Leon Turnbull Photography

A couple days ago I wrenched my back doing yard work. Oh crikey, what lousy timing. I should just take the weekend and recover properly. That is what a normal person would do, and if it was a normal weekend, that is probably what I would do. It was not a normal weekend, though. Huge rain storms are moving through northern California this weekend. Through the end of Friday, the Sierra foothills received more than 7 inches of rain. It continued to rain on Saturday, and there is another huge storm coming in Saturday night. Of course this all means, the waterfalls are going nuts, and there is no way I could NOT go out hiking on Saturday morning, bad back and all.

The North Fork American River gage at Lake Clementine reached over 16,000 cubic feet per second by Friday evening, more than 16 times the flow it had just that morning. This is a monster flow for this river. Why is it important? Because if the river has that much flow, then all the creeks flowing into it will also have monster flow as well, you can be sure of that. Canyon Creek is my favorite of these that flow into the North Fork. Seven significant waterfalls drop along this creek including a 134 ft. high beauty. My destination for Saturday was set.

Even though it rained all night, it was lighter rain, and the flow in the river started going back down Friday night, and by the morning it was down to 7000 cfs. This was still pretty fantastic, so I did not change my plan in the morning, though I have been wanting for quite awhile to get to this location when Canyon Creek is at monster stage. Indeed I have been waiting three years for the timing to be right. I will get there someday.

The idea was to not go down the main Canyon Creek trail. That trail would have been too dangerous in the wet weather, and I believe that the bridge is out anyway, so it would have been impossible. The idea instead, was to find a path down to a viewpoint of the biggest waterfall on Canyon Creek on the other side of the canyon. I know of a couple people that have made this trek before, so I knew it was possible.

It was raining when I woke up in the morning. And windy, very windy. These two things would make my morning rather interesting. And wet, very wet. I arrived at the trailhead without any problems, and started my hike. The first part of the hike is along old roads leading through the Gold Run diggings, and the road followed my GPS route perfectly. So far so good. The path leads over and across Indiana Ravine, and after that I needed to find a route over to the ridge I needed to scramble down to the viewpoint. Along the way I came across an old garbage can that was tipped over on the ground, with its contents strewn all along the ground. This is the middle of nowhere, why on earth would there be a garbage can here? What is worse though, is why people would throw their trash out here in the wilderness? Garbage can or not, obviously no one is going to be cleaning it up way out here. Some people need to use their brains a little more than they do. Stupid. Anyway, I picked up the can and put the garbage back in it, but it will only last until the next big wind comes along. Or the next big bear comes along (or the next little bear). I crossed Indiana Ravine and found the spot where I needed to cut over to the ridge. It got a quite a bit brushy through this part, but I made my way through and found a well trodden trail leading along the top of the ridge. I am sure this trail goes all the way back to the main Canyon Creek trail.

Now for the hard part. Getting down the ridge. I found a spot that looked promising and started scrambling down. I got down one or two hundred feet, and then it just got far too brushy to continue any further. I tried to find a way through the brush, but to no avail. I had to give up and go back. I could not believe that anyone else could have ever made it down here. It was just far too brushy. When I got back to the main trail, I was quite tired from all that scrambling, and my back was complaining. I did not want to give up, however. I decided to continue on the trail and see if I could find any other better way down the ridge. Lo and behold, after five minutes more of hiking, I came to a trail going down the ridge. A TRAIL! Not just any trail, a well trodden trail. Clearly quite a few people have been down this path before, not just one or two. I continued down the trail and although it had a couple steep parts, and poison oak scattered all about, all in all it was pretty darn easy.

As I descended, I caught glimpses into the canyon. What do you think I saw? FOG! It was clear to me that I would get down this trail to the waterfall viewpoint, and not even be able to see the waterfall! It was also raining quite hard now as I descended. So I prayed of course: Please God, no rain. No wind. No fog. Pretty please with a cherry on top? I could hear the waterfall now, thundering down the canyon. I could hear the river, thundering below. I could not see anything. Finally, I got down the ridge. You will not believe this. The fog had disappeared, I could see the waterfall clearly. There was no wind. And just as I arrived at the tremendous viewpoint, the rain stopped. I am not fooling you. Thank you Lord, this was just really incredible.

