Leon Turnbull Photography

It is shocking that I had never been to see White River Falls before. It is only a little bit out of the way on our normal route from California to Canada. It is a magnificent waterfall. You would think I would been here before now. The waterfall madman missing out on such a beauty? I have no excuses. But all is remedied now.

We had a good week in Canada visiting family. The kids got in a couple days of skiing at Red Mountain (the best ski hill in the world – of course I am biased). I rested my back all week and did not ski this year (that would have really killed off my back for sure), so I am pretty much all ready for El Nino now and for more hiking.

Speaking of El Nino, the El Nino storms have finally started in California. We finished December with a slightly above average snow pack (107% in the Central Sierra, and about 100% in the North) and slightly above average rainfall. The media was reporting 136% snow pack thus far; That is quite wrong and I am not sure where they got those figures from (did they just take one reading at one location in all of California? or did they just make it up?). So far in January, we are just seeing very weak storms, and there is nothing much better in the long range forecast; but we continue to pray we will see a lot of rain and snow for the rest of the winter.

Anyway it was a very cold day as we drove down from Canada. We got out of the car at Spokane and I nearly froze to death before I took five steps. I got back in the car and made the kids go in to get my coffee. Just kiddin.

We made good time and arrived at White River Falls State Park in the afternoon. It was a cloudy day (which is good, it was supposed to be sunny). The park was closed, and that meant we had to walk in from the road. I had promised the kids it would only be a half mile hike, but this added another half mile or so. Oops. Did I mention that it was a very cold day? Despite the closure, there were a lot of people there. It is a popular location and I expected some people there, but not quite so many. Well, we made it to the overlook, no one else was there at the moment, so I setup my camera and started taking photos. I was antsy and nervous because the kids were fooling around, playing near the cliff. I kept telling them to stay back from the edge. I suppose they were not really being unsafe, but I was being an over protective father, and Nekoda had already slipped twice on the ice that day (and according to her, broke both her knees). Speaking of being unsafe, I saw one person down below that had climbed up on the ice above the river edge to get up close to the waterfall. If he had slipped on that ice, he would have been in the river. I saw some other people that had climbed down the cliff from the overlook to get closer. That also seemed a bit much on the “too dangerous” side of things. The overlook is safe and it has a better view. Why kill yourself?

White River Falls is a drop dead gorgeous waterfall. Officially, actually two waterfalls. The lower one is called Celestial Falls (31 ft. high), the upper one is called White River Falls (79 ft. high). There is a third smaller waterfall as well, which we also went down to see. I am definitely glad we took the time to come here, even though all our body parts took a couple hours to thaw out once we got back to the car.

Here is another shot of beautiful snowy and icy Tamanawas Falls in Mt Hood, Oregon. It was a fun but very icy and crazy hike up to the waterfall.

I have a new Waterfall Madman video up from this hike. It is fun, crazy, and hilarious. Check it out, and please share with all your friends:

We left very early from Rossland to drive back to California. We take it in two days. The first day is about 500 miles to Bend, Oregon where we stay the night and drive the rest on the next day. I left a bit earlier than usual this time (much to the chagrin of my family), because I wanted to stop at Tamanawas Falls by Mt Hood along the way. This side jaunt adds 50 miles to our trip. It was worth it. But it was crazy.

It was overcast all day until we arrived at the trailhead in the afternoon. That’s when the sun came out. Ugh. Hopefully the falls would be in shade by the time we got to it. It is an easy two mile hike to the waterfall. Now when I say easy you should know by now that means difficult. My wife figured that out long ago. Nonetheless I managed to talk my entire family into coming along on the hike. Tara really did not want to come at first. I convinced her it would just be a leisurely family hike to the waterfall. Well it should have been that. It would have been that. Except for one thing I had not considered: ice! The trail was all iced over, making an easy hike into a very difficult and potentially very dangerous hike.

