Leon Turnbull Photography

If you know this location and if you are looking closely you may be wondering how this image was taken. You should be wondering. It is an impossibility. Well, not really. I guess that is obvious. But in reality, for most of the year it *is* an impossibility.

My goal was singular. Cross Pyramid Creek at the bottom of Horsetail Falls and photograph the waterfall from the other side. I have been thinking about doing this for a long time now. For such a long time, that my brain began to hurt. As far as I know, no one has done this before. At least, I have never seen any images from the other side before. For most of the year, Pyramid Creek is rushing too swiftly. It is simply impossible to cross the creek here. If you want to live, that is. When I was here three weeks ago, the creek was still just a tad too swift to cross. I think I could have done it, however I decided to wait just a tad longer. I should have done it earlier.

Fast forward three weeks, and I decided to try it again. The difference was astounding. During those three weeks, Pyramid Creek lost more than 50 percent of its flow. No exaggeration. What happened? How could it have dropped so much flow in such a short time? I was shocked. Indeed, as I hiked up to the waterfall, I anticipated that I might not even need to get my feet wet crossing the creek. And as it turned out, I did not need to. I arrived at the base of the falls and saw that I could rock hop across to the other side. There is no way I could even come close to doing this three weeks ago, but today it was easy. The waterfall flow clearly was not very exciting, so I decided to do more experimenting with another really long exposure – this one is 120 seconds. If I had been able to cross three weeks ago, the waterfall image would have been much more impressive. I just waited a bit too long to try this but now, I will have to wait until next year to try it again. I will not be back to Horsetail Falls this year.

Speaking of next year, the early reports are not looking too promising. It seems we might be looking at another weak El Nino, the same as last year. That could mean another dry winter for us. It is too early to know of course, so let us hope this is not the case. Start praying now.

On Saturday evening I dragged Jadon and Nekoda out to see Bassi Falls before it stopped flowing. I could not drag my wife. She gave multiple excuses like, it’s too hot, I’m too tired, I have to get up early and bike in the morning. None of these excuses I thought was very worthy, but what could I do? I cannot pick her up and plop her in the car, like I can with the kids (p.s. I’m just joking people!). Along for the ride I invited the Vicar from our church, and he brought his two year old, Heidi, who is the cutest thing ever. Well … at least the cutest thing since Nekoda was two. Our kids had fun playing with her on the drive. She would grab Nekoda’s toes and say, “daddy! I have toes!”

I was concerned as we passed on the bridge over Bassi Creek. I was here last weekend and it seemed to me there was plenty of snow on the mountains and plenty of water in the creek. I figured Bassi Falls would be flowing well for a few more weeks at least. Now, however, it seemed the snow on the mountains was almost gone, and the water level in the creek was significantly depleted. In only one week? I fretted in my head about this on the last part of the drive, not saying anything to Vicar, who had never been to Bassi Falls before. When I show off my waterfalls, I like them to be looking their best. You know, clean and shaved, their shirts tucked in, etc. It has been two years since I have been to Bassi Falls. Last time I was here, the road was a mess. It had been getting worse and worse every year, the potholes getting huger and huger, the ruts were starting to rival the Grand Canyon. Indeed on the very last section of road, I could barely make it up to the trailhead in my 4 wheel drive, and once I had to park before the end and walk. I wondered how much worse it would be now, two years later. Well glory be, the road is now fixed! Amazingness of amazingness. It is now a very easy drive, there were even regular cars up at the trailhead when we arrived. Well one concern was taken care of. There was one concern left (the flow in the falls), and as it turned out, one new one as well.

Bees! In all my years coming here, I have never seen bees at Bassi Falls. But there were hundreds of bumblebees when we arrived at the waterfall, and they were swarming us, they would not leave us alone the entire time we were there. At first, I thought they were after the ham sandwiches in our packs. Can bees smell through backpacks? But even after we removed said obstruction from their path (ie. ate them), they still would not leave us alone. They were everywhere. It is really a miracle that none of our group got stung. The funny thing is, when we arrived there was a group of oriental people there, and they asked Vicar, what are these things? Are they poisonous? Umm, they are bees he said. You don’t know what bees are? They will kill you if they sting you. Do not, I repeat, do not look into their eyes. (umm, ok maybe he did not exactly respond like that – I don’t want him to get in trouble with our Pastor for lying – though I think I got most of it right). Anyway, I did not like these bees around one bit, and it kinda ruined the experience there, but we still stayed until the end anyway so I could get my sunset photos.

