Leon Turnbull Photography

In my strange mind waterfall season begins after the first storm of the winter. That storm happened this week, mid October. The mountains in the Tahoe area received anywhere from 2 to 3 feet of snow from this storm, not a bad start to the year as this is much earlier than usual for our first storm. So all this means that waterfall season has begun! To celebrate, I headed over to Devils Falls after work on Wednesday. I was anticipating the area would have had much more rain than they actually received on Wednesday so I’m not really sure what effect the rain had in the creek’s flow, but it was pretty low. I tried for a different view of the falls from the left side this time. After shooting this waterfall I went down to Shirttail Falls but it was almost dark when I got down there and I was not happy with my photo so I’m not sure if I’ll share it. That creek had low flow as well. I was also freaked about that ledge and I did not venture as far out on it as I have done in the past. There is nothing to hold onto and the ground was wet and potentially slippery (with a huge dropoff). I think I’m also getting more wimpy in my old age. Haha.

The other main reason for going to Devils Falls was to check out the effects of the forest fire that happened here in the summer. It began very near Devils Falls, however I had heard that the lovely greenery around Devils Falls was not touched by the fire at all. Well it is true that the falls did not seem to get burned but everything around it on all sides sure did. Indeed it is very strange that Devils Falls itself was untouched. The scourge from the fire can be seen from Yankee Jim bridge all the way down the North Fork on the east side of the river as far as I could see. Indian Creek Falls was very likely burned. Shirttail Creek Falls was definitely burned and even the south side of Shirttail Creek was burned. I did not venture up to Mexican Gulch Falls as it was dark (but now that I’m thinking about it, I realize I should have). It was definitely very interesting to see the area and the fire’s effects. It also seemed that the road down to the falls is getting worse, which may or may not have anything to do with the fire. It seems narrower and more eroded than ever before. It is probably just my imagination.

Winter is still trying to hang on. The end of last week saw a lovely April storm come our way and I headed up into the foothills after work on Friday evening. I liked this quote from a weather site I follow: “Ironically the Winter that never was may want to hang on here in Spring. Everyone loves a good comeback story.” (tahoeweatherdiscussion.com). It seems also that we might get more wet weather next week as another storm is in the long range scopes. Gotta like it.

My plan was to go out hiking Friday night as well as Sunday afternoon but I only got out on Friday. I’m always too tired on Sundays to do anything, I should know better than try to plan something for that day.

Anyway, even though I left work early, traffic was a mess. I drove through a crazy downpour before I got to Auburn and my map was telling me it would be getting to Colfax in less than an hour. I figured I might just have time to get to the first waterfall I had planned to see before it hit. It did not work out as planned however.

In fact it was already raining pretty good when I started the hike at Windy Point. I was looking to find a new waterfall there, but the directions given to me were rather lame, to put it mildly. I was thinking this would be a short easy hike but I soon realized it was going to be quite the opposite. By the time I reached Chamberlain Creek I figured out the directions and where the waterfall must be located. I would have to scramble up the creek to get to it. There was a path but it was very difficult, very overgrown, and there was a ton of poison oak. I persevered though and eventually came upon the waterfall. The creek was high and strong and the waterfall was magnificent, a 50 foot high fast rushing cascade, but it was determined not to give up its secrets to me. The path came out at the side of the cascade but offered no viewpoint. I could not dare get down close (or into) the creek as it was rushing much too fast. I tried going up to the top of the falls but that did not work either. One last try was to go further downstream. I was able to get down to creek level that way and get a shot. As you can see there are a lot of branches in the way and the view is rather obscured but this was the only option I had. If the creek was flowing less, I think I would have been able to get in the creek and a lot closer to the falls. I may definitely come back here in a few weeks to try again. This is obviously not a great shot but at least the rain had stopped, I never did see that huge storm cell that I drove through on the freeway.

There was a surprising and disturbingly large amount of trash near the falls. It was all very old, none recent, but why was it there? This is a remote and very difficult to reach location. It is not a camping spot so this was not left by any regular group of campers. Kids? Perhaps but I’m not sure why kids would come way out here to this remote spot. Miners? Pot growers? The latter one seems to be more of a possibility. Whoever it was, it sure makes me mad to see all this trash way out here in the wilderness. This should be a completely pristine area. I would love to come back and clean it up but it would be extremely difficult to haul it out of there.

I took an easier route back to my car, nonetheless I was very tired climbing out of the canyon. This is not the first tough hike I’ve done this year but man I must be out of shape again cuz I was really struggling. There were quite a few other waterfalls dropping down the hillside on the other side of the river on unnamed streams. I did stop to get a shot of Slaughter Ravine Falls but that was the only one. I booted it back home in time to get dinner and watch my Canucks lose again. Argh.

Codfish Creek Falls is not one I would normally go to on my own for a number of reasons. I have been to it many times before and usually I like going to new stuff. But on Sunday afternoon I wanted an easy hike that our whole family could go to and Codfish definitely qualifies.