The 134 ft. high Canyon Creek Falls was thundering before me. It felt so close I could almost touch it. Yet really it was a good half mile away. The viewpoint is on some rock outcroppings on the edge of a cliff. I could see the North Fork American River off to the right, and it was magnificent. Directly below me, I could see what I think was the sixth waterfall on Canyon Creek, but the angle was severe from here for a photo of that. I quickly got out my camera and took some shots of Canyon Creek Falls before the rain thought to start up again. As I finished up, and started looking around for alternate views, the fog rolled back in. I could not see the waterfall at all! Wow. I figured that was it, so I put my camera and tripod back away, but waited around for awhile. Five minutes later, the fog rolled out and I could see the waterfall again. Alrighty then, I got my camera back out and took some more shots, and also some shots of the river as well. And then the fog rolled in yet again. This time I decided to pack it up for good, and as I did, the rain started. It rained for the entire hike back to the car. It was a crazy morning, but it was certainly an awesome one.

Black Friday. As most of you know by now, this is my favorite day of the year to go hiking. No one is out, everyone is either out shopping or sleeping. It is definitely my kind of day out in the wilderness.

I decided to go up to McCloud and visit the McCloud River waterfalls. Again, I was trying to get to a new waterfall up there. Again, I did not have my GPS, having left it back home, and thus making it very difficult to find the way where I wanted to go. Again, I struck out, due to me taking the wrong route.

I was trying to get to Big Springs, which is near the Lower McCloud Falls, but way off the beaten path. With my makeshift GPS (ie. My iPhone app), I found a myriad of logging roads leading over to the area of Big Springs. There were a lot of them, and very wisely I marked the junction of every road so I could find my way back. With a GPS I really should not have needed to do this, but I am so glad I was smart enough to do it, or I might still be out there.

My approach to Big Springs took longer than I wanted, and as I neared the river, the road deteriorated into a very overgrown path, and then a steep descent down a rocky creek bed to get to the river. I had my dog Kaya with me, who is quite old now, but she managed to get down all right. The last step was a doozy and she would not let me carry her down it, but we found an alternate (bushy) way. When I got down to the river, I realized that we were nowhere near the waterfall. I came the wrong way. Big Springs was still far upriver. Kaya was already over-tired, and I was worried about her getting back up. I could glimpse the waterfall, but it would be a lot of bushwhacking to get over to it. It was also getting too late, the sun would be hitting the waterfall very shortly. If I was alone and if I had my proper GPS, I would have continued. But as it was, I decided to retreat and try again another day. I found a better way back up the creek bed, but Kaya was plump beat by the time we got back up to the dirt road. Now I had another problem, my iPhone app konked out on me. I still had 30% battery left on it, but it would not work. It is sure a darn good thing I marked all those road junctions. There is no way I would have remembered which way to turn at the jumble of intersecting logging roads that I had to negotiate to get back to the car.

Once back at the car, I went to Middle McCloud Falls. This waterfall would not be in the sun until 9:30AM so I knew I had some time to get to it. Even though Kaya was beat from the last hike, she really wanted to go down to the falls with me. It is a short and easy hike (though still a big descent), and of course I could not keep her from coming along. Just try to stop me from coming, she whined at me. Now, over the past few months or so, I have noticed other photographers’ images of Middle McCloud Falls, shooting the waterfall from way back, which in my opinion, is not a very good composition of the waterfall. I did not understand this at all, but I did not think it through clearly. Why are they shooting from so far back? There are far better compositions of this waterfall that can be had from close up. I have some really nice ones myself on my website. Well … now I know why. When I got down to the falls, there was just WAY TOO much mist near the waterfall, and this is because the river flow was so much higher. When I was here before, the river flow was lower, and there was not nearly so much mist so I could get much closer to the waterfall. Today, not a chance. The ONLY photo possibility was from much further back (and there was still quite a bit of mist from back there). So here you go folks: a Middle McCloud Falls photograph taken from far back. If you’d like to see (and purchase) an image of Middle McCloud with a superior comp, go to my website, and I will be happy to oblige: http://www.waterfallswest.com/gallery/page.php?id=north.