As for the water flow, well it was just as I feared. Bassi Falls was much reduced in power. There was probably a third of the normal flow in the waterfall for this time of year. Indeed I would not have been able to stand where I was standing when I took this photo (under normal flows). But for the Vicar and Heidi, who had never seen the waterfall before, they were happy campers. Heidi, in particular, was ecstatic, yelling out repeatedly “wow” when we first arrived. It is indeed a magnificent waterfall. Even at a third of the roar.

After work on Thursday I headed up to Devils Falls to do some exploring. My wife is out of state, so that means I will not be able to go hiking as per usual on the weekend since I will have my daughter with me. My son is up at Nana’s, probably driving her crazy. Speaking of my daughter, Wednesday evening was incredible. She danced at a pre-game show for a Sacramento Kings NBA game (vs. Chicago Bulls). It was so awesome and fun, and the girls were just absolutely fantastic. What an experience for them to dance in a big arena with so many people watching (of course, there weren’t really that many people watching since it was a pre-game show, but there were still quite a few). We were able to watch the dance from the front row on the floor, and I was able to videotape it for posterity. Afterwards, we watched the basketball game (in which the Kings clobbered the Bulls – which is pretty amazing in itself considering they are a last place team), and Nekoda was really into the game, clapping and cheering the entire game. She thoroughly enjoyed her experience, and I am so proud of her.

Anyway back to Devils Falls. You may recall I said earlier I was planning to go back here to look for new waterfalls. Well guess what? I did. And I found one too. The plan was to climb up above Devils Falls and try to find more waterfalls upstream. The very first time I came to Devils Falls, I went up to the top of it, but I did not go very far. I had not been up there since. That was about 100 years ago. This time, I went much further. It is literally a mad scramble up the mountain above Devils Falls. There is a path (actually many paths), because people often go up here, but you are essentially climbing up the mountain on all fours; it is steep, with crumbly ground, and overgrown branches all over the place. The good news is that the fire last year cleared out the brush and poison oak, and the ticks as well. I did get one tick on me, and it totally freaked me out. I did not find it on me until afterwards on the drive home, I felt in my hair and the little bugger came off onto my hand. I slammed on the brakes, got out of the car, brushed it off, then madly shook my hair all over in case there were more. There were no more but for the rest of the night I was constantly feeling my hair for other ticks. Ooh, shivers!

Anyway back to Devils Falls. I scrambled up and came upon this very decent 29 ft. high slide. I did not stop, because I wanted to go much further up the creek and was hoping to find an even bigger and better waterfall. I went quite a ways, but did not find anything bigger. There were plenty of small falls and cascades, but nothing struck my fancy too much. The entire creek drainage, however, is very scenic and with a lot more flow in the creek I think you could definitely find plenty of excellent photographic opportunities. If you like mad scrambling, that is. It is not an easy task to climb up there. I went back down to this lower slide and found a spot to photograph it. It was starting to get dark so I quickly took my shots then scuttled back down the mountain to the car. It was a great evening at Devils Falls.

Here is a vertical shot of Canyon Creek Falls. There was very little room to photograph this waterfall. I was standing on a rock outcropping in the middle of the creek, but I could not move anywhere to the left or right because I would have been stepping right into a very deep pool. There was no where else to stand but here, leaving little room for any variety in the way of compositions.

Still looking for more rain this year. My guy says it is still looking good for end of this month, but geez it sure seems like spring now. And that usually means we are done and over for the year. We are now well into the third straight month with little rain. It is depressing!

