Leon Turnbull Photography

Well we just got back from our summer vacation to Canada. No waterfalls seen up there, though not for lack of trying.

It was just me and the kids visiting my family up there, as my wife had to stay home this year, unfortunately. On one day, we decided to go up to the top of magnificent Old Glory, myself, my sister Tania, brother in law Lynal, son Jadon (13), and niece Hannah (13). It is the highest and most prominent peak in the Rossland Range area, 7800 ft. high. The hike is about 6.5 miles one way up, with a gain of 3200 ft. (actually 3700 ft. total elevation was hiked due to one annoying downward stretch). Jadon thought it was a lot more difficult than our recent Eastern Sierra hike, though I did not think so (but it is too difficult to compare the two hikes because they are not similar). Hannah, meanwhile, essentially ran up and down the mountain once she got going (she did not want to go at first). There were quite a few wildflowers still out on the mountain, though definitely past peak. It would be awesome when the flowers are in full bloom up there. I had a tiny bit of cloud cover so I managed to get this photo (handheld, no tripod – shame on me). Once at the top, we all enjoyed the glorious views around us: the ski hill on one side, Nancy Greene Lake on another, the city of Trail on another, and a huge cliff on the last side. Both Jadon and Hannah ran down the mountain together getting way ahead of the rest of us, which was highly disturbing to us, especially since they went the wrong way down. We were going to take a short cut, but they did not wait for us at the junction, and ended up going down the very long way. But we had no idea which way they went, so while Tania and Lynal went down the short way, I went the long way, running down the trail to catch up to them. I eventually caught up to them. I was not pleased, I had not wanted to hike 13 miles that day. Did they not know this was grizzly bear and cougar territory? Ah, teenagers. What can you do?

On the way down, I saw one old timer hiking up the mountain. He was not going the long, easy way around to the top (which is along the ridge on the south side). Instead he was going straight up the east face (the one seen in this photo). It looked crazy and far too cliffy to me when I examined it but he insisted there was a good route up that way. Yeah, right. Ok good luck with that old man. I think I might try it some day, though. Ha!

Old Glory was initially named (likely) by Americans back in the Gold Rush days in the late 1800s. In those days, Americans thought British Columbia was going to become part of the Union. It did not, of course. Nonetheless, I have always loved the name of this mountain. It seems so appropriately named, being the most prominent and magnificent peak in the region. It looks so old and majestic and alone. From 1944-68 it was the site of the highest weather station in the world. These incredible men lived up on top of the mountain year round. You can see some remains of the house, but not very much is left. I just cannot imagine being up there in the cold deep winter, or during a summer lightning storm. It is pure nuts. I am currently reading a book called (strangely enough) Old Glory, written by one of these men, Ron Walker. It is a fascinating and humorous history of the mountain, and highly recommended, especially if you are an old Rosslander, like myself.

Once we all safely (and without being eaten by a grizzly) got back down to the car, we were all very happy to go to the Colander in Trail for dinner. Simply put: the best spaghetti on Earth. Yumm!

So there apparently were great sunsets all week at Lake Tahoe. Except the day we were there of course.

It looked like it might be another good one when we headed up to the north shore on Thursday after work. There were plenty of clouds, the possibilities looked very good, but alas there were too many clouds. It was raining when we arrived, and it was a good drenching, even though it apparently only rained 0.1 inches. Well, we had dinner, then walked around, got ice cream, before heading back to the lupine fields.

I had seen and heard plenty about these lupine fields along the shore of Lake Tahoe, and was wanting to get a good sunset photo from here. Well, this is the most color that ever showed that night. It is not a bad photo, really, and Tara and I had a very nice date night, so it was all good. But I’ll be heading back here some day again.

For a couple years now I’ve been wanting to get a sunrise shot of Phantom Falls with the wildflowers in bloom and the waterfall flowing and the sky in painted colors. The flowers on Table Mountain are going off the charts this year so I had heard, and with a few inches of rain this past week I knew Phantom Falls would be flowing fairly well, and on Wednesday it seemed the stars were going to align for me with the forecast calling for partly cloudy skies on Saturday. But hiking out to Phantom Falls for a full hour in the dark is not something I really wanted to do by myself, what with all the mountain lions and killer cows up there, so I called up my bud, Mountain Goat Rob to see if he wanted to come out with me on Saturday morning, and of course he was game. However, the very next day (Thursday) the weather forecast changed, and now it was going to be all sunny on Saturday, no clouds. Ugh, I hate when it does that! Well, two out of three ain’t bad. But then I heard from someone else that the water flow was way down and the flowers were also done. Zero out of three? Nonetheless, we kept to the plan. I was sure that Phantom Falls would still be flowing decent. I wasn’t sure about the clouds or the flowers.

We started our hike in the dark through plenty of mud. It actually seemed like there was a lot of water flowing on Table Mountain after all. There were no clouds anywhere of course. Sigh. As for the flowers? Well, it was too dark to see anything! We also saw no lions, and no cows either. I guess the cows were all still sleeping, as we saw plenty of them on the hike back later that morning. We arrived at Phantom Falls just prior to sunrise, crossed the creek and made our way to the other side where I knew there would be wildflowers overlooking the waterfall. By this time it wasn’t so dark, and we could clearly see that there were certainly a lot of flowers everywhere on Table Mountain, but we both thought it was still a bit too early in the season. In a couple weeks, I think they will be spectacular everywhere. If we get some more rain, perhaps the waterfalls will still be flowing. I might even go back there again this year. Who knows.

It was also quite breezy, and the flowers were twiddling around like crazy (as Rob put it), making photography extremely difficult. The breeze paused just a bit prior to the sun coming up, and I think I got a pretty decent shot here. Next time we just need the pretty clouds.

After this we went down to the bottom of Phantom Falls, to which I had never been before. One more thing now off the bucket list. It is so utterly cool and amazing down there. There is a path but it is a very steep one. Mountain Goat Rob, of course, made it down easily without any ropes, but I brought my ropes with me to be on the safe side. It is just a tad, a shade, a smidgeon on the steep side for me. I am sure I could have done without the rope, but it is better to be safe than sorry is what I say. Now don’t worry, I do have pictures so I can prove to you that I actually went down there, and I have video as well, so I am sure you will see those things very soon (if you keep following me on this blog, of course).

I went right down to the very bottom of the waterfall. You could actually stand right under it if you wanted to. It would have been dumb to do that today, but I got right down there to feel the spray. That was awesome. You can, of course, also walk behind the waterfall under the cliff overhang. There is also a very interesting cave behind the falls. If you look on wikipedia, it mentions this cave, but indicates it is just this big area under the overhang. What? That is not a cave! But that is what I thought people were talking about when they mentioned the cave at Phantom Falls. Do you believe everything you read on wikipedia? In actual fact, however, there is a cave. A real cave, which is also a man-made cave, not a natural cave. I have no idea why it is there. It is not very big, but you can go in it and look down into a 20 ft drop. You would not want to fall in there, because you would not be getting out of it anytime soon. Anyhow, it is all very cool. If I can talk my son into going down there with me someday, I will definitely be back.

Last week my friend Rob and I went on a walk along the Rubicon River in search of a waterfall. We were not able to get to the waterfall, but we did find these pretty flowers overlooking the river so we just had to stop and scramble down to shoot them. No waterfalls perhaps, but at least the evening wasn’t a total loss.