Leon Turnbull Photography

We got up early and drove down the road a short distance to magnificent Shannon Falls. When we drove past here the previous afternoon the park was completely packed. But this morning at sunrise? We were the only ones here. Actually, by the time we were done, quite a few more people had arrived. It was getting busy already, even so early on a weekday morning. This must be a popular waterfall! At least there was no one at the viewpoint when we first arrived. We had it all to ourselves for a short time.

Shannon Falls is indeed spectacular and right beside the highway (no wonder it is popular!) The total height of the falls is about 800 ft. high (only the bottom 495 ft. is visible from the base of the waterfall). After checking out the main viewpoint I went up the trail to find a way to get closer to it. I could not talk any of my family into coming with me. They just wanted to lounge about at the viewpoint. How boring. It was actually fairly easy to get right up to the base of the falls though slightly tricky on the big slippery rocks. As I was taking photos I could hear hollers and whoops from people that were up at the top of it (I could not see them). I assume it must be a pretty darn good view from up there. Why else would they be whooping so much? If I had more time I would have gone up to the top myself but we had a ferry to catch.

We arrived at the ferry terminal 1.5 hours before the sailing and barely made it on the boat. A lot of other people were traveling to the Sunshine Coast. I’m very glad we did not have to wait until the next sailing. That would have sucked.

On the other side we had lunch at Gibsons. At A&W again! More mozza burgers! Yumm! It is sure a good thing the rest of my family also likes A&W. Ha ha! After lunch we drove to Sechelt where we would meet up with my family. From there we all drove to Egmont where we would staying for two nights. It is a very pretty little place beside the harbor. We each had our own little cabin which was small but quite quaint. The only bad thing about it is that the bar closed very early each night. My brother in law was not happy about that. Ha ha! Also, apparently the guy in the cabin next to us played in the NHL, as my wife overheard. I did not recognize him so I decided not to bother him, I figured he must have been a fringe player. I would have felt bad if I had gone up to him and asked his name, and then did not recognize the name. Who are you? Oh that’s nice. I never heard of you!

It was a great day 2 on the Sunshine Coast. The next day would certainly be glorious. Right?

Our family trip to Desolation Sound in beautiful  British Columbia, Canada, was a long time in the making. My mom planned and arranged this for our families (her, my family, and my sister’s family) way back in 2020. Of course we all know what happened that year. We tried again in 2021 but travel was still prohibited for us to Canada. Finally in 2022 we were all set to go. BC or bust! We all tested negative darnit! We were all going to Canada darnit! We were all excited darnit! But alas, sadly, it still did not work out perfectly well for all of us (stay tuned for Day 4 to find out why).

My mom did most of the planning for this trip. I was just along for the ride. So that means this was not primarily a waterfall trip. It was primarily a family vacation and ocean trip. Nonetheless, I still managed to see and photograph about 20 (or more) incredible waterfalls on this vacation. BC is so amazing!

One thing I did plan myself was the first day (before we met up with the rest of the family the next day on the Sunshine Coast). We stayed the first night in Squamish BC where there were 5 awesome waterfalls I wanted to see in Squamish and Whistler that I had not seen before.

We arrived at Squamish early and hung around town a bit before we could check into our hotel. We found out (too late) that the hotel we booked has a bar below the rooms and they play loud music until 2AM! THANKFULLY, we came on a Monday and they do not do this on Mondays. (big sigh of relief). We checked in and then went to A&W for dinner where I got my annual mozza burger fix. Mozza burgers are my absolute favorite! They don’t have these in USA so whenever I go to Canada we MUST go to A&W! It is not optional. After dinner we drove up to Whistler to check out 4 of the waterfalls.

The last one we went to: incredibly beautiful Brandywine Falls. I measured it to be 171 ft. high though it is officially cited by the park as being 230 ft. high (not even close). We arrived at the park just before sunset. Supposedly they close the gates at sunset so we had very little time to walk down to the viewpoint. My son Jadon stayed in the car while Tara and Nekoda and myself quickly walked to the viewpoint. It is a very easy walk. Brandywine Falls was flowing very beautifully! It is absolutely gorgeous and arguably the prettiest waterfall in all of British Columbia. I have wanted to see this one for a very long time. Even though it is August all the waterfalls in British Columbia were flowing very well. A drought for California does not mean the same for BC. Thanks to La Nina, BC had an above average winter and spring. We picked the perfect year to come up here to see waterfalls in August. Sweet goodness gracious!

We did not get locked in by the park rangers even though it was a bit past sunset when we got back to the car. Whew, that was a close one. We returned to our hotel in Squamish and had a good sleep with no loud music to keep us awake. It was an awesome first day on the west coast of British Columbia.

This was the first Christmas in two years we were able to go to Canada to visit my family. It was only this summer that Canada finally opened their border again. (we thought they might close it again after Omicron started but thankfully that did not happen). We had no issues crossing the border but the trickiest part was getting all out test results within 72 hours of crossing. (especially since it takes two days for us to drive up there). It was wonderful seeing my family again and we had a great time.

