Leon Turnbull Photography

I woke up at the insane hour of 3AM on Saturday to get out to Lake Tahoe and Eagle Falls for sunrise. I arrived at the falls an hour before sunrise. My goal was *not* to shoot sunrise at the top of the falls (which I have done before), but instead, to shoot the falls in the dark. It didn’t really work out as I had envisioned the shot. I think I was really too late. It was dark, but there was too much light on the horizon. I think I really should have been there a couple hours earlier even (like that is ever going to happen). Nonetheless, this photo still turned out particularly well in the pre-dawn hour. It is a 30 second exposure. I am definitely very pleased with it.

I was not the only one at Eagle Falls this morning. In a way, this was surprising because I have never seen anyone else here at sunrise before. But on the other hand, it is really a popular and well known spot, made famous by the late photographer, Galen Rowell. So this other older lady from Nevada was there with her son, trying to find a spot alongside me. There are really not too many “good” spots to setup here, and they ended up walking right in front of my camera view while I was taking a night exposure. Ugh. But I was not planning to stay for the sunrise anyway, so after taking my night shots, I gave up my spot for them. And off I went to my desired location, down to the bottom of the falls. But this was not the last I heard from these two.

After shooting Eagle Falls from the bottom (those pics will be posted soon), I climbed back up to the top, well after sunrise, and I figured those two would’ve been long gone. But no, they were still there. They hollered me down, asking if they could use my cell phone. It seems that the lady had slipped and fallen in the creek above the falls, and lost her camera bag, which went over the falls! She managed to hold on to her camera around her neck without getting it wet, all the while holding onto a flimsy branch. I don’t know how close she came to going over the falls herself, but I do know many people have died here before. It can be very dangerous here, if you are not very careful. In the camera bag was her zoom lens, various camera accessories, and her car keys. They used my phone to call AAA to come get her car unlocked, as she said she had a spare key in the trunk. So if you are down at the bottom of Eagle Falls in the near future, and you find a camera bag with a water logged Nikon zoom lens in it, you now know how it got there.

We saw plenty of birds on our whale watching trip to the Farallon Islands. Tons of cormorants and common murres, in particular (and of course, gulls). But it is tough to take photos of birds, especially when they are moving. I kinda liked how this one turned out though. It is a pigeon guillemot. It is rather a pretty bird too, I like those red feet.

Here is the standard view of 550 ft. Grouse Falls, from the Overlook viewpoint. It is certainly a spectacular waterfall, even when viewing it from across the canyon, a half-mile away.

I arrived here at about sunrise. It is an hour and a half drive from my home, and I was up at 4AM to get here in time. I was making great time until I got to within a 1 minute drive from the trailhead parking area. Two big trees were down in the middle of the road. It was a very narrow section of road, and so I had to turn my big gas guzzling SUV around to go back. I felt like I was in that scene from Austin Powers, when he was trying to turn his cart around in that narrow hallway. Well, I think I did a bit better job than he did. I parked the SUV along the side of the road, and walked the rest of the way.

If you are thinking this sure does not look like 550 ft. Grouse Falls, you will be forgiven. Is Leon off his rocker? What is he talking about now? This is actually the bottom 83 ft. section of spectacular Grouse Falls. You can’t see the upper section of the falls from here, but it is just above this waterfall.

If you’ve ever been to the Grouse Falls overlook, you may wonder how I could ever get down to the bottom. It is incredibly steep (1000 ft. down in about a half-mile), and incredibly brushy (manzanita galore). I’ve been down there twice now. The first time, I did not get any view of Grouse Falls at all. This time, I was determined. My goal and great desire was to get a close-up view of the entire 550 ft. of Grouse Falls. I was denied. I came to this dead end with towering cliffs on either side of the creek. No views of the big waterfall could be found. But I did get to this fantastic waterfall, the bottom 83 ft. of Grouse Falls.

It was worth the effort. But going back up that half-mile was a struggle. It took about an hour and a half to climb back up the mountain. Talk about steep. The GPS was a necessity as well. It was so brushy and there was so much dense tree growth, it was impossible to see where the overlook was until I was almost right back to it. I only knew where to go because the GPS was pointing me in the right direction. There was a lot of poison oak down there as well. I know what you are thinking. Here we go again. I could have sworn that the last time I was down there, there was no oak. In fact, I’m about 90 percent sure there was none. That is one of the reasons I wanted to try again this year. But this time, I found a lot of it. I was careful to avoid touching it, and I bathed myself thoroughly when I got home. I think I avoided getting it this time. Whew.

Bassi Falls crashes 109 ft. over a granite cliff up off Ice House Rd. near Pollock Pines, east of Sacramento. Wow! What an incredible waterfall to visit in the spring. I’ve been here a number of times before, but I had never seen it with so much water flowing over the falls. It was unbelievably awesome! I would say it is at peak flow right now with all the snow melting in the mountains, and if you live in the area and have never seen Bassi Falls at peak flow, I highly recommend making the very easy trip out to see it.

I was here at sunset, which is the best time to photograph the falls, with the nice warm evening light shining on it. I got right in the creek to take this photo. And boy, was it ever freezing cold! Worth it though, to get this photo.

I also went up to the top of the falls, which I also recommend doing. It is amazing to stand at the brink of this waterfall, as it hurtles over the cliff. It is dangerous though, so be very careful if you go. You don’t want to slip and fall in the creek up there, that is for sure.