Leon Turnbull Photography

The deer returned in the morning. Not just a couple this time, there were more than seven now. The same one from the previous evening was there and was the first into my camp. She liked to lick my pee. Others came into my camp as well, but some stayed in the meadow. A more aggressive one kicked out my most friendly girl from licking my pee. When another deer came up to get a lick, it kicked her in the face. What a mean deer! They were now all over my camp while I was trying to get ready to leave. They tried to get in my food but of course I did not allow that. One of them was licking my camera which I had set up on my tripod. I did not want them to “accidentally” knock it down so I laid down the camera and tripod on top of my tripod case (note: the heavy camera on top of the case) I went to get my water which was about 20 feet away. This was the opportunity they had been waiting for. I heard a big noise, looked up and saw my camera and tripod now a couple feet away flipped over, and a deer taking off like lightning into the forest. It took me a few seconds to understand what happened. My tripod case was gone! The thief stole my tripod case! I am pretty sure it was the mean one, I cannot prove it, but I would bet on it. I went into the woods to look for it, hoping that the deer dropped it. I could not find it. When I returned to camp, another deer was trying to make off with my camera case! I yelled at it, and thankfully it dropped the camera case. These are not innocent little deer here. They are a band of thieves! I am sure the mean deer has a stash of campers’ items hidden away somewhere in the forest. Look what I got today, honey? Stupid humans. I don’t think I will ever trust a deer again. For the rest of this trip I made sure I had everything stashed away in my tent whenever I left camp. Of all the things they could have taken, the tripod case was a minor item. However, I had to be careful because my tripod legs unscrew easily and I have lost one or two of them before which is why I always keep the tripod in the case. If they had gotten off with the camera case that would’ve been bad because I had some important items in it including my expensive filter. Or what if they took one of my hiking shoes? How awful would that be!

I left camp early because I had enough of the deer. They were still in camp when I left. It is a 4 mile hike to Emerald Lake. I arrived about noon, set up camp and made my lunch. I relaxed in the afternoon, trying to find what little shade there was.

At 3PM I started my afternoon hike. I wanted to hike to Sapphire Lake and beyond. I thought there would be some waterfalls at Sapphire Lake but it turned out there was nothing significant. There was a big one, however, at the end of Sapphire Lake but snow lingers well into late spring. The last satellite image I saw was before the last snow storm and there was still a lot of snow. The route would be impossible if there was snow. There are too many dangerous drop-offs along the lake. However, the route was free of snow! I was surprised. I was not expecting to make it at all. The trail is not official or on any maps but it is a good one (overgrown though). At the end of the lake I got off the trail and headed over to the waterfalls. It became extremely brushy as I approached the waterfall but I made it. I was ecstatic!

The lower section of Mirror Lake Falls is 51 ft. high (shown here). It is absolutely gorgeous. There is a middle and upper tier as well but it seemed too brushy and I was out of time as well. At least I got a decent photo of the middle tier. This waterfall made my entire trip. I returned to camp at sunset, completely exhausted. Day two is over. Day three is about to begin.

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The Stuart Fork Trinity River. This hike was on my list but not at the top of my list. Nonetheless, I think I smashed it. Three awesome waterfalls. I took my vacation earlier than usual, in April this year because of the lack of snow. I was planning to go to Yosemite but the April storms changed all that. Lingering snow showers in Yosemite were in the forecast. For the north, however, the weather looked a lot better. And it worked out well because my wife and Journey would be up north as well.

I did not take Journey for this first trip (I had a second one planned for which I did take her). The reason is because this is a low elevation hike and I had read there are many rattlesnakes in this area. I am freaked out about taking Journey to places where there is a high possibility of rattlesnakes. I did not see any, however. Only one little garter snake. It would’ve been a hard hike for her anyway.

