Happy 4th everyone! I have not been out hiking lately. I find it very hard to get motivated when it is hot out, and it is only the beginning of July! So anyway, enjoy this image from the Tuolumne River, Yosemite. This is one of many small waterfalls on the river below California Falls, but this is one of the nicer ones, 34 ft. high, which I call Lower California Falls.
I have not been out much recently. I did go out hiking last Friday evening, and I found a new waterfall, but what happened when I got to the waterfall and was preparing to take a photo? I realized my camera was broken! I thought it was the lens again, so I tried the other lens, but it still did not work. Doh! It was an Err 30 message, and from what I read about it, it means the shutter needs to be replaced. Argh, and the worst thing is that the camera was just 3 months out of warranty. So that essentially ruined my hike that evening, and I did not get any photos. I sent the camera in for repair on Saturday, and am still waiting for the word.
Anyway, here is one from my hike on the Tuolumne River last month. This is Middle Tuolumne Falls, one of the smaller waterfalls on the Tuolumne River, but it is an interesting little falls.
This is 229 ft. high Le Conte Falls on the Tuolumne River. It was not one of my favorites on this hike, but it certainly is impressive. You can see why it is often mistaken for Waterwheel Falls, with the big waterwheel it has of its own in the middle of it.
This waterfall is difficult to photograph, and I had a lot of trouble finding a good angle to shoot it. The waterfall is big and wide and has a fairly shallow angle, and also you cannot see the entire falls from one spot. This was about the best I could come up with.
In addition to the five major waterfalls on the Tuolumne River, there are a number of smaller waterfalls, and some of them are significant and not to be overlooked. This is one such waterfall, Lower Waterwheel Falls, which is 32 ft. high. I think most people do overlook this one, and the reason being is that it is so far to hike to, even though it is a very short half mile from Waterwheel Falls. Most people I think just hike to the top of Waterwheel Falls and then turn around, but if you go to the bottom of that huge waterfall, it is very simple to continue down to this lower falls. This was by far the best of the smaller falls on this river. Nonetheless, it is a long 9.6 miles from the Tuolumne Meadows trailhead. It would have been possible to scramble down to the bottom of this falls for a better viewpoint, but I was well out of scrambling mode by the time I got down here. No extra energy was available to do anything requiring that sort of effort, so I just shot this one from the trail (well, slightly off trail).
White Cascade was my favorite of all the waterfalls on the Tuolumne River. It is certainly not the biggest (82 ft. high), or the most powerful, but I found it to be the most interesting. I really liked the shape of it, the top half of it cascading steeply down, then the last half plunging off the ledge (losing contact with the bedrock), into a large and inviting pool. It is powerful yet pretty at the same time. It is interesting that it is called a Cascade, because it is not a cascade at all. It is a horsetail waterfall. (compare that to Waterwheel and Le Conte “Falls” which really are cascades – someone messed up on the naming of these waterfalls if you ask me). White Cascade is also called Glen Aulin “Falls”, but the former name is the official name of this waterfall.
My plan was to eat my lunch here at this waterfall on my hike back up, but I literally could not make it that far and had to stop before I got to it. I almost made it, but I came to the lower cascade just below this one, and realized that there was absolutely no way I could make the climb up to the top of the small cascade. I stopped at the bottom of it, and had to lay down for a good half hour to regain my energy so I could climb the little hill. In the meantime, it started to snow harder and it got a lot colder as well. I did not care about that because I could not move. After resting, I ate an apple and part of my sandwich, then decided I could hike up the rest of the way. I stopped, obviously, at White Cascade and took some photos, then continued on up the rest of the way to the top. I still had five miles to get back to the car, and the snow continued on.