Leon Turnbull Photography

This is the third waterfall in Lundy Canyon. It is 30 ft. high, and one of my favorites in this canyon. I took a bit too much time here though. The fourth waterfall is immediately above this one, and by the time I was done shooting this waterfall, the fourth one was already in the sun. Too late to photograph it. If I was thinking properly I would have shot the upper one first, then came back down to this one. It was too early in the morning to think properly. Ah well, c’est la vie.

The bit of fall color on the left here was really nice, though it was past peak for color, and I really liked the little swirly in the foreground, so I used a nice long exposure to bring it out prominently. The log across the middle of the falls I did not like, and it was not there last time I was here, but it seemed like it would be far too much effort to try to get it out of there, so I left it for nature to remove on its own will.

Here is a closer and more intimate view of Lundy Canyon Falls from the overlook. I have lots more pictures from Lundy to process, but I have been busy this week, so I haven’t gotten to them yet.

In other news, I have just started biking to work this week. It takes about 25 minutes one way, it is only 3.5 miles from my house to work. I am excited about this so far, and I felt great the first day of doing this. If I can do this every day, I am going to get in great shape over this fall and winter, and I’ll be ready to get out in the spring to do some serious hiking. Yeah.

It seems that I have been waiting a long long time for Fall to arrive. Well, actually I have been! We had a very long summer here, the heat lasted into the beginning of October. It was crazy, and you know, I hate the hot weather. Well finally things have cooled down here in northern California, and finally the Autumn colors have arrived. It is going to be a very short Fall this year, I think, so I figured I should get out and enjoy it while it is here. So off to Lee Vining did I go on Saturday morning for my favorite Autumn hike: Lundy Canyon.

It is a very long drive over to the Eastern Sierra for just a day hike, but I figure I can manage doing it once or twice a year. I left the house at about 3AM, arriving at the trailhead at 6:30AM, and ready to start my hike up Lundy Canyon in peace. It was not quite as peaceful as I would have liked, however, because shockingly there was another couple starting the hike at about the same time.  I thought I was the only one crazy enough to get up so early for a hike. Not so, apparently. I noticed that they were photographers as well (which explains the craziness), and they caught up with me at the first waterfall.

The first waterfall was decked out in all its Fall glory, surrounded by gorgeous Aspen color. The flow in the creek was less than usual, though not surprising considering the awful winter we had this year. Nonetheless, it was flowing better than I expected it to be. There was still quite a bit of green showing at the lower elevations of Lundy Canyon, but at the same time there was a lot of yellow and orange also. I may have arrived here one week too early for best color, but at the higher elevations (above the second waterfall), most of the trees were already well past peak color.

After shooting from the overlook, I went on down to the base of the waterfall, looking for some more compositions of this lovely waterfall. I had never been to the base of it before, and it was quite easy with a trail leading down to it, but I couldn’t find a good comp that I liked with fall color down so close to the falls. Afterwards, I continued on up the canyon to the upper waterfalls. I thought about going all the way to the top of the monster waterfall, but I decided against it. There is a trail to the top, but it is very steep and a bit on the dangerous side, so instead I just looked for some new comps of that huge waterfall (which was not flowing too great anyway).

On the way back down the trail, I must have passed a hundred people hiking up the trail. It seemed like Fourth of July in Yosemite, with all the people out hiking, but I guess, for the Eastern Sierra, this is the most popular time of year for hiking. It sure seemed like a lot more than usual, however. Back in Lee Vining for lunch and to fill up with gas (at a whopping $5.09 per gallon – oh my!), then made the long drive back home. It was a long but great day in the Eastern Sierra.

The sun came up quickly in Hope Valley as I was photographing the waterfall on the West Fork Carson River. I knew it would be and that I would not have much time to shoot.

I made my way downstream looking to get at least one more shot of the river and the fall color around it. I found this spot which looked promising and (again) I hopped out on boulders into the middle of the river. You sure couldn’t do that in the spring (but then, there is no fall color in the spring either – LOL).

This image is a blend of two shots. I wanted a super long exposure on the water to give it a real smooth look. But in that exposure the trees were blowing around too much and I did not like how it looked. Fortunately I had an exact image but with a shorter exposure, in which the leaves were not blowing as much. I combined the two in Photoshop … and voila!

It started raining as I was driving back from Big Kimshew Falls. I was looking for some Fall color to photograph, as there were a lot of nice color trees turning along the road, but I was looking for something beside some water. Then I came to this river crossing, the West Branch of the Feather River, and I saw this big yellow tree that I really liked, hanging over the water. So I stopped and went back to the bridge to take a shot in the rain. I couldn’t get a comp without the grey sky in it, because of an ugly flume in the way. But this view works pretty well too, I think.