I arrived at the Stuart Fork trailhead and started my hike. I would be hiking 8 miles to Morris Meadow on the first day. I only saw one other couple the entire trip. They were on their way back down from Morris Meadow. The lady did give me one good tip about the bridge at Deer Creek which is a little bit hard to see, and I noticed that they also picked up some trash (which I was planning to get on the way back). So kudos to them whoever they are.

I found a beautiful spot by the river for camp. I made my dinner and hung out for a while. In the evening I started getting ready to go to the waterfall. A couple deer came into my camp. They were very friendly and not afraid of me whatsoever. One of them came right up to within 2 feet of me. Not joking. These were not just some random friendly deer. They were a scouting party. Send in your two nicest and friendliest members to scout the location before the invasion. But more on that later. I left them to wander around my camp and started for the waterfall.

Initially, I had absolutely no intention about getting to this waterfall. Up close that is. I was just going to find a place to photograph it from a long distance away because I was certain that the Stuart Fork would be uncrossable. In most places it was but there was one spot near my camp that was easily crossable. What the heck, I may as well try this one after all. At first, the going was very easy. I was optimistic. However, the closer I got to the creek the more brushy it became. It was now a full on bushwhack. I was worried about snakes. This is the exact type of terrain they love to be in. I thought I should turn back but now I could see the waterfall up ahead through the trees. It was still a long way away. But I had to keep going. Finally, I made it to the bottom of the waterfall. Absolutely spectacular!

Bear Gulch Falls is 139 feet high. A stunning cascade. I spent some time here at the bottom of the falls, enjoying the view and taking photographs. It is a perfect viewpoint, nice and open and beautiful. I was so happy. There are upper waterfalls but they are far up the mountain and it is impossible to reach them. I went back down, hoping not to step on any snakes. The deer were gone when I got back to camp (for now). I went to bed. Day one is over. Day two is about to begin.

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I did not really want to hike this weekend. I had too much stuff to do around the house and to get ready for my big hikes coming up next week. However, my wife was out of town for the day and I had Journey all to myself. She needed to get some exercise no matter what. I decided to head up to Ice House for a quick and easy hike. Jaybird Canyon Falls should be flowing very well.

The weather people said it was supposed to be cloudy by around noon with rain coming in later in the afternoon. That did not happen.

We arrived at the waterfall at about noon. There were clouds but they were very light clouds so the sun was shining through and it was quite bright. We ate our lunch at the falls and waited around for quite a while. Journey was very patient and laid down in the grass while I waited for the clouds. I managed to get one decent photo of the waterfall I think. On the drive home the heavier clouds did seem to roll in so I think it would have been much better if I had gone a couple hours later than I did. C’est la vie, right?

It is not a difficult hike but Journey seemed to be lagging and quite tired on the climb back up to the car. Was it too hot for her? I don’t think so. Was she still tired from playing too much fetch with mom the day before? Probably. Anyway, we had fun. It was a lovely afternoon in Eldorado National Forest.

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I had to take the day off work because my daughter had a big dance show in San Francisco. Why they did this in the middle of the week I have no clue. Anyhow, we did not have to leave until the afternoon so that meant I could take Journey on a good hike somewhere in the morning. But where?

We had a big April snowstorm last weekend. Two feet of snow in the mountains. Too little too late, I think. If we had this storm in March it would have been many feet of snow. Nonetheless, an April storm is beautiful. I love it. It would be nice to go up into the mountains and hike in the snow and see a good (or great) waterfall. Bassi Falls here we come (again).

The forecast indicated there would be possibly 1.5 feet of snow in this area. I thought that might be too much for Journey. And also, parking could be a big issue if they had not cleared the trailhead area off Ice House Road. I decided to try it anyway. We got up there at sunrise. Thankfully they had cleared some space to park and there was only about a half foot of snow. I was surprised about that. I wondered if all the snow had melted in two days or they just never got the amount forecast. Probably the latter.

