Leon Turnbull Photography

Here is a closer and more intimate view of Lundy Canyon Falls from the overlook. I have lots more pictures from Lundy to process, but I have been busy this week, so I haven’t gotten to them yet.

In other news, I have just started biking to work this week. It takes about 25 minutes one way, it is only 3.5 miles from my house to work. I am excited about this so far, and I felt great the first day of doing this. If I can do this every day, I am going to get in great shape over this fall and winter, and I’ll be ready to get out in the spring to do some serious hiking. Yeah.

It seems that I have been waiting a long long time for Fall to arrive. Well, actually I have been! We had a very long summer here, the heat lasted into the beginning of October. It was crazy, and you know, I hate the hot weather. Well finally things have cooled down here in northern California, and finally the Autumn colors have arrived. It is going to be a very short Fall this year, I think, so I figured I should get out and enjoy it while it is here. So off to Lee Vining did I go on Saturday morning for my favorite Autumn hike: Lundy Canyon.

It is a very long drive over to the Eastern Sierra for just a day hike, but I figure I can manage doing it once or twice a year. I left the house at about 3AM, arriving at the trailhead at 6:30AM, and ready to start my hike up Lundy Canyon in peace. It was not quite as peaceful as I would have liked, however, because shockingly there was another couple starting the hike at about the same time.  I thought I was the only one crazy enough to get up so early for a hike. Not so, apparently. I noticed that they were photographers as well (which explains the craziness), and they caught up with me at the first waterfall.

The first waterfall was decked out in all its Fall glory, surrounded by gorgeous Aspen color. The flow in the creek was less than usual, though not surprising considering the awful winter we had this year. Nonetheless, it was flowing better than I expected it to be. There was still quite a bit of green showing at the lower elevations of Lundy Canyon, but at the same time there was a lot of yellow and orange also. I may have arrived here one week too early for best color, but at the higher elevations (above the second waterfall), most of the trees were already well past peak color.

After shooting from the overlook, I went on down to the base of the waterfall, looking for some more compositions of this lovely waterfall. I had never been to the base of it before, and it was quite easy with a trail leading down to it, but I couldn’t find a good comp that I liked with fall color down so close to the falls. Afterwards, I continued on up the canyon to the upper waterfalls. I thought about going all the way to the top of the monster waterfall, but I decided against it. There is a trail to the top, but it is very steep and a bit on the dangerous side, so instead I just looked for some new comps of that huge waterfall (which was not flowing too great anyway).

On the way back down the trail, I must have passed a hundred people hiking up the trail. It seemed like Fourth of July in Yosemite, with all the people out hiking, but I guess, for the Eastern Sierra, this is the most popular time of year for hiking. It sure seemed like a lot more than usual, however. Back in Lee Vining for lunch and to fill up with gas (at a whopping $5.09 per gallon – oh my!), then made the long drive back home. It was a long but great day in the Eastern Sierra.

Nothing new to report this weekend. Our daughter had her first dance performance of the season this weekend at the Folsom Community Center. Their group name is the Diamond Girls and they sure rocked! We are looking forward to this year for her, and she has a number of dance performances. She will be dancing at a pre-game show at the Sacramento Kings NBA game vs. Chicago Bulls in March. I am quite excited about this! 🙂

Anyway, here is yet another view of Lower Horsetail Falls from a couple months ago. I really liked that crack in the foreground and tried to use it prominently in this shot.

After my last day of work at my old job and getting off early, I drove back up to Fuller Lake in order to get back to Fordyce Falls. My plan was to bike the trail this time in hopes of saving a lot of time and in hopes of it being much easier. It is 4 miles one way, and it took me about 1.5 hours to hike it. When I hiked it, the terrain seemed quite bike-able, except for a couple big hills, and I know other people frequently bike this trail. I figured biking to the falls would take 45 minutes max. I could get there in good time, shoot both of the waterfalls, and be back at the car by dark. Easily.

So how long do you think it actually took me to bike to the falls? It took 1.5 hours, essentially the exact amount of time to hike it. It was also very difficult and much harder; it would have been easier to hike the trail. How is this even possible? Well, the terrain is actually extremely technical (which is not something I figured it would be, after hiking it). I was constantly having to get off the bike and walk sections, due to steepness, or very rocky terrain, or other obstacles. There were certainly long sections where I could go at a good fast clip, but the technical sections slowed me down way too much and too often.

Wow, when I got to Fordyce Falls I realized I had not much time to shoot the waterfalls if I wanted to get back to the car before dark. I certainly had no time to shoot both waterfalls. I decided to skip the lower Split Falls, and just shoot the upper Fordyce Falls. I waited until the waterfall got into the shade at 6:45PM, took my shot, then quickly packed up my bike and headed back at 6:50PM. It seemed to take longer to bike back and it was well past dark when I arrived back at the car. Fortunately I had a headlamp, but I did not get back to the car until about 8:15AM. I was dog tired but I made it.

Just a short distance above stunning McWay Falls lies a lovely little tiered waterfall which I call Upper McWay Falls. It is fairly easy to get to and flows on the same creek as the lower McWay Falls. In other words, it also flows year-round.

After shooting McWay Falls at sunrise, I took the short hike up to the upper falls. It is an easy hike to the bottom of the 3 tiered waterfall, but it is a bit tricky scrambling up to the upper tier, which is the prettiest section. It drops 32 ft. into a hidden alcove. It reminds me a lot of Hole In The Wall Falls in the Columbia River Gorge, Oregon because of how it curves around inside the alcove. I spent quite a lot of time here shooting this one, and I may or may not have removed a lot of ugly logs and debris that may or may not have been at the base of the waterfall. I can’t really remember. Photographers have a very short memory when it comes to things like that.

Anyhow, it was a fun morning. I grabbed some coffee in Big Sur on my way back to Monterey to meet my family, and we spent the rest of the day enjoying the beach, playgrounds, and touring the Carmel mission (which was quite interesting), and then enjoying a big pizza dinner, followed by a walk on the fisherman’s wharf where we saw a cute baby sea otter from up close.