Leon Turnbull Photography

This May is our 25^th wedding anniversary. If you remember last year I mentioned we were going to take a trip to Iceland. Unfortunately that fell through. My wife had a serious illness last year and she is still not recovered enough to the point where she can hike again. There is not much point going to Iceland if we cannot hike at all so we are delaying that trip for now. Instead, we decided to take a weekend trip to Shelter Cove, a place where neither of us had been before. My wife loves the ocean so it was a perfect getaway. We took our puppy Journey as well. It is a dog friendly place and she had a lot of fun running on the beaches.

The road to Shelter Cove is one of the worst I have driven. Twenty miles of head spinning, very slow going, very windy, losing your lunch type of roads. I only wanted to drive this road down and back out once and once only (but of course I drove it twice). There is little to do in Shelter Cove. Very few stores and shops. There are three beaches. We spent a lot of time on the beaches and Journey loved it. We saw a lot of wildlife: sea lions, seals, pelicans, deer, elk, and even a whale (in the far distance).  We had a view of the ocean from our hotel room and could see the seals on the rocks below us. In fact, the seals were out there on the rocks the entire day, not moving at all (they were alive – I went down to check – what a life they must have!). It was a very relaxing weekend. Just what we needed.

I did have hopes of seeing at least one new waterfall in the area. The first morning I had severe pain in my neck, mostly caused by not having brought my own pillow from home. Journey was not feeling well that first day either so we decided to just sleep in. The second day we were both feeling better so we got up very early and went on a hike. We hiked all the way down to the ocean, a 1300 ft. descent. There we came across a large herd of elk (including some big ones) and they were blocking our path. They would not let us by them and in fact started to come towards us. Probably they were just curious (of Journey) but I did not feel comfortable walking by them and there was no way to get around.  We had our breakfast and then hiked back up to the car.

I was disappointed since I’ll probably not ever be back there (though maybe I will someday). On the drive home I thought I should get at least one waterfall so we stopped at 50 ft. Dora Falls. It is one of the prettiest waterfalls you will ever see. It is a short hike and all three of us went up to see it. I was very happy to find that it was still in shade and good to photograph. I did not expect that since it was almost noon when we got there. It was a perfect relaxing weekend in Shelter Cove.

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This is Alamere Falls from the cliffs. You don’t want to stand too close to the edge here.

As of Feb. 1, the snow pack is 77% of normal (northern CA), 71% (central Sierra), 69% (southern Sierra). Rainfall is 63% (north), 53% (central), 55% (south). Things are looking very bleak this year. I like to be optimistic, however. Optimistic that we will catch up in the last half of February and March, and get back to average by the end of winter. Pray for snow, everyone.

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The photo is Upper Alamere Falls.

I was very warm during the night. I had to shed layers and did not use all the warm clothes I brought for sleeping (my pack could have been a lot less than 43 pounds). Nekoda was also warm, but Tara and Jadon were cold. I’m not really sure why Tara was cold, but I know why Jadon was cold: He is so stubborn, that is why. I bought him a $70 sleeping bag liner so he would be warm at night. He did not use it. (Nekoda used the one I bought for her and she was warm). Instead, he carried a heavy blanket in his pack! (that must have added 5 pounds to his pack on top of the 20.5 pounds I weighed). This did not keep him warm whatsoever. But would his father (who has much backpacking experience) know what would be best ? No, of course not. He has to do his own thing. As for hiking boots, I made him try on my old boots before the trip. He said they fit perfectly fine. When we got to the trailhead, he said they did not fit. So what did he do? He took out all the shoelaces from the boots and hiked in the boots with no shoelaces! Was that better? Of course not. For the hike back, I could have let him suffer more, but I gave him my trail shoes (which I happened to have along with me), and those fit him better. (but he then had to carry the heavy hiking boots in his pack). No wonder he struggled with his pack, carrying those extra (and unnecessary) heavy items. As for Nekoda, she had to bring along all her makeup on the hike. I wonder how much weight all those items added. Sigh. Teenagers.