After I arrived back at my car and was getting ready to drive home, I noticed three vehicles pull up into the parking lot. What the hey? Didn’t anyone tell these people it is Black Friday, and no one is allowed to be out hiking here except me!?!? Ah well, enjoy folks. I am going home now anyway.

After work on Wednesday I drove up north to visit the in-laws for the weekend. I wanted to hike not only on Black Friday (as I do every year), but also on Thanksgiving Day. Just like Walmart, I am now expanding into the previous day to maximize my profits – in my case, it is waterfall viewing profits, not monetary profits. I did not have a lot of time on Thursday morning. I had to be in Redding by 10:30AM for Thanksgiving lunch/dinner. Who eats lunch at 10:30AM? Only my family of course.

Anyway, I chose to go to Montgomery Creek, just east of Redding, and was hoping to find at least one new waterfall out in that area. First problem I realized after I arrived at the in-laws on Wednesday evening, and it was a disaster. I left my GPS back home. Oh crikey. My GPS is my life-blood. It is absolutely essential for finding new waterfalls. With my GPS, I can get to a lot of places that are well off the beaten path, through forest and brush without any trails to lead me. But without it, I will likely have too much trouble just finding the trailhead, let alone avoid getting completely lost.

Oh what to do, what to do. Awhile back, I bought an iPhone topo map app. I only used it once to try it out, and I did not like it. My handheld GPS is just far superior to any iPhone app in every conceivable way. Well, I dusted it off (fortunately I had not deleted it), and downloaded some topo maps of the Montgomery Creek area before I left the house on Thursday morning. Hopefully with this app, I could find the trailhead, as well as get down to the waterfall.

I had another problem as well, and this was even worse than no GPS. I left my camera’s memory cards back at home as well. I only had a single 1GB card with me. This would not allow me to take very many photos. I would have to be very judicious about what photos I took over the course of the next two days.

My goal was to get down into Bear Canyon and find the waterfall on this creek dumping into Shasta Lake. I was able to find the spot where I thought I needed to start hiking, and made the descent into the canyon with my dumb little iPhone app. There was much brush and much poison oak, and once I got down into the canyon I got turned around and could not tell which way to go. Oh how I would have loved my handheld GPS! To make things worse, the terrain down there was very confusing anyway, and I was definitely afraid of getting lost. At one point the creek was on my right, and then all of a sudden it seemed to be on my left and going the opposite direction. I did manage to figure out what was going on with the terrain, but I realized it was just too brushy to get down to the waterfall. Even if I had my GPS, I could not have done it. This was not the right spot to go down. Strike out.

I got back to my car, and then went on to Potem Falls, just a short distance away. Unfortunately, by the time I arrived at Potem Falls, it was already in the sun. Potem gets the sun very early in the morning. I should have known this. I should have gone to Potem first, then try Bear Canyon afterwards. On the plus side, Potem Falls was really rocking, thanks to the recent rains. The flow was above average, and there was a lot of mist at the bottom of the falls. It was spectacular. I am not happy with the photo, due to the sun on the falls, but here it is for you anyway.

On the way back to Redding, I also found a better way down into Bear Canyon, which hopefully would allow me to get down to the waterfall there. Would I try it again the next day? Or go somewhere else? Stay tuned to find out.

I got out hiking three times over the long Thanksgiving weekend. I struck out wildly on Thursday and Friday in my search for new waterfalls. By Sunday, I was in desperate need of getting to at least some new waterfall. But it had to be an easy one.

I will talk more later about my Thursday and Friday strike outs. I have at least one photo to share from those outings. But for now I wanted to share this photo from Sunday morning first. Because by golly this is a pretty little waterfall, though it is a small one.

The reason for the easy hike on Sunday is because I was hiking with my dog all weekend. She is very old. She is a gamer and goes where-ever, but I think I pushed her a little too hard on Thursday and Friday, unintentionally of course, but that is what happens to me when I go waterfall hunting. Things are never as easy as I plan or expect. So for Sunday, I needed an easy hike, and even as such, this turned out to be a bit harder than I expected. I was also hoping my son would join me on this hike, but he opted out, stating lack of appropriate hiking gear available to him up at Nana and Papa’s house.

