight, including some people sleeping under the stars in a sleeping bag only without a tent. I am quite sure that I would not want to do that up here in bear country. Would you want a bear coming up to your sleeping bag in the middle of the night, sniffing you out for a late night snack? I don’t think so. I wonder if any of these people thought they were being sniffed out by a bear when my dog trotted on up to them. heh heh. Well, they should be up to see the sunrise anyway. It was a gorgeous one, thanks to all the smoke and haze in the valley.

Unless you have been living under a rock lately or in some far-off corner of the planet, I am sure you have heard about all the forest fires burning in California. There are currently over 1000 active fires across the state, most of them caused by lightning coupled with the unusually dry spring we have had. All these fires have caused a tremendous amount of smoke to just sit over the Sacramento Valley, which stretches hundreds of miles from south of Sacramento up past Redding in the north end of the state. I live in the Sacramento area, and I thought it was very bad here (and it was), but as I drove up north this past weekend, I found it much worse up there. Redding in particular was especially bad, far worse than down here in Sacramento. Visibility there was probably less than a mile. It is much better now that the wind has finally blown much of the smoke out of the valley, but it was quite bad this past weekend.

My friend Brian and I thought about going on a big hike this past weekend up north, but a combination of the smoke and heat put a damper into our hiking plans. I just had no energy to do any kind of serious hiking. Brian, either intentionally, or perhaps subconsciously, or maybe just cuz he had no sleep the previous night, forgot his hiking boots anyway. Some of the highways in the area were also closed as well so that limited our options. Our idea was to travel north up towards Mt. Shasta, in an attempt to escape the smoke. It is only an hour drive north of Redding, and I had not much hope of getting out of the smoke. I didn’t think Shasta would even be visible at all. But alas, our journey was not in vain. It was clearer up there. Shasta was indeed visible. And the bit of haze and smoke that was in the air created some amazing colour as the sun rose above the horizon. We climbed up above Castle Lake, a short 1 mile hike, which provided an amazing sunrise view of the lake with Mt. Shasta in the background, not to mention some incredible red and pink colour in the sky thanks to the smoke. I guess I would have to say it was worth the drive up there from Redding after all.

On the next morning of camping, I crawled out of my cozy sleeping bag even earlier, and I think it was even colder than the previous morning. I could not get my dog, Kaya, to come with me this time. She is such a wimp. I didn’t really want to take her anyway, cuz I wasn’t planning on going on any much of a hike.

I drove back up the hill from Devil’s Postpile Natl. Monument to Twin Lakes, which is near the village of Mammoth Lakes. Mammoth Lakes is at a higher elevation, and there was a lot more snow still hanging around. Strangely enough, though, it was colder down at Devil’s Postpile. It was still quite dark as I began driving from the campsite. As I drove along, I thought to myself that this is a good time of day to see bears. Whenever I see them, it is usually at this time of day, before sunrise. Then I thought to myself, yeah, I’d better be careful to stay awake and not hit any with the car (I still hadn’t had any coffee yet). Or, I thought, I’d better be careful not to hit any deer, or any other kind of animal that might be out and about. Immediately after this thought, I see a fat, little, porcupine waddling across the road in front of my car. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a porcupine in the wild before, so it was neat to see one. I stopped the car and watched it on the side of the road. It flicked up its tail at me, and so I decided to keep going before it flung its quills into my tires (did you ever see the Veggie Tales’ Jonah movie?). Then immediately after seeing the porcupine, I saw a black bear in the meadow beside the road. It was just a small bear, maybe only 1 year old (like I know how to tell a bear’s age), and it scampered away as soon as he saw my car. No sign of any momma bear around.

So anyway, on up to Twin Lakes and Twin Falls. I wanted to get there by sunrise. I knew the sun would be hitting the falls first thing in the morning. Twin Falls is a spectacular cascade falling about 250 ft. down from Lake Mamie, and is best seen in the spring when the snow is melting. It is quite impressive. The name of the waterfall is not really much of a mystery. It is not because there are 2 waterfalls. It is named after the lakes that it drops into: Twin Lakes. But the name of the lakes is quite a mystery, and quite silly. There are not 2 “twin” lakes. There are actually 3 lakes. Why they called them Twin Lakes is completely beyond me. I vote to change the names to Triplet Lakes, and Triplet Falls. Yeah, that sounds better.

It is possible to get right up to the base of Twin Falls, but I did not bother, though if I had more time I would have certainly done that. Instead, I wanted to get to a certain other waterfall before the sun got too high in the sky. So off I went to find it.

Back to the Eastern Sierra.

Here is another view of Minaret Falls, which is more in your face, and I think I like it even better than the first view. This is just showing the upper section of the falls, shot right beside the waterfall. I could feel the mist in my face as I stood beside these impressive falls. What an awesome experience. Is it any wonder I am a waterfall-aholic, when I can experience such an amazing part of God’s beautiful creation.

The best part is, there was no one else around at Minaret Falls when I was here in the evening. Indeed, there weren’t too many people in the Devil’s Postpile Natl. Monument all weekend. We were one of the very few campers in our campground. It does get quite busier in the summer no doubt.