Leon Turnbull Photography

I am just taking a short break from Oregon waterfalls to bring you the latest from northern California. On Friday evening after work, I took my son and went up for a quick hike back to Horsetail Falls, the 790 ft. monster you can see from Hwy 50, if you are not driving that is – cuz if you are driving and look too hard, you might end up in the ditch. You know what they say, don’t text and drive. Also don’t gaze at huge waterfalls and drive. Anyway … the temperature in Sacramento was 100 degrees on Friday. Up at the trailhead it was 81 degrees when we started. Not too bad actually. I was thinking it might be a bit warmer than that. Surely it would cool off quickly once the sun went behind the mountains. That is what I told Jadon anyway.

Obviously I have been to Horsetail Falls many times before, but I still feel I have not completely explored all possibilities here for photography. It is such a very diverse waterfall with so many different elements. There are two reasons why I like coming to Horsetail Falls in the summer. Firstly, the mosquitoes are tame. There are never too many of the little buggers here and on this day we were not bothered at all. If you go to other areas of the Desolation Wilderness, such as Wrights Lake or up at Lake Tahoe, you will be devoured and left wanting. Not so at Horsetail Falls. Secondly and most importantly, it is essentially the ONLY waterfall in the Sacramento area that flows in the summer (or flows very well at least). But even so, I admit I was surprised at how strongly it is still gushing right now. There is much more flow this year then when I was here in mid July last year. Shocking really, considering this is the second year of our drought. Jadon remarked on this right away, and he was right. I had to look back at my pictures from last year before I could remember (old age, you know).

Jadon also said there were a lot more other hikers compared to last year. Well, that is something I surely have no idea about. I will take his word for it though. The really odd thing though is that three separate people commented to me, asking if we were backpacking. No folks, really, it is only my camera bag! Do I really carry so much gear on my hikes that I look as if I am backpacking?!?!? The funny thing about it is that I don’t think anyone has ever asked me that before, and then on this day, three people ask me in a row. It must be a conspiracy or something. But Jadon also said my camera bag looks like it could be a backpack. Well I suppose all that camera gear is sure heavy enough, I may as well be backpacking.

Because the creek was flowing much higher than I expected, I could not get to the spot where I wanted. I probably could have gotten down there but it would have been too dangerous for Jadon, so I decided to skip it and just take pictures from the usual location. Actually, although this composition is very similar to the one from last year, it is slightly different. This year, I went down on the ledge to get closer to the falls and a slightly better angle. Last year, I felt it too dangerous to go down there, but this year I felt perfectly safe about it. It is odd, and I am not sure why. I don’t think the rocks would have been any more slippery last year, but that is what I felt in my mind. Nonetheless, I was very careful to not get too close to the edge. Which is exactly what some other lady did when I was down there photographing the waterfall. She came up behind me and went right down to the very edge of the creek to take a quick snapshot. Really? One little slip is all it would take, and she would have been swept down the creek and over the last waterfall. Bye bye birdie.

When we got back down to the car, I checked the temperature. It was 79 degrees. It had cooled off a whopping 2 degrees for our hike back down. We were sweating galoshes by the end of the hike. Oh well. We had lots of fun at Horsetail Falls.

This is the lower Butte Creek Falls, and it is 71 ft. high. It is a pretty one. It has a very charming horsetail shape. Just like the upper waterfall, it is very easy to get to, and just like the upper falls, I did not spend much time here, as I was wanting to get to Abiqua Falls as quickly as I could. Not a bad morning though, three pretty waterfalls all before the sun came up too high.

So how do we top the last image of Abiqua Falls? Umm, not gonna happen folks. I suppose I could just keep giving you more images of Abiqua Falls. That will happen in time but as far as all the other waterfalls we saw on our Oregon trip, none of them are even close to comparing to Abiqua or Henline Falls, the last two waterfalls I posted. I saved the best for first. So sorry about that. You will just have to deal with it. But hey, do not worry too much, we did see some other pretty waterfalls on the trip. This is one of them: Upper Butte Creek Falls. It is only 23 ft. high, but it is a pretty one for sure, and much easier to get to then Abiqua Falls.

I came to this one first, arriving at the trailhead when it was still dark. It is a short walk from there down to the upper Butte Creek Falls so it was before sunrise when I got here. I did not want to wait around however. I was not sure how much time I’d need to get to Abiqua Falls and that was my primary goal. I could NOT be late getting to Abiqua. That would be disaster. So I setup and started shooting this waterfall right away. I did have to turn up the ISO on the camera but only to 400. The photo here no doubt does not look like it was taken at about sunrise or before, as you can see it is quite a colorful image. The nice thing about cameras is they can see things your eyes cannot see, so what may have been a bit dark to my eyes, the camera could see very well. Anyway, it was a quickie here at Upper Butte Creek Falls; after shooting this, I then scampered down to the lower falls and then scooted back up to the car. No time to waste. Onward and downward to Abiqua Falls.