– Hannibal Smith
So … what a great hike this weekend. One of the best hikes I have had in quite some time. Why was it so great? The waterfall was certainly not spectacular with the low flow in the creek. It was a killer hike down to it too. Lots of ticks. Fresh mountain lion scat. Poison oak. Does that sound like a fantastic hike to you?

Well it does sound pretty good to me, but mostly it was because I did not think I would have any chance in a cat’s meow to ever get to this waterfall. I knew there was a waterfall here because the rafters stop here on their way down the Middle Fork American River. I never heard of anyone ever hiking to this waterfall. I never heard of any trail to it. Certainly it was not possible.

Then I heard recently that there was a powerhouse down at the bottom of Canyon Creek. Hmmm, surely if there was a powerhouse, there must be a road to it as well. This is logical. They have to get to the powerhouse somehow, don’t they? (never mind that they could take a very short boat ride across the river). I studied Google Earth for hours looking for such road. I could not see one. The image quality of this particular area in GE is quite bad. Well if there is any road, I determined it would come from one of three directions. I picked the most logical one and decided to try it. If I struck out, I figured that I could just go on a different hike in that area instead.

I chose wisely my friends. I was so pleased. I drove up to Georgetown on Saturday morning, in the early morning hours. I only had to 10:30AM to finish this hike. My daughter’s birthday party started at noon at Sunrise Rollerland (near the Sunrise Mall). It would be close but I was sure I could do it. The road crosses Canyon Creek and I got out (in the dark) and checked the creek conditions. The creek was flowing quite strongly. I was happy. I continued driving up on rough dirt roads until I reached my proposed trailhead. There was a gate here, and lots of no trespassing signs. Humph!

Well I knew no one would be around so I decided to just go. I was pretty sure that this was a public road anyway, at least to begin with. As it turns out, this is a public historic trail, the Wendell T Robie Trail. I had no idea this trail went here, and it actually goes all the way down to Canyon Creek and continues along the river to Sliger Mine. As I said, I had no clue about this. I did not think there could possibly be a trail here since no one had ever mentioned hiking to this waterfall. Well what do I know anyway. As for the gate and signs? They are illegal, I am sure of it. Someone has built a new house down here, and put up the gates and signs to keep people out, but they have no right to block access to a historic trail, and the trail does not even go anywhere near the house anyway. It really bugs me.

So anyway, I was quite pleased to find out my route continued all the way down to Canyon Creek. That is the understatement of the year thus far. I was ecstatic. It was steep though, eventually losing 1600 ft. in elevation by the time I reached the river. The last 1000 ft. were particularly nasty. Nothing dangerous. Just straight down steepness. Hiking back up the trail was nightmarish. The road is clearly not used anymore by the powerhouse people. I suspect at one time it was, though it is so steep and narrow, I don’t think you could ever drive a vehicle down it, but they must have used it for something or other.

Once down at the creek, I needed to work my way back upstream to the waterfall. This part I figured would be easy, since the rafters come here all the time, I was certain there must be a good trail leading up to the falls. Ah, no. No trail at all. The only way to do it is to hike right up the creekbed. It was slippery, there were cascades and big boulders that you had to climb up, crossing the creek back and forth a few times, and also poison oak that you had to go through in a couple places. It was actually quite fun.

It took awhile but I finally got up to the waterfall, cascading down into a beautiful deep pool. There was about half the flow in the creek that was up at the bridge crossing. No doubt this is due to the water being sucked out of the creek into the powerhouse. It is a pretty waterfall but it would look much better at higher flows, and I really would like to come back here someday. The only thing is, I do not think it is going to be possible to hike up the creekbed at higher flows. I will probably try it someday anyhow. Could be fun.

On the hike back up, I saw what appeared to be fresh mountain lion scat along the trail. At least I think it was mountain lion. Whatever it was, it was very fresh. Two weeks ago, a mountain lion was stalking a hiker in Colfax and eventually had to be killed. I have been on edge since hearing about that. I was prepared today, with my bear spray very handy as I hiked (hoping that bear spray also works on mountain lions) – normally I am more worried about ticks and poison oak. Anyway, I did not see anything but quail, squirrels, and a deer. And I did make it to my daughter’s birthday party on time. What a great day.