Leon Turnbull Photography

So how do we top the last image of Abiqua Falls? Umm, not gonna happen folks. I suppose I could just keep giving you more images of Abiqua Falls. That will happen in time but as far as all the other waterfalls we saw on our Oregon trip, none of them are even close to comparing to Abiqua or Henline Falls, the last two waterfalls I posted. I saved the best for first. So sorry about that. You will just have to deal with it. But hey, do not worry too much, we did see some other pretty waterfalls on the trip. This is one of them: Upper Butte Creek Falls. It is only 23 ft. high, but it is a pretty one for sure, and much easier to get to then Abiqua Falls.

I came to this one first, arriving at the trailhead when it was still dark. It is a short walk from there down to the upper Butte Creek Falls so it was before sunrise when I got here. I did not want to wait around however. I was not sure how much time I’d need to get to Abiqua Falls and that was my primary goal. I could NOT be late getting to Abiqua. That would be disaster. So I setup and started shooting this waterfall right away. I did have to turn up the ISO on the camera but only to 400. The photo here no doubt does not look like it was taken at about sunrise or before, as you can see it is quite a colorful image. The nice thing about cameras is they can see things your eyes cannot see, so what may have been a bit dark to my eyes, the camera could see very well. Anyway, it was a quickie here at Upper Butte Creek Falls; after shooting this, I then scampered down to the lower falls and then scooted back up to the car. No time to waste. Onward and downward to Abiqua Falls.

No words. You can try to prepare yourself for such astounding beauty. Read books. Look at pictures. Eat donuts. Whatever you do, you will undoubtedly fall far short. Of course I had seen countless photos of Abiqua Falls. I knew it was an incredible waterfall. Duh. This is why it has been on my list to visit for many years now. I am sure everyone and their cat has been here before me. I got the chance this year. When I finally arrived at the falls I was truly overwhelmed. A drop dead gorgeous plummet of 89 feet (measured) off a colorful basalt cliff into a glorious deep, green pool. And the surroundings? Glorious. It is located in a spectacular amphitheater, with magnificent columnar basalt, bright reddish colored lichen on the cliff walls. I have seen well over 600 hundred waterfalls in my long life but Abiqua Falls ranks very near the top of the list of the most beautiful falls I have seen. Just my opinion of course. You may not think it so great. In fact, I am lying. It is not worth your while to come here. It’s not that good. Wink wink.

I do wish I could have brought my family here. I thought of going back to the motel in Salem and bringing them back. It would have been a bit tough for the kids due to the steepness of the hike but they could have done it. The problem though is we would have had to leave our old dog in the car cuz she would not have been able to do the hike. She would be so sad. And it was going to be a hot day. Not good. Actually it would have been stupid to leave her in the car. Plus we needed to get over to the coast anyway and get to our campground. We would not want to miss out on that now would we? It was so much cooler over there. I’ll just have to bring them here another time. I won’t mind coming back here. Really.

I arrived at the trailhead early in the morning. The hike down is not that bad, really. It was easier than I thought it would be. There are some steep sections as I said but there are ropes to help you get down. Once at the creek it is very easy to follow the path up to the waterfall. It was incredible to be at the waterfall all by myself. No one else around. Just me, myself and God enjoying the incredible beauty of it all. I spent quite awhile here, photographing the waterfall from all possible angles, and then some, including crossing the cold creek and actually standing in prior mentioned cold creek (for this shot). Finally I reluctantly packed up my gear and headed back up the hill to the car. It was a great morning indeed.

On a side note, I measured the plunge’s beautiful-ness to be 89 feet high. Certain wild and crazy kayakers of whom have made the sheer plummet (literally) from top to bottom apparently measured the drop to be 101 ft high. Now everyone and their cat thinks Abiqua Falls is 101 ft high. It is not 101 ft high. For confirmation of this I cite Bryan Swan’s measurement of 92 ft (waterfallsnorthwest.com). Since his and my measurement are so incredibly close, it is thus most very likely that the true height of the waterfall is somewhere between 89 and 92 ft and the third figure (101 ft) is incorrect. Of course I could be wrong. I don’t think so. What’s 12 feet difference anyway? Not much (unless you are a kayaker).

Seven straight days of plus 100 degree weather in California. That was the forecast. Indeed on the north end of the valley the 100 degree weather is even extending well into a second week. As it turned out, miraculously, my vacation plans precisely co-incided with the impending doom. But even Oregon would be experiencing the roast, particularly in the location where I was initially planning to go for a few days of family camping. I decided in the late moments to change plan, and instead head over to the northern Oregon coast, much to my wife’s delight. She loves the ocean and when her annual vacation with her mom over to the CA coast fell through, she was left without her coastal fix this year. She cried for days on end (kidding!). Needless to say, it did not take much convincing on my part to talk her into going camping on the OR coast instead of inland Oregon. About a quarter of a second is what I think it took. I timed it. The temperature forecast on the northern Oregon coast? High 70’s. The temperature back home? 110. Any second thoughts? Nope.