We woke up to a beautiful sunrise and glorious morning. Tons of little birds swarmed around us as we ate our breakfast, looking for scraps and trying to steal my food as I sat at the picnic table. Tara and I walked down to the ocean and watched the huge waves while my daughter Nekoda struggled to get up and out of her warm sleeping bag (and it WAS a big struggle). I think it was 9:45am by the time we got going, and it was a 6 mile hike back to the trailhead.

We saw many hikers on the trail going to Alamere Falls. I thought it was funny because many of them missed the turnoff to the waterfall. It is not marked, and if you miss it, you will go all the way to Wildcat camp and have to walk to Alamere Falls along the beach. But at high tide, (as it was), you will be skunked and not be able to reach Alamere Falls. I think it would clue in once you passed the bridge over Alamere Creek that you missed the turnoff, but most people we saw seemed to be unprepared and have no clue. We corrected some of the hikers we saw to go back the right way, but another thing is the tide. It was high tide and the waves would be (I know they were) crashing right up against the cliffs. That means it would be impossible to go down to the beach to see the waterfall. If you did go down, you could easily be swept out to sea. I wonder how many people have died down there at high tide. Bottom line, people: be prepared! Check your map! Check the tides! Go to my website and get proper information!

We got back to the car at 1PM. The parking lot was completely full. All those people hiked to Alamere Falls and could not even see it except from the top. We ate our lunch, and then made the long drive home. It was an awesome two day trip to Point Reyes National Seashore.

 

 

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For the first time ever, our entire family went along on a backpacking trip with me. You heard me right, all four of us. It’s a miracle! How did I do it? It actually only took one word: ocean. If I say that word to my wife, she gets all giddy and excited. It probably took a few more words for my kids to agree.

I planned this trip months in advance. You have to do this because it is very difficult to get reservations at the Wildcat campground in Point Reyes National Seashore. Even a couple months in advance, everything was booked except for one last campsite, and that only for one night (Friday). All the stars need to align as well: the tides, and of course the weather. There are only a couple days a year where the tides come into alignment for what I wanted to do. As for the weather, we needed a lot of rain leading up to the event, and then nice weather on the day of the event. This is winter in California. Good luck with that madman. But that is exactly how it all panned out. We had quite a bit of rain in the two weeks before our trip (not nearly as much as I hoped – but it was enough). Then the weather showed a break for Friday. More rain was expected on Saturday afternoon. It turned out to be absolutely perfect timing. It was not even going to be very cold. I guess I could take credit for planning this out so perfect, but then I’d be struck by lightning. God is so good to us. Thank you Lord! I should also mention that I needed cloudy skies to take photos of this waterfall. That happened also. It was another miracle. Again, thank you God!

I was not able to do everything I wanted on this trip. We got a very late start. That is mostly because the visitor center does not open until 10AM! By the time we got our permits and got to the trailhead, it was 11:30AM before we started hiking. We did not arrive at Alamere Falls until 2PM, which is much later than I wanted. I had hoped to be at camp by this time, and then we’d have time to setup camp and hike up to Horsetail Falls before dark. Horsetail Falls is only accessible at very low tide and that was my primary goal for this trip, but we did not even get to camp until 5PM, and sunset is at 5:30PM, so going to Horsetail was out of the question. There is always next year. And next year, I will make sure I have enough time to get up to Horsetail.

We spent a lot of time at Alamere Falls, eating our lunch, and resting, and enjoying the waterfalls. Since it was Friday, there were not too many other people here (when we came back on Saturday, we passed a ton of people on the trail). It was beautiful and sunny for the hike up to the falls. We had grand views of the ocean. It clouded over in the afternoon by the time we arrived. Perfect. I went down to the beach to take my photos, while the rest of the crew rested up top. They were pretty tired, and so did not want to go down. It is a steep and tricky descent, and you need to be very careful, but I did not think it was too bad (it looks worse than it is). The rangers try (unsuccesfully) to dissuade people from coming down to Alamere Falls this way. They say there is poison oak (there is not), and that the descent is too dangerous (it is not – if you are careful). Don’t be stupid though and do something you are not prepared for and don’t have proper footwear for – such as going barefoot (we saw some hikers doing this – I could not believe it).

