Leon Turnbull Photography

I was not intending to go to Grouse Falls again but my plan A did not pan out. There is still much snow at higher elevations. Most roads above 5000 ft or so are still inaccessible. I thought that perhaps I might be able to now get to the Beacroft trailhead on Foresthill Rd but I could not even get close to it driving. I need to figure out a way to get into these areas early in the season. Anyone want to donate their snowmobile to waterfallswest.com?

Well I decided to just drive out to Grouse Falls so as not to go home empty handed. Grouse Falls is at a much lower elevation but even so there was a slight bit of snow along the road. It is such a long long drive out to Grouse Falls and it is such a short short hike. It is almost pointless to go there. Except that the waterfall is utterly spectacular. A 504 ft high masterpiece in the middle of nowhere. The North Fork of the Middle Fork American River canyon. Such a beautiful canyon out here in nowhere land. The Beautiful Land. But so inaccessible. I suspect there are other waterfalls in this remote canyon too, but how to get to them?

In the past I have gone down to the bottom of Grouse Falls but was not prepared to do that on this day, so I just enjoyed the view from across the canyon. It was early evening, and the light was in and out from behind storm clouds creating rapidly changing conditions. I liked this shot with a bit of sunlight touching the waterfall and cliffs.

More info on Grouse Falls:
http://waterfallswest.com/waterfall.php?id=318

Part II of my grand master weekend trip to Yosemite and beyond was to drive down to Shaver Lake and finally get to Stevenson Creek Falls. Bryan Swan and Dean Goss (world-waterfalls.com) have been hounding me for years to go see this one. And for good reason. It is perhaps the last major major waterfall in CA that I had not yet seen. I’ve been wanting to go here for years but it is a very long drive from Sacramento. This year I finally made the effort to see this 950 ft. high monster.

I parked at the trail starting point overnight. I had a bite to eat and went to bed at 8pm. I was so tired, I dropped off almost immediately and slept about ten hours. No one disturbed me. Sometime during the night it started raining. Hard. And kept raining. I was thinking I did not want to hike seven miles in the pouring rain. Did I make this very long drive all for nothing? The only reason I came down here was to see this waterfall. Would I have to go home empty handed?

Around 6:30am the rain stopped and I decided I had better get going if I am going. I did not know if the rain would start up again, so I asked God to keep the rain away at least until I got to the falls. He listened to me (perhaps a little too closely).

I started hiking down the paved road called the Million Dollar Road. It would have been much better to bike this road, as hiking seven miles on pavement is not fun for the feet. Otherwise it was a pretty easy hike. Along the way I saw a couple other waterfalls that I did not know even existed, and the views of the San Joaquin River canyon were stupendous especially the further I hiked along. If I had to guess, I would say the road is called the “Million Dollar” road cuz that is how much it cost to build. In my view, it was an awful expense that should never have happened, there should only be hiking trails through this canyon. But at least S.C. Edison allows the public to hike/bike their expensive paved road, and it leads right by an incredible waterfall.

I could see the spray from the falls from 1.5 miles away. I am not exaggerating (though I could not see the waterfall until I got right up to it). I kinda figured this was a bad omen in terms of being able to photograph this monster, and I was correct.

The road goes right in front of the bottom of the waterfall and there was so much water it was crashing over onto the bridge and road. I could not even walk up to the bridge, I was literally blown back by the spray. Trying to cross the bridge would have been certain death, and unfortunately the best views of the falls were on the other side. I could only see the lower part of the falls from this side, and I got very cold and very wet trying to photograph it. I was bummed but there was nothing to do but hike back.

As soon as I started back the rain started up again. Hard. And hail as well. I was soaked from the spray and now I was getting colder and wetter from the rain. I was a cold wet dog (again) by the time I got back to my car. But on the plus side, God did hold back the rain until I got to the waterfall, just as I asked Him. Next time I think I’ll ask Him to hold the rain until I am done hiking. Haha.

I was very tired on the long drive home despite the ten hours of sleep. It took me two full days to recover from this short trip. I definitely overdid it this weekend, 20+ miles of difficult hiking and a heckuva lot of driving was just way too much. But it was a fun trip for sure.

More info on Stevenson Creek Falls:
http://waterfallswest.com/waterfall.php?id=1348

I went up Ice House Rd again, on the evening of “Rapture Day”, driving all the way to Loon Lake (if indeed there was going to be a rapture, I wanted to be “caught” doing what I loved – haha). There was still quite a bit of snow up there and ice on the lake. Still too much snow to do the hike I had planned so I drove back down to Bassi Falls.

There was no snow at this lower elevation so I was optimistic that I would be able to drive all the way into the trailhead. And indeed I could! A lot of other people also seemed to have the same idea this weekend. There were a lot of people hiking back up the trail as I hiked down to the falls but there was no one else at the falls once I arrived, so I scoped out my spot to wait for the sun to set as it was still early in the evening.