Even a half foot of snow was difficult for Journey. It was crusty and she was sinking in. She was struggling but the good thing was someone had been in here already with snowshoes. If we walked in the snowshoe tracks it was a lot easier. For the most part Journey did this. She let me go ahead and she followed in my steps but she had problems if she wandered off the tracks at all. If she had a choice between going in the snow or through a huge puddle, she always chose the puddle. She is smart and also silly.

I brought Journey’s water but I forgot my own water. That was stupid. Thankfully it is an easy hike and I did not need it (also, I may have drunk some of her water – hummm). I saw fresh bear tracks in the snow. That is the first time this year I have seen any, but no bear unfortunately.

We arrived at the waterfall and I took my usual photos. There was less water flowing than when I was here in April last year. I thought it would be better today. I had also thought there would be more snow at the waterfall but it had mostly all melted. Oh well. It was a fun day in the snow at Bassi Falls.

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The Apr 1 final snow pack results are in. Unfortunately it is not a joke. Or perhaps it is a very sad joke. The snow pack is just 6% for northern California, 20% for Central Sierra, 33% for Southern Sierra. Most of the snow we had melted in March of course and we had no precipitation. We had a nice April storm but this did not add to the snow pack, it was melted in a couple days. It did help the reservoirs, I suppose. Next winter we are looking at a El Nino, possibly a super (strong) El Nino. That does not necessarily mean we will have a good winter. Remember all the hype for the super El Nino in 2016? We ended up with just an average winter that year.

I had plans this weekend to do a quick overnight trip to visit a couple waterfalls I discovered last year. It would have been awesome if I could have made it.

I expected there would be 2-4 inches of snow from the April storm. There was about 3 inches. It was enough to make the hiking a lot more difficult and tiring than I anticipated. My major worry was where to park my vehicle overnight. I could not drive down the road because of the snow. I did not want to park overnight along the busy highway. There was nowhere else to park. My last ditch plan was to park back at the Peddler station and walk along the highway for a mile. There was an easy path to walk well off the highway. Well, it would have been easy if there wasn’t any snow. Nonetheless, I think it was a good safe choice to park at Peddler.

I did not see any bear tracks in the snow (a bit surprising) but I did see fresh mountain lion tracks. On the second day I saw more fresh mountain lion tracks. And there were older tracks as well, so there is definitely a lion cruising around this area. I did not see him. I suppose that is a good thing.

My planned hike was 6 miles half of which is off trail. The on trail part was easy. The off trail part not so much. There was quite a bit of brush and it was slow going. With over a mile left to go I came to a hard stop. An unnamed creek. Roaring. Uncrossable. This was not even the main creek that I knew I would have to cross (which is a bigger creek than this one). I was not expecting so much flow in this little thing. It is no doubt due to all the snow melting from this last storm. Last week probably I could have crossed this one easily. Not today.

It was almost sunset and I was very tired. I set up camp beside this unnamed creek, ate some food, and went to bed. It was very windy. The wind was battering my tent like there was no tomorrow. It was relentless. My tent held up well. This was the first good test for my new Durston tent and it passed admirably. I had to go out once to tighten one side because it seemed looser than the other side but after that, all was good. Of course I still could not sleep with the wind howling. I prayed to God to let it stop. At midnight, the wind stopped. Just like that. Now considering that the forecast said it was going to be windy all night and that is what I was expecting, I say this is a miracle. Whatever you think, it did allow me to get some sleep.

In the morning I consulted my map. I did not want to go home with nothing to show for it. It looked like there could possibly be a waterfall on this unnamed, uncrossable creek, just a short distance downstream. Off I went exploring. It was brushy but I was able to find a way through it, and before long I found my waterfall!

I am calling this unnamed waterfall West Fork Tragedy Creek Falls. It is the west fork of Tragedy Creek so it makes sense. It is 48 ft. high. It has multiple segments and I took quite a few photos. My trip was not a complete failure after all.

I went back to camp, ate breakfast, and hiked back to the car. I was home by 1:30PM. It was a quick and very interesting overnight trip in Eldorado National Forest.

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