Leon Turnbull Photography

Another adventure. And a surprise waterfall found. Not bad for a quick morning hike.

I was totally off road on Saturday morning’s hike, looking for a new waterfall near Devil’s Falls in Colfax. I thought there might be a good sized waterfall in New York Canyon (not THE New York Canyon, a different New York Canyon). The path I took down to the creek was surprisingly easy. I expected to be bushwhacking through ticks and poison oak, but instead I found a decent path that obviously had been traveled before. That in itself is very odd considering how remote this place is, and that there is pretty much no parking at all on the very narrow and steep Shirttail Canyon Rd.

However, I soon found out it is not so remote after all. Once down at the creek I found a road! And a camper! I was pretty shocked to find these things down here. I think it actually might be private property, but of course there was no one around, and thus I continued on.

I had to make my way up Refuge Canyon in order to get to New York Canyon. It started off pretty easy until I got to the waterfall. I was certainly not expecting to find this waterfall in Refuge Canyon. I like these kind of surprises! It is about 20 ft. high in total height, not a bad little surprise indeed.

Getting up close to it was impossible, however. The canyon walls got very narrow and steep here. I could not continue. I tried to climb up the side of the cliff, I came very close, but I just could not quite do it. It was just a little steep, and one slip and I would have been in big trouble, sliding down the cliff into the creek. So bummed, I started to make my way back, still looking for a way up. Finally, I found a path going up to the top. It was filled with poison oak, but it was actually a decent trail and once up on top, the trail continued high along the creek.

When I got to the top of the waterfall, I made my way down to a viewpoint. It was difficult to photograph the falls from here, as there was no clean view. The cliff was scary steep and I did not want to tempt fate by getting closer. There were also a million ladybugs here. I tried not to disturb them but they were all over my backpack as soon as I put it down. Crazy-ness.

The trail continued all the way to New York Canyon where I expected to find a much bigger waterfall. Unfortunately, all I found there was a small 12 footer. It was kind of nice though, so I took a photo. As I was taking my photos, I happened to glimpse something coming down out of a tree in the distance. It was a bit far away and I only got a glimpse but I think it might have been a mountain lion. I suppose it could have been a squirrel. How on earth could I mistake a squirrel for a mountain lion, you ask? Well, yeah, I don’t know. All I can really say is it seemed a lot bigger than a squirrel. I did not wait to find out. I packed up my bag and got the heck out of there. Holy molies.

Waterfall Madman Episode 5 is now here. Watch in HD if you can.

There was a bit more snow and ice at the Upper Iowa Canyon Falls. It was a magical setting. Quite easy to reach the upper falls because the water was so low but the shade and snow made the exposure difficult to handle. But I like the final result.

I did not spend too much time here because I had to get to the church. My kids were practicing for the Christmas play (the actual play was on Sunday). My son Jadon had one of the lead parts and he did a fantastic job. I was very proud of him. Nekoda did great with her part as well.

Please check out my latest Waterfall Madman Video (Episode 2 – Curtain Falls). Try to watch in HD 1080p if possible:

http://youtu.be/QoEdWdwupDA

25 degrees. That was the temperature. Brrr. My primary thought was how I was going to wade up the creek to the waterfall. My toes would freeze off in three seconds at that temperature. Literally.

I had another surprise though. Snow! I was certainly not expecting to find so much snow still left from last weekend’s storm. Even down at river level there was still quite a bit of snow left. I was very pleased about that. I love going to snowy and icy waterfalls. But would I make it?

It would have even been better if I’d come here last weekend with all the fresh snow. It would have been awesome. Nonetheless it was fantastic today with the ice around the waterfall. I needn’t have worried about wading up the creek either. With the low water flow, I could easily walk up the creek bed, in fact the creek bed was completely dry. It seems the water goes underground just below the waterfall, which was weird. The prickly brush was easy to navigate as well with the snow covering it. The only real difficulty was climbing up over the rocks right in front of the waterfall, which was slightly tricky but not overly terrible. It was so gorgeous at the base of the waterfall. Definitely a worthwhile effort.