After photographing Alamere Falls, I went back up to get my crew. We would all have to descend to the beach with our packs on. With the tide going out, it would be an easy hike up the beach to Wildcat campground. We all made it down safely. Speaking of packs, you may want to know our pack weights: Leon: 43 pounds, Tara: 22.5 pounds, Jadon: 20.5 pounds, Nekoda: 14 pounds! You would think they would want to help the old man out and take on some more weight, but no sir! Actually, I did not mind taking on the extra weight. I wanted them all to be comfortable and to enjoy the trip as much as possible. Even with the light packs, they all had some difficulty.

The hike up the beach to Wildcat was the most enjoyable part of the entire hike. Too bad it was only 1 mile long. Along the way, we had a very close encounter with a huge elephant seal sleeping by the cliffs. We could hear it snoring as we passed by. We kept our distance (as you must), but it was a very cool experience.

We arrived at our campsite at 5PM. We setup camp, made our dinner and ate it in the dark, then we went to bed. There was only one other group in the entire campsite. Even though all the sites were booked (including one of the large group sites), no one was there. I am confused about this: If you book a campsite months in advance for January, what are you thinking? If it is not balmy and warm, you are going to cancel it? You do not get your money back if you cancel it. (and it is $20 – so not particularly cheap).  This is winter, people! Oh I am afraid it is only going to be 51 degrees, we just cannot go if it is that cold. If the weather was really awful then I would have canceled our trip also, but frankly I thought the weather we had was perfect. No rain, and the low temperature was only 51 degrees (which is very warm for January). There were showers forecast for overnight while we were sleeping, and I was expecting to have some, but we did not even get any showers at all. It was a fantastic day one in Point Reyes National Seashore.

 

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It has been a long time coming. I have wanted to go to this waterfall on the Lost Coast for many years. This weekend, the conditions seemed perfect. All the stars were aligned: Lots of recent rain, a break in the weather (for a couple days), a rare minus tide at sunset (required to get to the falls).

I took the day off work, and made the very long drive out to California’s fabled Lost Coast. It is possible to drive to the Usal campground. The road is very rough, very steep, very narrow, and very muddy. It is not something I really had any desire to drive. Thus, I decided to park my car and walk the 6 miles into the campground. That is my excuse. The truth is that I could have easily driven in to the camp. There were plenty of others that drove in (actually, a lot more than I expected to see at Usal). However, I did not want to drive. I “wanted” to hike in. I “needed” to do a backpack trip. I could have chosen a different location perhaps, but I really wanted to go to this particular waterfall, and as I mentioned, the conditions were perfect for it. So … was I laughed at by the other drivers that passed me on the road? Perhaps, but I did not care. I definitely did not regret it.

The hike is 6 miles, and is not too difficult, except for the 1000 ft. elevation gain, and then a 1000 ft. descent down to the campground. There are not very many views along the road, until you near the end. Then the magnificent ocean finally comes into sight. I could actually see the waterfall way down at the far end of the coast, such a long way away. I was not in a rush on this hike, and took plenty of video and photos.

It was the Monday of the long weekend. I was not surprised there would be people at Usal camping on the weekend. And there were. I also expected that they would be leaving on Monday, and I would (hopefully) have the camp all to myself on Monday night. This also was the case. When I arrived, there was still one vehicle in the camp, but they left before too long, and then I was all by myself. The strange thing, though, was that on my hike back out on Tuesday I saw quite a few drivers coming into Usal. I found it extremely odd that so many people would be coming into this very remote location in the middle of a week day in the middle of winter.