Bassi Falls is a spectacular waterfall in the spring when the snow is melting and is one of my fav waterfalls in the Sacramento area and also very easy to get to. I come here at least once per year. As I waited I took some video of the falls, not something I normally do, but may do (should do) more of in the future, now that I have HD on my new camera (I posted the video on my waterfallswest facebook page).

Another family arrived at the waterfall, a photographer with his wife and two kids. The wife ran up to the top of the falls while the kids ran around like gangbusters playing in the creek with no supervision, while the photographer took his pictures. With the creek flowing so crazily, I didn’t think this was particularly safe as the kids were even crossing the creek. I guess it was safe enough where they were doing it but I don’t think I would want my kids crossing there. Something easily could have happened and he was too far away to help. Just my opinion. Later the wife came back down and then they were supervised more closely. Anyway, they stayed quite awhile but then left just before the light on the waterfall got nice, which happens just as the sun dips below the ridge line, and only for a very brief time. If he would have waited ten more minutes, he would have had a nice photograph. I’m just sayin.

I slept absolutely awful the first night in Yosemite. I was sleeping in my SUV not in a tent. I was very wired, looking up at every light or sound in the campground, and the worst of it was that my back was hurting from how I was laying in the vehicle and there was nothing I could do to make it better. I was seriously thinking that I should just drive home the next day. Another night in the car would be perhaps unbearable. I wanted to go home the next day but I also wanted to see all the waterfalls on my agenda that I was planning to see. Perhaps I could do both and just drive home late the next day. But how would my back feel in the morning?

The back was not great in the morning but I got up early after very little sleep and drove to the trailhead at Alder Creek Falls. I had not been to this waterfall yet and it is not a particularly easy hike either, climbing 1000 ft up in a four mile one way hike to the falls. Most of that 1000 ft is in the first mile. You are climbing amongst burnt trees left from a forest fire that went through here four years ago. Although the general public view of fires are that they are bad, in fact they are good if not unnaturally suppressed by man. I especially like how the fires clear out the thick brush on the forest floor which normally makes it impossible to bush whack to hard to reach waterfalls. No bush whacking is required for Alder Creek Falls however. My back held up on the steep hike up the mountain after which the terrain was much easier on the remaining three miles over to the falls. There was still some snow at the top (5800ft) which I had to walk through but much less than I anticipated. Most of it was all melted.

The viewpoint of the waterfall is quite a nice one from the trail overlooking the waterfall. I was surprised though. Firstly, about the height. It is listed commonly as a 250 ft. high waterfall, yet it was very clear to my eye that it was no where near that height. More like around 100 ft. high or so. Indeed, my measurement of the falls confirmed the height of the falls was 87 ft. Secondly, from all I had read it was clearly indicated that it was not possible to get down to the bottom of the falls. Yet it seemed that it was a possibility after all. It would be a difficult descent for sure, but definitely do-able (maybe – at the very least you could get down closer to it). Anyway I did not try it this time. I wanted to get back down to my vehicle quickly. Why? I had a lot of other destinations to visit that day still. I was concerned about my back as it would be a difficult descent. And stupidly, I was worried about a bear breaking into my vehicle cuz I had left food in it. I got back to my car and no bear had broken into it.

But as I sat in my car munching on a snack a very cool thing happened. About 8 or 9 deer came down to the road and then five of them (including a baby) crossed the road and came right up to my car. They could see me looking at them but did not mind me so close as they picked at food in the dirt. I don’t know what they would be eating in the dirt. I crawled into the back of my car to get my camera, changed lenses, then went out and started taking photos of them from the front of my car. I was only about 10 or 15 ft away from them. They stayed there a long time not minding me. Finally some other cars stopped as well and I no longer had them to myself. Eventually they had enough and left reluctantly. It was a pretty cool experience and one I would not have had I went down to the bottom of the falls, so I think God was the one who put it in my heart to get back down to the car quickly. Also, it is a story that my daughter Nekoda really would like as she loves deer and told me a long time ago she wanted me to take a picture of a baby deer. I don’t normally take photos of deer as they are so common but this was a very special case which I think happened as much for Nekoda as for me.

Whirlwind weekend Part II. Yosemite Valley.

The other waterfall I wanted to see this evening in Yosemite Valley was of course Bridalveil Falls. It was almost sunset time. The evening started out as very cloudy and overcast, but by sunset time, all the clouds in the valley had disappeared, so it was not much of a sunset, unfortunately. But there was still some nice light on the cliffs above Bridalveil Falls. I stopped at Valley View instead of Tunnel View. Although the latter is a more spectacular vista I rarely stop there as I have a strong aversion to spending my evening battling tripod legs with 50 other photographers. There is always much fewer people at Valley View. There were perhaps ten other people there but I found a good spot to setup and shoot before the light disappeared from the cliffs. Before it got too dark I ran up to the base of Bridalveil to experience more drenching, then drove on to my campsite in the dark.