No words. You can try to prepare yourself for such astounding beauty. Read books. Look at pictures. Eat donuts. Whatever you do, you will undoubtedly fall far short. Of course I had seen countless photos of Abiqua Falls. I knew it was an incredible waterfall. Duh. This is why it has been on my list to visit for many years now. I am sure everyone and their cat has been here before me. I got the chance this year. When I finally arrived at the falls I was truly overwhelmed. A drop dead gorgeous plummet of 89 feet (measured) off a colorful basalt cliff into a glorious deep, green pool. And the surroundings? Glorious. It is located in a spectacular amphitheater, with magnificent columnar basalt, bright reddish colored lichen on the cliff walls. I have seen well over 600 hundred waterfalls in my long life but Abiqua Falls ranks very near the top of the list of the most beautiful falls I have seen. Just my opinion of course. You may not think it so great. In fact, I am lying. It is not worth your while to come here. It’s not that good. Wink wink.

I do wish I could have brought my family here. I thought of going back to the motel in Salem and bringing them back. It would have been a bit tough for the kids due to the steepness of the hike but they could have done it. The problem though is we would have had to leave our old dog in the car cuz she would not have been able to do the hike. She would be so sad. And it was going to be a hot day. Not good. Actually it would have been stupid to leave her in the car. Plus we needed to get over to the coast anyway and get to our campground. We would not want to miss out on that now would we? It was so much cooler over there. I’ll just have to bring them here another time. I won’t mind coming back here. Really.

I arrived at the trailhead early in the morning. The hike down is not that bad, really. It was easier than I thought it would be. There are some steep sections as I said but there are ropes to help you get down. Once at the creek it is very easy to follow the path up to the waterfall. It was incredible to be at the waterfall all by myself. No one else around. Just me, myself and God enjoying the incredible beauty of it all. I spent quite awhile here, photographing the waterfall from all possible angles, and then some, including crossing the cold creek and actually standing in prior mentioned cold creek (for this shot). Finally I reluctantly packed up my gear and headed back up the hill to the car. It was a great morning indeed.

On a side note, I measured the plunge’s beautiful-ness to be 89 feet high. Certain wild and crazy kayakers of whom have made the sheer plummet (literally) from top to bottom apparently measured the drop to be 101 ft high. Now everyone and their cat thinks Abiqua Falls is 101 ft high. It is not 101 ft high. For confirmation of this I cite Bryan Swan’s measurement of 92 ft (waterfallsnorthwest.com). Since his and my measurement are so incredibly close, it is thus most very likely that the true height of the waterfall is somewhere between 89 and 92 ft and the third figure (101 ft) is incorrect. Of course I could be wrong. I don’t think so. What’s 12 feet difference anyway? Not much (unless you are a kayaker).

Seven straight days of plus 100 degree weather in California. That was the forecast. Indeed on the north end of the valley the 100 degree weather is even extending well into a second week. As it turned out, miraculously, my vacation plans precisely co-incided with the impending doom. But even Oregon would be experiencing the roast, particularly in the location where I was initially planning to go for a few days of family camping. I decided in the late moments to change plan, and instead head over to the northern Oregon coast, much to my wife’s delight. She loves the ocean and when her annual vacation with her mom over to the CA coast fell through, she was left without her coastal fix this year. She cried for days on end (kidding!). Needless to say, it did not take much convincing on my part to talk her into going camping on the OR coast instead of inland Oregon. About a quarter of a second is what I think it took. I timed it. The temperature forecast on the northern Oregon coast? High 70’s. The temperature back home? 110. Any second thoughts? Nope.

Before getting to the coast we decided to stop one night in Salem in a motel. I had wanted to take my family to Abiqua Falls, but after reading about it more, I realized the hike was a little more intense than I initially thought for a family hike. I do think our kids could have done that hike, but there were some very steep sections, and we would have had to be very careful. And I am sure there would have been many protests. Regardless, there was certainly no way our old dog would have been able to do that hike. Her mind is more than willing, but her body is now unable to co-operate. She can still do easy hikes though, so I decided to take them to Henline Falls instead, another waterfall I really wanted to go to, and this one is an easy 1 mile trek. I did end up going to Abiqua Falls by myself, and I will be sharing that photo next.

In the Salem area the temperature was about 85 degrees when we arrived at the trailhead, but the humidity was unreal. We were sweating raindrops after about 10 minutes into the hike. Big massive raindrops. I think the rains we had last week really increased the humidity exponentially. Normally, it is not like this at all in the summer. What is up with this craziness? If I liked humidity, I would live in Missouri.

It was wonderful and cool at the waterfall, however. Henline Falls is 98 ft. high, and the trail takes you right to the base of the falls. This makes it a very difficult waterfall to photograph. Even at lower flows, there is a lot of mist at the falls, and thus not very many compositions available for photographing it. We enjoyed the waterfall for quite a while, eating picnic dinner, checking out the cave beside the waterfall, and taking many photos.