My back held up very well as well, this being the first hike I’ve done in a couple weeks. It was so great to get out in God’s creation again.

Please check out my latest Waterfall Madman Video (Episode 2 – Curtain Falls). Try to watch in HD 1080p if possible:

http://youtu.be/QoEdWdwupDA

A cold storm made its way into our area on Friday evening, so cold that we were supposed to get snow at our house, which would be an extreme rarity. We were all excited going to bed Friday night. It was such a sure thing!

Alas, I woke up Saturday morning. No snow. How disappointing! I was wanting to go to the Auburn confluence and take some pictures in the snow there. But that is about the same elevation as our house, so I did not think I would have much chance of seeing any snow, but I decided to go anyway. I had to get the kids to church for Christmas play practice so I did not have time to go anywhere else anyway. Plus, my back is still hurting so going on a big tough hike in the snow at higher elevations was out of the question.

I arrived in Auburn and found a bit of snow on the ground, but nowhere near what was forecasted. As I descended the hill to the Confluence, the snow quickly disappeared. It had snowed down there during the night but most of it was all gone. I made my way to Black Hole of Calcutta Falls, which I had hope would be in the snow, but obviously it was not. It was not flowing very well either. We need a lot more rain here, and I see none in the forecast. It seems we are in for another extremely frustrating and disappointing winter here in the Sierra. Let’s pray January 2014 will turn around for the better.

Speaking of 2014, my waterfall calendar is now available. Get yours in time for Christmas!

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

We received a much needed two inches of rain this week. This made me excited. Perhaps waterfall season is going to start here, finally. On Saturday, I made my way down to my favorite little waterfall, American Canyon Creek Falls. It is only 15 ft. high, but it is a charmer, and such a unique little thing, piping through an extremely narrow channel in the rocks. I love going here every year, and it is usually one of the falls I go to first thing in the season. It might be the last one I get to this season, as well.

It is an easy hike down to the waterfall, but you do lose 1000 ft. in elevation. When I got to the first creek crossing, I was a bit disappointed. American Canyon Creek was barely flowing. That two inches of rain did almost nothing to the creek level, and it was certainly the lowest I have ever seen it. The good news is that this waterfall does not need very much flow to look really nice. This is one reason I like coming here early in the season. In fact, if there is too much flow in the creek you may not be able to see it at all.

In order to see the waterfall, you need to cross the creek again at the base of the falls. This is very tricky or impossible at high flows, but definitely very easy at low flows. The water color in the pool today was a murky green, sometimes it can be a stunning vibrant green color, but I think it needs a bit more water flow for that. So … in order to create something a bit different than usual, I tried to create some long exposures, this one was two minutes long, I did some longer ones but was not happy with them. It really tries your patience taking such long exposures, but I had no where else to go.

After shooting the falls, I continued on down to the river, just for something to do. I did not find much, except for ticks. I have never ever seen so many ticks so early in the season. This is really bad news, and I think it means it is going to be a horrendous year for ticks.

Somehow, while down by the river, I tweaked my back. Oh my goodness. I don’t know how I did it either, I was not doing anything too strenuous. But now I had to climb 1000 ft. back out of the canyon with a tweaked back, and carrying a heavy pack. It was a SLOOOOWWW hike up to my car. In fact, I think it was a miracle I made it, by the time I got back home I was in agony and could not lift a thing, let alone stand up and walk. Next day it is still really bad. Just when waterfall season is beginning too. What bad timing. With Thanksgiving week coming up, I had three hikes already planned for next weekend. I might not get to do any of them now!

In other bad news, I lost my belt down on the trail. I took off my long pants for the hike back up with the belt attached to them, and tied the pants to my pack but did not secure the belt. I knew it but with my bad back, I did not want to stop and secure the belt, but I thought it would be ok. Guess what? It was not ok. Ugh.