Leon Turnbull Photography

Wild adventure part II.

Here I am at Grass Lake and there is a spectacular 150 ft. high waterfall off in the distance. How can I get there? There is no trail leading up to the waterfall. The trail officially ends at Grass Lake. It seems a bit brushy, more than I anticipated. But today I am determined. My mind was set days ago. I would shoot sunrise at the lake, then work my way up to the waterfall. Nothing would stop me. Not thick manzanita brush. Not a torrent from Heather Lake’s outlet that I needed to cross. Not any number of immense talus slides that I needed to cross. Not a steep cliff section that I could only cross safely by grabbing onto manzanita brush and pulling myself across it (that stuff is good for something after all). Not a very steep, crumbly, rocky slope that I needed to scramble up in order to get up to the waterfall viewpoint. Not wondering how I would ever get back down all that. I encountered all these things on my way up to Susie Lake Falls. As I said, I was determined to get to this waterfall. And let me tell you, it was worth every penny. What a gorgeous waterfall. Nothing beats standing right next to a powerful, beautiful 100+ foot waterfall, feeling the spray on your face. At a spot where very few people, if any, have ever been before. Susie Lake Falls was officially bagged. But did I break the cardinal rule of waterfall hunting?

The above photo was taken with my 70-200mm lens from Grass Lake. It is my favourite shot of the waterfall. I am glad I did not leave that lens at home after all. The below photo (just to prove to you that I did make it there) is from up close beside Susie Lake Falls:

But the wild adventure is not over yet.

My second goal for the day was to get up to Heather Lake, where I had heard there was another small waterfall. I also had a grand goal of making it to Lake Aloha, and perhaps even Half Moon Lake as well. It was a classic case of my eyes being bigger than my stomach (or in this case, my body). I had initially thought I might be able to scale the cliffs to get to the top of Susie Lake Falls. No way that was happening. The cliffs around the falls were way too steep. On the other side, maybe it could be done. But there was no way to get across the creek easily. I had another idea, however. Why not follow Heather Creek’s drainage on up to Heather Lake that way. It looked rather do-able. The terrain looked open, and it didn’t look very steep to my eyes, or on my topo map. But I couldn’t see what was around the corner up there. I might get all the way up there and reach a dead-end. Then I’d have to turn back to Grass Lake. That would really suck petunias. But I thought I could do it all right. It would be a grand adventure in the making. More thick manzanita brush. More immense talus slides to cross. I got about halfway up the drainage, and all of a sudden my legs started to protest, scream, rebel. They were tired. Too tired. Over tired. Too late to go back down. The cardinal rule of waterfall hunting is to have enough “oomph” to make it out of the canyon at the end of the day. I just only had to get up to Heather Lake, then I could take the easy, well-maintained trail all the way back down to the trailhead where I parked. I had to continue on. And so I did. Slowly.

I finally made it up. Along the way, just a short distance below the lake, I found Heather Lake Falls. I had heard it was just a small 20 foot waterfall. I wasn’t expecting much of anything here. What I found, instead, was a beautiful 38 ft. high, fan-type waterfall. Not only that, there was a double falls here as a small stream fed by snow melt from the mountains, made its way down and formed a second waterfall at the same location. I took this photo from the top of that small stream looking over at Heather Lake Falls. What a beautiful location, and a perfect spot to eat my sandwich. So I did.

Once up at Heather Lake, I was way way way too tired to think of doing any additional hiking (ie. to Lake Aloha). So I made my way back down the trail to the car. It was very slow going. My legs had completely had it with me. I had scratches all over my legs. I had blisters on my feet. I had sunburn. Fortunately, it was (mostly) all downhill. But even so, it took a very long time to hike back down. But I made it. And what an incredible adventure in the Desolation Wilderness, going where few have gone before.

Taking a short break from my Eastern Sierra photos to share my adventure from this past weekend.

My wild adventure starts at 2:45AM when the alarm goes off. Grog. I tumble out of bed, literally, and reach for the alarm to shut if off before the wife wakes up, if it is indeed not already too late. I stumble out to the bathroom, relieve my bladder, and splash water over my face to attempt to wake myself up. I stumble out to the kitchen, turn on the coffee maker, pack my water and sandwich in my camera bag, pour my coffee, and get everything out to the car. Somewhere in there I also got myself dressed. I turn on the ignition. The time now is 3:10AM. Ten minutes late and I haven’t even left my driveway. How did it take me so long to leave the house? I don’t understand, but it’s not good. I didn’t build any flex time into my plan this morning.