It was cold! We only went for one day skiing on the 26th. After this day a major freeze came on through and it was too cold to ski. The coldest day we had was -11 degrees Fahrenheit (-24 Celsius). I have skied in such cold temperatures before but it is just not fun. In my youth I surely would ski in this weather but in my older years I am much wiser. ha ha. Instead of skiing we went hiking and snowshoeing. One day we snowshoed across a frozen Nancy Greene Lake and one day though a beautiful old growth forest.

On another day we went to Castlegar to hike (it was only -6 degrees there – so balmy!). We snowshoed over to Norns Creek Falls, a waterfall I had not been to before. I got a picture from the top of it but unfortunately it was impossible to get down to the bottom. There was (surprisingly) a lot of snow and it was very steep and incredibly dangerous with avalanche prone conditions. Just a short drive from there we returned to Tulip Creek Falls, a local favorite of mine. At Tulip Creek there was very little snow and the creek was not flowing nearly as well as Norns Creek. How is this possible since they are so close to each other?

It is a short hike up to the falls and we found it completely frozen, not the first time I have seen it like this. Tulip Creek is so interesting when it is frozen over. Beautiful. We had a lovely and cold time in British Columbia.

Sometimes I just feel like staying home and doing absolutely nothing, and that is just what I did this past weekend. So no new waterfalls this week. This one is from Christmas Day, in Marysville BC, Canada.

The new stats are in: As of Jan. 1, we are at 68% of average for rainfall in Northern CA, 73% (central), 81% (south). For snowpack, we are at 82% (north), 96% (central), 112% (south). As you can see, we did not progress much in December. We had zero big storms last month. The first half of January is also looking bleak, but there is hope for the last half of the month to do some catchup. Let’s keep praying.

December is the first month of winter, and so it is the time when we officially start measuring the snow pack in California. As of January 1, things are not looking good: The rainfall is at 65% of average for Northern CA, 37% (Central CA), and 22% (Southern CA). The snowpack is at 24% of average (North), 33% (Central), and 23% (South). At first I was not too concerned about this awful dry spell we had in December. We had a decent November and it looked like the pattern was going to change to a wet January. However, now it looks like the ridge will be building back into the west coast in January as of next week, and that means we are headed for another dry spell. This is really bad news. Hopefully this time, it will not be a long one. We need to pray for much more snow and rain in California, and soon.

We headed up to Canada at Christmas to visit my family in Cranbrook BC. Usually we go to my mom’s in Rossland, which has the best ski hill in the world (I am biased), but this year we went to Cranbrook where my sister lives, and we skied in Kimberley instead. It was COLD! At the beginning of the week, the temperature was around -15 to -20 Celsius. That is about -5 Fahrenheit for my American friends. That is too cold to ski or do much of anything. However, my kids did go up for a couple rounds on the ski hill anyway, and it warmed up (slightly) later in the week.

As for all the waterfalls? Well, they were completely frozen of course. I was not surprised. Nonetheless, my wife and I drove to Fernie for one day, and we went on a snowshoe hike to Fairy Creek Falls, which I had not been to before.

There was about 4 inches of fresh snow, so we got out our snowshoes for the easy hike. We could have hiked in our boots, but there were some spots that were deeper, so I am glad we opted for the snowshoes. The hike starts off with a very steep hill to climb. My wife was not amused, and wondered what I was getting her into. I had no idea, but she did not believe me. I do not have Canadian maps on my GPS, so I really had no idea about the terrain, but from what I had read, I knew it had to be an easy hike, and only about 1 mile in length. It was actually 1.4 miles, and after the initial climb, the terrain leveled out and the rest of the hike was fairly easy.

It was very beautiful as well, hiking through the forest in the fresh snow. We read signs, however, that Fernie is in the process of developing this entire area and putting houses in here. This would be incredibly awful and it would ruin this hike entirely. Instead of hiking through a gorgeous forest, you will be hiking past many houses. Residents of Fernie should be very upset about this in my opinion.

Anyway, we finally came to the waterfall. It was very pretty, and it was not entirely frozen as I expected it to be. It was gorgeous in the snow, a true Fairyland, and very much living up to its real name, a real life Fairy Tale. It was a bit tricky getting right up to the bottom of the falls in the snow, as it was steep and slippery, but I did go up close to it. The best views, however, were from further back, up on the hillside (where I took this photo from).

On the way back, we saw a few hikers coming up the trail. None of them wearing snowshoes. They probably thought we were some weird Californians, but my answer to that is that we padded down the snow for them so they would not need snowshoes. They should have thanked us. Am I right?

P.S. If you are wondering about my title to this blog post, it is the name of an old song which I love, by Plumb. It has nothing to do with waterfalls, but look it up if you are interested in the song. You will like it.