I tried to go out to a waterfall on Saturday. With four inches or so of new rain in the foothills I figured Canyon Creek at Gold Run would be perfect. And it almost was. I like to call Canyon Creek, Tick City because it is infested with the little buggers in the spring. I once had to brush off about fifty ticks clinging to me after hiking about a mile down the canyon. I figured this trip would be no different. It is early in the season but the ticks are out already due to the warm weather and lack of precip this year. Out in force. I have heard it is the worst season for ticks perhaps ever (and I know that the last two seasons have been very awful). However, I did have some good news. This last storm brought low snow, about a foot to Gold Run. All the ticks were buried under it, making my hike more difficult but much more pleasant with no ticks. Unfortunately it also brought one more difficulty: that darn narrow freaky bridge crossing over Canyon Creek just above the first waterfall. As it was very early in the morning and very cold, the bridge was a skating rink, very icy, and very dangerous to cross. One slip and I would have plunged into the cold fast rushing creek below. Not good. I decided to turn back. A wise decision but it made me very disappointed.

So that is why I wanted to go out on Sunday. I needed to at least get to one waterfall this weekend even if it is one I’ve been to before. My family has been sick and didn’t really want to go, especially my daughter, but I managed to talk them into it and everyone had a really nice time.

There was a lot of people out on the trail to Codfish even though it was late on Sunday afternoon. This is another reason I don’t like to come here anymore and if I do it would be at sunrise before anyone else is out and about. Once we got to the falls I had to wait quite awhile for everyone and their dog to clear out of the way so I could have a view of the falls with no one in the way. In the meantime the kids had fun throwing plenty of rocks into the creek. I was able to easily get right into the creek to take this photo. After an inch or more of recent rain here I thought the creek would have quite a bit more flow on it. Not so.

The last reason I may not come here much in the future, though, is a new one: there is now a $10 fee to park here! What the heck? You have to now pay ten dollars to go on a one hour hike?? Let’s be honest folks, this is totally ridiculous. And let’s just consider how awful the access road down to the river is, which requires a high clearance vehicle to drive on, and the facilities consist of one small dirty outhouse. So what is my fee going towards anyway? I would not likely mind to pay perhaps a $5 fee (at most) but $10 for a one hour hike is way way over the top. Nuff said.

The first big rains of the season came this weekend. It was enough rain to get the waterfalls rolling again. Unfortunately, it is not looking very good for the long term, as the long range forecast is showing more dry weather for the next couple weeks. Just when I thought things were finally turning around, now we are going back to square one again, perhaps.

Well, you know me. When it rains, it is time for me to get out waterfallin. The problem right now is my badly sprained ankle, which was the only thing preventing me from getting out hiking. The solution: Go to a roadside waterfall of course. I needed something extremely easy to go to, so Devil’s Falls was the ticket for me this weekend.

I arrived at Devil’s Falls first thing Sunday morning. It was not raining, though more was expected later in the morning. The waterfall was flowing ok, not amazingly great, but it was just about exactly as I expected it to be flowing. So that was good. In order to photograph the waterfall, though, I soon realized that I needed to cross the creek for the best composition. Hmm, with my ankle as it was, I was definitely hoping to avoid this. But there was no way around it, so I took off my hiking shoes and donned my water shoes, putting the shoe over my ankle brace, and I carefully, and doubly carefully, crossed the creek, not wanting to make any sort of slippage on the rocks. I made it over without incident, and setup my tripod in the stream and took my photos.

I tried something a little different with this shot. The dilemma with photographing a shot like this is to try to get everything in the frame in perfect focus. Usually, your foreground (the rocks) is either going to be out of focus or your background will be slightly out of focus (the waterfall). Normally I use something called hyperfocal distance to get the best focused image possible, but it is not a perfect method. This time I tried a different approach. I took two shots, one focused on the foreground, the second focused on the background, and then combined the two in Photoshop. This way, everything is in sharp focus. It worked, and I was really quite pleased with the result. This would not work in all situations, but I think I will be doing this more often in the future.

After Devil’s Falls, I debated long and hard about going down to Shirttail Falls. I really really wanted to. But it is not such an easy one to get to. It is a very steep descent down to the creek, and it looked quite slippery with the wet ground. Though it is not hard to do with two working ankles, it is not so easy or smart with only one. In the end I took the smart option, and instead drove into McDonalds in Colfax to get breakfast and a coffee, before going to church to repent of my sin of going waterfallin’ with only one working ankle. Or was it to repent of going to “Devils” Falls on a Sunday? Something like that. I was quite happy, though, when I got back home. Thinking I would be in a lot of pain after going out in the morning, instead the ankle is doing much much better; going to a waterfall seemed to even help it! I might even be ready to go out hiking next weekend.

Bassi Falls was a must stop place at sunset for my private workshop on Ice House Rd. My client had not been to Bassi before (or if he had as a kid he did not remember). For me this was my third time here this year alone. Amazingly enough there was even MORE flow in the waterfall than when I was here a week earlier on July 4. Not much more but it was noticeable. Usually by July this waterfall is down to a trickle. Not this year!

We arrived about an hour before sunset. My client was thoroughly impressed with the magnificence of the waterfall. We spent our time wandering around the bottom of the falls working different compositions (of which there are plenty). By my experience I “knew” that Bassi gets beautiful warm light for a short time immediately before sunset. However … What I failed to recognize is that later in the summer this does not happen. The sun goes off the waterfall a half hour before sunset and it did not seem to get that really beautiful light. I should have known that but oh well. We still had half an hour of shooting the falls in shade which also works very well indeed. And the best part (and most surprising part) of the evening: No Mosquitoes!!