When we came to one spot where the trail started to go uphill on an icy slope, Tara had enough. She does not do ice and her boots have zero traction. The kids decided they wanted to continue on with me. That would have been ok if it did not get any worse. But it did get worse. Nonetheless we trooped on. In hindsight if I had realized how bad it was going to be I surely would not have taken the kids. Going up was not too horrendous but as it got worse my stress level raised exponentially. I had to keep both kids completely safe as well as myself. We went slowly. There were no deathly dropoffs except one and we stayed clear of it. Finally we reached the waterfall. It is a magnificent 100 ft high waterfall in a picturesque snow filled canyon. I did not bring my measuring sticks so I could not determine the exact height of the falls. I also photographed the falls from far back. There was a lot more treacherous ice to negotiate in order to continue any closer and my stress level was already at maximum. I didn’t think I could get right up close anyway so I decided to stay safely back and photograph from a distance.

The hike back was worse. Going downhill on ice is much more dangerous. We were very careful, going very slowly, sometimes sliding on our bums down the path. I would go first then Nekoda and Jadon would come down and I would catch them. I only fell one time and I took Nekoda down with me. Unfortunately that one time was enough to wrench my back out again. Argh. To top it off it was on an easy section, after we had gotten down all the difficult stuff. Jadon fell eight times he said, and again it was all on the easier sections. He was not happy by the end but both kids were real troopers and did awesome on this hike. We had a lot of fun.

There were quite a lot of other hikers out on the trail. Even though it seems the trail is out a long way from anywhere, it is a popular one. Most people turned back because of the ice and did not go all the way to the waterfall. However on our way back down we saw one family coming up the trail. They were coming up a particularly icy section. They had two kids, one boy about Nekoda’s age (8), and one little girl who was much younger. She was wearing rubber boots with no traction, and I could tell she had been crying. The father was not doing anything to help her up the icy section. (I was holding Nekoda’s hand the entire time to make sure she did not fall, especially on the icy parts). I told the mom it gets much more icy and dangerous up ahead. She ignored me completely. It was already getting quite late, and would be getting dark soon. The kids and I made it back to the car about 30-40 minutes before sunset. I knew exactly what I was doing on this hike and I knew my kids capabilities and I knew they were safe on this hike and I knew the time and I knew that we would be back well before dark. However, these people had no clue. If they continued to the waterfall as it seemed they were going to do, they would be certainly hiking back in the dark down an extremely icy trail and completely unprepared for the terrain. They (and especially the little girl) should not have been out there. It is just very stupid. Ok, end rant. Enjoy the photo.

We are still waiting for the big rains to start. The last storm only dropped about 1.5 inches, and less in other areas. We are going to need a lot lot lot lot more before the waterfalls start flowing again. I was disappointed again when the forecasters backed off on the rain that was supposed to be here this week. This is exactly what happened all last year. Maybe next week?

This is Pheasant Creek Falls in Oregon. It is not on Pheasant Creek. It is not on any named creek. There is another waterfall very near this one. It is on Pheasant Creek. That one is not called Pheasant Creek Falls. Are you confused yet?

My 2014 waterfall calendar is now available. Get yours in time for Christmas!

http://www.waterfallswest.com/gallery/cal-2013.html

Here is yet one more photo from Abiqua Falls, Oregon. I was basically flat on my back in front of the TV all of Thanksgiving weekend. Normally Black Friday is my favorite hiking day of the year, and I had plans to do three big hikes this weekend. However, I put my back out the previous week and it was still not recovered. I could not even drive up north to see my family, so I was home all alone. It was not very fun. It sucked to put it mildly. I don’t like being so negative on Thanksgiving, I have much to be thankful to God for in my life, most especially my wife and children. But the weekend sucked for me. Oh well, at least I did not have to eat yucky turkey. haha. I am hoping this next weekend to get in at least one small, easy hike.

Unfortunately, it has been a very frustrating start to the winter, and the weather seems to be continuing from where it left off last season, meaning it is not continuing at all. We had a little bit of rain today, and another little bit is coming this weekend and maybe next week, but I do not see any big storms in the forecast, and we need some big ones. At least six inches of rain is needed to get the waterfalls going again, these little bits are not really helping too much at all. Sigh.

In other news, I hope you are checking out my new Waterfall Madman adventure videos. Here is Part II of the Feather Falls video. It is really better to watch it in HD, I am not happy with how youtube compresses the videos. I’ll be working on getting them better in the future. Please subscribe to my channel and share with all your friends!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDmSfhl93P0

Here is Part I if you missed it:

http://youtu.be/Vz7jeJa95ec