Leon Turnbull Photography

Well, I did not get out hiking this past weekend. I did have plans to go somewhere, but it was one of those nights where I could not fall asleep, and really didn’t want to get up at the crack of dawn. So … I slept in.

I did, however, finish updating my waterfallswest website (essentially), converting it all over to PHP and mySQL. I’m sure that really doesn’t excite you too much, but it does excite me. Indeed, if you browse through my site now, you probably won’t notice “too much” that is different. However, I did change some colors, and added some new features (such as, a link to Google Maps, and some neat sorting capabilities on my map and Alphabetical index pages). The reason it excites me is that it is now going to be a heckuva lot easier for me to maintain. If I want to change the layout of my site (or any colors), for example, I only have to change one or two pages, instead of over 400 pages. Plus, it will be much easier to change or add new waterfall pages to my site now. I still have some more things to change over on the site, but I did get all 400+ waterfall pages converted. So I’m definitely happy about that.

In other stuff … next weekend will be an exciting weekend for myself and my wife. We are going to San Francisco for the weekend, and going whale watching to the Farallon Islands. We had this trip set up to do back in January, but it got postponed due to bad weather. That re-scheduled date is now upon us. It should be an exciting time, and hopefully, I’ll have some great photos to share from it. The long-range forecast this time looks all right too, thankfully.

Ok, well this is a funny story I’m sure you will all find rather amusing, and will be laughing at me hysterically.

I found this 175 ft. high waterfall a couple weeks ago at Jay Bird Canyon powerhouse, off Ice House Rd. But when I was there, the light was too harsh for taking a photo, so my plan was to return in better light and explore the falls more closely. That is what I did last weekend.

Jay Bird Canyon Creek essentially drops right into the powerhouse. But the waterfall is hidden from sight at the powerhouse, up around a bend in the cliff walls. This entire canyon is incredibly steep, and in particular, it is very steep right at the bottom of the creek here. I was not sure how I could get up to see the waterfall, but I was determined to try. Looking at the far side of the creek, I figured that was most definitely too steep to try, so I concentrated on the closer side (take note of that). I tried climbing up the closer side but ran into more poison oak, and even though I tried to get through it, I found the cliffs were just too steep here anyway. So I gave up on that … and instead, climbed a very steep set of stairs going up to a tower above the powerhouse. I’m not really sure I was supposed to go up there, but there was no one around, and no signs indicating I shouldn’t go up there, so I tried climbing the stairs to get a vantage point of the waterfall. And I found one. To take a photo of it on these steep stairs, I had to carefully get out my camera, change lenses, sit down on the stairs, and set up my tripod. It worked. And I figured that would be the best shot of the falls I would get.

My next goal was to find a way to get down to Silver Creek and scramble up stream to find a way to get close to Sugar Pine Creek Falls, a spectacular waterfall that you can see by the road side, but again, the cliffs are so steep in here that it is impossible to get down to see these falls. At the powerhouse, I was able to find a way down to the creek (though it was still steep), then I scrambled up stream, about a half-mile, through more poison oak, and got almost to the waterfall, when I hit a dead-end, with towering cliffs on either side of the creek, and no way to continue. I was totally bummed about that.

So … back to the powerhouse I went. My next plan was to walk down to the dam at the end of the Camino Reservoir. It is a good thing I did. Because as I was passing by Jay Bird Canyon creek again, I noticed a rope (on the far side of the creek, that I thought was too steep), leading up a path. What ??? There is a trail leading right to the waterfall. And once up that first steep section with the rope, it was very easy to make it to the base of the waterfall. Unbelievable. After battling through all that oak and trying to photograph the falls from the stairs, I made my way easily right to the waterfall. Well, I guess that is my job. To do all the hard work for all you people, right? You can start laughing at me now.