It is less than a mile hike over to Waters Gulch in Shasta Trinity National Forest, a small stream dumping into Lake Shasta. I had heard there was a waterfall on this creek, and I was hoping it was flowing well, since the other creeks in the area seemed to be going at a good clip, thanks to recent rain in the past week. Actually I was just hoping I could get to it and photograph it.

I found the waterfall all right, and it was easy enough to get down to the bottom of it, and easy for Kaya as well. It was smaller than I anticipated, though its actual height will depend on how it is measured. I have not decided if I should count the upper tier as part of the waterfall’s height or not (oh, the complications). Anyway, the bottom tier is the prettiest, and is shown here. The waterfall flow was much lower than I hoped. I think at high flow, this would be a really nice one overall, but not so much at lower flows. A local cougar apparently likes dining here also. I found an old bone and what was left over of some small animal beside the waterfall. Hmmm. Thankfully, the cougar was not waiting around to catch unsuspecting waterfall hunters.

After shooting the lower falls, I wanted to photograph the upper tier as well, and that meant climbing up to the top of this lower waterfall. Easy enough for me, but not so easy for Kaya. In her youth, she could bound up the rocks easily. But in her old age, she cannot. I lifted her up two big rock steps to get her to the top. However, once we got to the top, it suddenly occurred to me that I would not be able to get her back down the waterfall. There is no way she would let me carry her down. Phooey. I looked around in a moment of panic for an alternate exit. I found one. There was a path up the steep bank back up to the main trail. Through poison oak. I think I would have much preferred going back the same way, but for Kaya’s sake we went up through the oak instead. We made it safely and hopefully without the itch. It was a nice easy morning at Lake Shasta.

It was my kind of weekend. Rain. And lots of it. The storm is not over yet as I write this, but so far it has been enough to get the waterfalls flowing pretty good. When the waterfalls are flowing, you know I am going to be out finding some.

My destination was Emigrant Gap. I knew it was going to be a wet morning hike, and it was. I was out hiking for about 3 hours, and I was pretty soaked by the end of it. I was looking for some new waterfalls out in the Emigrant Gap area. I did not find any new ones, but I know there are some and I know where they are, so I will definitely be returning in the future.

After my first hike, which was a strikeout, I went to North Fork Falls which I have been to before. What I would really like someday is to photograph this waterfall in the snow, but I think it is pretty much not possible to get to it when there is snow here. Nonetheless, there was snow on the ground here as I hiked down to the falls. Very wet snow. I was surprised to see it, but there was not any around the waterfall, unfortunately. At the North Fork campground, I scared up a heron, which was the only thing alive I saw all morning. No other wildlife. No humans. I don’t even recall seeing any birds. They were all taking cover from the rain. Only I and the heron were crazy enough to be outdoors on this dreary day.

The North Fork of the North Fork American River was flowing quite strong due to the rain. This is actually the biggest I have ever seen this waterfall. And this made the river crossing below the falls a bit tricky. Usually you can just rock hop across very easily. There was one big step over a deep section of the river that I needed to make. I tried to roll a big log across to make the crossing easy for me, but the log ended up floating downstream instead. Doh. Well, fortunately, I did not really need the log, and I was able to step across on the slick rocks without incident. On the other side of the river, you need to work your way up the slope and then down to a viewpoint of the falls. This part is very difficult and quite dangerous, especially on the very wet and slick rocks. But I came prepared. With rope. I almost always take rope on my hikes in case I need it, but up to now, I have never used it. I really wanted to get down this section to get to a better viewpoint, so I looped the rope around a tree, and used it to make my way down the slope. It worked. Once down, I had to figure out how to photograph the waterfall in the rain, which is always the hardest part of going waterfallin’ in the rain. I had my wife’s umbrella with me, and was careful not to drop it over the cliff into the river as I held it over my camera as I took my photographs. On the way back, I decided to stay on the same side of the river instead of crossing back. There is no trail, but it is not hard. In fact, I think it is actually a much easier way to get to the waterfall. I’m sure I will be using that same route next time I am here. In the snow.