The drive up to Lake Tahoe is uneventful. The coffee keeps me from driving off the road into the river or some other such disaster. I arrive at the trailhead at 4:40AM. Still 10 minutes late. I didn’t pick up any time on the road. It is quite dark. I relieve myself again (coffee, you know) and try to get ready as fast as I can. Then I begin the hike in the dark. I know I need to hike fast. The idea is to get to my destination, Grass Lake, for sunrise. But it is up hill, and it is hard to go too fast up hill. It is an enjoyable, but uneventful hike up the the lake. No bears or cougars seen, or any other animal for that matter. That is a good thing. As I approach the lake, I see the sun starting to hit the peaks. I am still 10 minutes late. No time made up on the trail. I arrive at Grass Lake at 5:45AM. Even though I am a bit later than I wanted to be, the light is still excellent. The peaks at the far end of the lake are just starting to see their first rays of sunlight. I look around for a composition to set up the camera and take a photo. There is a nice rock out in the lake. Nothing else on this side of the lake. No way about it. I have to get right in the lake. I set my camera bag down and take off my hiking shoes. Immediately, a hundred thousand mosquitoes swarm in for the kill. Quickly, I get out the bug juice and spray it all over myself. It seems to work. They are leaving me alone (for now). I purposely left my water shoes at home because I wanted to save weight. I did bring all three of my lenses, though I would have liked to leave one of them at home as well. But I anticipated I might want all of them today. In my bare feet, I wade out to the rock in the lake. It is deeper than it looks. The water is up to my thighs. Not too cold, however. I set up the camera on the tripod, compose the photo, and shoot the beautiful sunrise.

Can you see the rather large looking waterfall way off in the distance? Part II of my wild adventure begins next.

The second best waterfall in the Eastern Sierra is only about a mile or so upstream from the best waterfall. Minaret Falls cascades 250 ft. or so from snowmelt in the Minaret mountains, down into the Middle Fork of the San Joaquin River. It is incredibly impressive, and spans out very wide, falling in many little waterfall rivulets down the mountain side. This shot is taken from the base of the falls, after treading through extremely cold water to find a spot to photograph it.

I took my family to see this waterfall during the day. It was a pretty easy 3 mile long hike (round-trip). But Nekoda was tired from the prior day’s hiking, so I had to carry her most of that distance. She’s getting rather heavy, if I do say so. Heavier every day, I’m sure of it. Once we arrived at the falls, the kids had fun, you guessed it, playing in the water and throwing rocks. Jadon managed to, without my seeing it, climb out on a log to get across the stream into a middle section of big rocks, where he played happily for quite some time. The little turkey. I did not bring my tripod and all my lenses on this hike, as I had no intention of photographing the falls in the middle of the day. It was mainly a family trip, and also scouting for the best viewpoints to photograph the falls when I came back here.

I came back here the same evening, sans dog and and sans family, to be here at sunset. That means I hiked about 9 miles this day, some of that carrying a 35 pound girl on my back. I was definitely tired, but I hiked as fast as I could because the mosquitoes were out in the evening. And if you stop to take a rest, they are all over you immediately. But if you keep moving, they seem to leave you alone for the most part. There were no mosquitoes, thankfully, right at Minaret Falls. So I had a very enjoyable time photographing the waterfall in evening light.

I noticed that the flow of the falls was noticeably higher than when we were here earlier in the day. That is because all the snowmelt from that day in the mountains, was finally getting down to the waterfall. In fact, the area where my son had crossed over and was playing on the rocks was now over flowing with water. I had, unfortunately, forgotten my water shoes back in the car. Argh. But I knew I needed to cross over into that same area, now covered with water, to photograph the falls from the bottom. So I went barefoot. The water was extremely cold from the snow melt, and I could not stand being in the water for long. I got across the stream and climbed out of the cold water onto a rock to photograph the falls. The mist was quite heavy from the waterfall, and it was a challenge keeping water off the lens. But all in all, it was a very enjoyable evening, and I even made it back to the campsite before dark.

My primary goal for the weekend was to photograph all 6 waterfalls in the Mammoth Lakes area in good light. That is not easy when it is bright and sunny every day, but I did manage to accomplish this goal.

But I really had second thoughts about this one. It is only a half-mile hike to the waterfall, but I was tired from the morning jaunt to Rainbow Falls, and I knew it was just a piddly little waterfall. Plus, it was getting late and I needed to get back to the fam at the campsite.Would it even be flowing? Was it even worth any effort to go see it? I doubted it. But nonetheless, I continued on to the falls. I am glad I did. It is a small one, but it is much prettier than I thought it would be. And although it is not on a main stream, it is spring-fed, and thus was flowing quite nicely.

The waterfall is called Sotcher Lake Falls, not Dinosaur Head Falls. But it should be called Dinosaur Head Falls. Doesn’t it look like the side of a dinosaur head to you? With the big eye in the middle, and nose on the right? I just think it is a hilarious looking little waterfall.

On a separate but semi-related topic, last night I was the guest speaker at the El Dorado Camera Club meeting in Placerville. Now for all you who know me really well, you would know that I abhor public speaking. It is really not my kind of thing. So how these guys managed to talk me into speaking at their meeting, is a complete mystery to me. Nonetheless, I did go and talk about waterfall photography, showing many of my photos on a projector screen. And I think I didn’t make too much of a fool of myself. It was fun, and I met some nice folks whom I had only previously corresponded with via email. I even learned of a couple new waterfalls in the area that I will have to go find now. 🙂

This was my bonus shot from the weekend. I wasn’t planning or expecting to photograph this impressive mountain range. But as I hiked to Rainbow Falls in the early morning, I could see that the sun was just starting to hit the mountains, so I looked for a viewpoint, but there wasn’t an obvious one available from the trail. Finally, I scampered off trail, up a little hill to the top of a ridge, and found this fantastic viewpoint of the Ritter Range. Someday, I’d really like to backpack up into these mountains.