Anyway, I came to the bridge over Usal Creek. This creek was unbelievably huge. It would be uncrossable without a bridge. Fortunately there was a bridge. I crossed and looked for a campsite. There are many campsites here. None of them were great campsites, except for the ones closest to the beach, but there was a strong cold wind and those ones were not sheltered at all. I chose a sheltered spot away from the beach, setup my tent, and made my dinner.

After dinner, I hiked down the beach to the waterfall for sunset. It is a long hike. The beach is mostly very rocky, which is hard on the feet and quite slow going. I was taking a lot of photos and video, so that obviously increased the time but coming back afterwards, I was hiking as fast as possible, and it took a full hour or longer to get back to camp. Finally, I arrived at the falls. It was absolutely beautiful! It drops about 80 ft. right into the ocean. I love it (not!) when everyone says there are only two waterfalls in California that drop right into the ocean (can you guess which ones they say?). In reality, there are many more waterfalls than those two that fall into the ocean and this is one of them. With the minus tide, I could walk right up to it and photograph it from in front, in order get the stream in the foreground. I did not have to wait too long for sunset, but I oddly had cell service here so I made sure to send some photos to my jealous wife while I waited.

After taking photos at sunset, I booted it back to camp. As you can imagine, if it takes a full hour to hike along the beach, I arrived back at camp well after dark. I had my headlamp of course. The big problem was trying not to twist my ankle on the very rocky beach in the dark. I made it back without incident, jumped into my tent and warm sleeping bag, and went to bed.

I was warm in my sleeping bag all night, but in the morning there was a lot of condensation on my tent and on the outside of my sleeping bag. Everything was soaking wet. (not on the inside of my bag, though, thankfully!). It was cold outside, but I walked down to the ocean one last time while I tried to let things dry out (which did not happen because there was no sun out yet).

So I did something slightly stupid while down at the ocean, taking photos. The tide was coming in. I was taking photos along Usal Creek where it flows into the ocean. A wave came up, all the way to the creek. I saw it coming and got out of there in time. Only problem is that I forgot to pick up my glove. The wave pushed the glove into the creek, that very big creek, and it started to flow down the creek towards the ocean. Oh my gosh! I dropped my gear in a safe spot, and splashed through the ocean water, along the creek bed, where I then had to plant my foot right into the creek in order to reach in and grab the glove. My foot was now soaking wet and it would be cold for the rest of the morning (even after putting on a dry sock), and of course I could not wear the glove (which is bad because it was a cold morning). Thankfully, however, I did not lose anything. I survived the ocean yet again.

After this excursion to the beach, I ate my breakfast and packed up my very wet gear. Now I am sure you are thinking that since most everyone drives to Usal campground, the campground must be squeaky clean because everyone has a vehicle and can easily pack out their trash. Yeah, nope. There is a lot of trash at the campground, annoyingly and sadly. I took out most of the trash I found at the two campsites that I used. I say two because the one I chose for my tent did not have a picnic table, so I used the neighboring site for eating my food. Those two sites I left pretty much immaculate when I left. (you can thank me later). My pack was much heavier on the hike back out (but that also had something to do with my wet tent gear).

I decided to take a slightly different route, rather than hiking along the road. There is a trail called Peter Douglas Coastal Trail, which is a new extension of the official Lost Coast trail, and it begins at the Usal campground. It is a bit longer, but I figured I had the time so why not try it. I am so glad I did this! The trail goes through an absolutely amazing old growth Redwood forest. These trees were utterly spectacular and unique; this is one of the best Redwood hikes I have ever done in my life. The hike ended with some amazing ocean views, and along the way I saw an elk as well. If I had driven up to the Usal campground instead of hike, I would have seen none of this. If I did not know already, now I KNEW I made the right decision to hike into the camp. It was a beautiful morning, and an awesome couple days on California’s Lost Coast.

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