Before getting to the coast we decided to stop one night in Salem in a motel. I had wanted to take my family to Abiqua Falls, but after reading about it more, I realized the hike was a little more intense than I initially thought for a family hike. I do think our kids could have done that hike, but there were some very steep sections, and we would have had to be very careful. And I am sure there would have been many protests. Regardless, there was certainly no way our old dog would have been able to do that hike. Her mind is more than willing, but her body is now unable to co-operate. She can still do easy hikes though, so I decided to take them to Henline Falls instead, another waterfall I really wanted to go to, and this one is an easy 1 mile trek. I did end up going to Abiqua Falls by myself, and I will be sharing that photo next.

In the Salem area the temperature was about 85 degrees when we arrived at the trailhead, but the humidity was unreal. We were sweating raindrops after about 10 minutes into the hike. Big massive raindrops. I think the rains we had last week really increased the humidity exponentially. Normally, it is not like this at all in the summer. What is up with this craziness? If I liked humidity, I would live in Missouri.

It was wonderful and cool at the waterfall, however. Henline Falls is 98 ft. high, and the trail takes you right to the base of the falls. This makes it a very difficult waterfall to photograph. Even at lower flows, there is a lot of mist at the falls, and thus not very many compositions available for photographing it. We enjoyed the waterfall for quite a while, eating picnic dinner, checking out the cave beside the waterfall, and taking many photos.

I have been to the Columbia River Gorge many times over the years, but I never made it up to Upper Latourell Falls. There are just SO many great waterfalls to see in the Gorge, and time is usually very limited. It is impossible to see them all in one trip, and decisions have to be made. Upper Latourell Falls was always the one that was cut out. Not this time.

But actually, Upper Latourell Falls was not on my list “again” this year. I was not planning to go here. Again, too little time and too many waterfalls to see. On my last morning here, I had plans to see some different waterfalls. But this time, circumstances changed and I updated my plan. Mostly it was because I was too tired, and the ones I had initially planned to see would be tough ones, so instead, I decided to go to a couple closer and somewhat easier waterfalls (namely, Triple Falls and Oneonta Falls, and then Upper Latourell Falls).

Upper Latourell was the last one I saw on this trip. It is a nice one, dropping 122 ft., but is not particularly easy to photograph the entire waterfall. This is the lower section, and it looks quite like Oneonta Falls, which I had just visited an hour earlier. You can also get up in behind this waterfall as well. I finished the hike about noon, and fortunately it was overcast so I had good lighting. Then after lunch, I made the long drive back to California. It so happened that it was a Saturday, and both the Beavers and Ducks had home games this day. I-5 was totally clogged up with traffic, by fans from these teams driving down from Portland to see their teams. All the cars on the freeway had their Beavers or Ducks flags waving from their cars. It was crazy. And it did not make me happy, trying to make decent time back to California. Well, it took awhile, but I finally got by them all and made it back to California. Geesh.

http://www.waterfallswest.com/waterfall.php?id=1571

I think I have said this before, but it seems to me that compared to California, Oregon’s waterfalls are all so perfect: perfectly shaped, and perfectly formed. California has the huge ones of course: Yosemite, Bridalveil, etc. Oregon’s waterfalls are generally not so huge, but they are all respectable sizes. And just so perfect. Horsetail and Ponytail Falls are “perfect” examples. To me, they just really look like a horse’s tail, and a pony’s tail.

It is a bit of a climb from Horsetail Falls up to Ponytail Falls. I actually thought it was a lot harder than it was.  For some reason or other, I had it marked on my GPS as a 1000 ft. climb, which makes it as high as climbing to the top of Multnomah Falls. I told John this beforehand, and I still managed to talk him into it, after already a hard day of photographing the Gorge. It really was only about a 600 ft. climb. Ponytail Falls is located right on top of Horsetail Falls, I thought it was further up the mountain. Oh well, this is a good thing.

Ponytail Falls is an incredibly photogenic waterfall. We spent quite a bit of time photographing around it, finding different compositions, moving around big logs that were in the way, placing leaves, etc. It is also a popular waterfall. As we were down below it photographing, one guy came down and sat on a big rock right in front of us, going into some kind of meditative state or other. John was more upset about this than I was. I just laughed. Around here, you just gotta go with the flow and move on.