Speaking of poison oak … yes, I got another bad case of it. (continue laughing at me). A number of people have told me to use technu, and I would not break out in rash. Well, this time I did bathe myself thoroughly with the stuff when I got home, following the directions on the bottle, and I still got oak. Indeed, the technu didn’t seem to do much of anything for me. That was a big disappointment because I didn’t think I would get it this time using technu. I also (for the first time) got some of it in my eye, and had to go to the doctor. I looked worse than Rocky Balboa. The doctor gave me a shot and some drugs, and it cleared up very soon afterwards. I think I will now be staying well away from the oak for at least the rest of this year. I read an interesting article recently that poison ivy/oak is apparently becoming more prevalent and STRONGER, due to GLOBAL WARMING. Really? You gotta be kidding. That is bad news for me for sure.

After striking out at Chamberlain Creek Falls (previous post), I decided to go for a long drive, following the Iowa Hill Rd. up to Iowa Hill, and then back down to Yankee Jim’s bridge. When I got around to Devil’s Falls, the waterfall was still in shade, though it was around noon-ish. So I decided to stop and take a photo. This waterfall never seems to be easy to take a good photo of, compositionally-wise. But it’s always fun to try. I think this one works not too bad.

As far as water flow goes, I was definitely disappointed in the streams around this area. For early April, the water flow in Devil’s Falls, and other streams is very low right now. These streams depend mostly on rain fall, not snow melt, and we haven’t had any of that in quite awhile around here. The snow hasn’t really started melting much in the mountains either. So when that starts in the next month or so, I think we’ll still be in for a decent waterfall season for those “mountain” waterfalls. But these “rainfall” types are almost done for, as far as this year is concerned.

I recently found this incredible display of wildflowers overlooking the North Fork American River, my all-time favourite river. What could be better than this? I was here at sunrise, which was nice, but admittedly not the best time of day for photographing these flowers. The poppies were still sleeping; it would have been better to get here in the late morning, me thinks. Well, I’ll just have to go back there I guess. This scene was found along the Windy Pt. Trail in Colfax.

I’m not sure all the types of flowers in this amazing field. There were quite a many different kinds of them. Included were the poppies, lupines, and goldfields.

After taking in this view, I headed on down the path from here to the river. A small creek comes into the river, and there was supposed to be a decent waterfall there (called Chamberlain Creek Falls). I was quite disappointed though that the creek was only just trickling and the waterfall pretty much non-existent. That is one that will only be worth seeing after a heck of a lot of rain.

After work last week, I took the whole family up to Folsom Lake to a particular spot I know where there is a fabulous field of lupines. I wasn’t sure if they would be blooming yet, but I was rewarded as they were out in full display. I took a number of photos, but this was the only one that really turned out. And I really love this photo, with the unnamed creek on the left and the sun setting over the distant hills, giving some last illumination to the lupines.

The kids had a blast running along the trail, throwing rocks into the river, playing in the sand, and trampling all the flowers. Actually, I tried to keep them out of the flowers, and they did a good job for the most part. Though, there may have been a couple that bit the dust.

Now, I’m not much of a flower person. I mean, I love flowers (especially wildflowers), but I don’t usually take photos of them. Why is that, you ask? When I take photographs, I like showing the whole landscape. In fact, if you look through my website, you will notice very few intimate close-up photos of waterfalls. There may be a few, but not too much. I like showing the whole waterfall in my photos, not just an intimate close-up of part of it. It’s just a personal preference; what I like to do. So that is why I would never photograph a close-up flower shot. But if I can photograph a broad landscape scene with flowers in it, then most definitely I will do it. That was my goal at Folsom Lake, and I think I accomplished that quite well.

By the way, this location is at the end of the lake, at Old Salmon Falls, which is an old townsite that was flooded when the Folsom Dam was built many many years ago. All that is left at this old site is the Old Salmon Falls bridge, which is under water most of the time, except when the lake level is very low. Last year, we had a very dry year here, and the bridge was fully visible. But now, the lake level is rising again. Only the very top of it is now showing, and it will probably be under water completely within another week.