Leon Turnbull Photography

Out for a stroll this weekend, and I was up at 3AM. Ouch. I arrived at the trailhead at 5:30AM. This is the world famous and extremely popular Rubicon Trail. The parking lot was jam pack full with cars and trailers. Ouch. I expected there to be people and jeeps on the trail, but not this many. It is summertime. I had actually wanted to come on this hike much earlier in the spring, but this was the first chance I had this year. It was time to go see Miller Creek Falls. It was Miller Time. I managed to squeeze my SUV into one of the only remaining spaces.

Well hopefully I would not see any jeeps on the trail. Yeah right. Going into the waterfall, indeed I did not see anyone, but coming back? Hmph. As for the weather, it was a cool and very pleasant 37 degrees. A nice start to the day, but it would warm up quickly, and with the warmth would come nightmarish mosquitoes. I was hoping to at least get to the waterfall before the mosquitoes came out to play. I did not quite make it.

Along the way, I pass 4 alpine lakes. If lakes can be ugly (can they be ugly?) then these ones were ugly. Well, the third one was quite nice, but the others were just completely covered with vegetation, like a big bog. They were not very scenic. But anyway, I continued on. I could see the creek had quite a bit of water, which was a good sign, as I was not sure how well the falls would still be flowing since it is already summer. Now I just had to get down there before the sun. If I stopped at all, the skeeters were over me. Needless  to say I only stopped the one time.

It was a pretty easy hike until I got to the top of the waterfall. From there I could see nothing but cliff. How would I get down? I hummed and hawed, I was running out of time, I just decided to go for it. But carefully go for it, of course. No need to jump off the cliff. There was a perfect little ledge that took me right to the bottom of the waterfall. If it were not there, I don’t think it would be possible to get to the falls. Thank you ledge. Or rather, thank you God for putting it there. 

Miller Creek Falls is gorgeous, 54 feet high in total. And there was even more than this one. It is a very awesome little creek and I will be back here someday to explore it fully.

I lathered up in Skeeter juice for the hike back. Unfortunately, I did see quite a few jeeps coming up the trail. The first one was a Ranger, and he asked me where I was coming from. I believe he thought I was backpacking somewhere. I was wearing my big camera pack of course, and many people have mistaken it for a backpack. This Ranger will not be the last to do that. But if I was backpacking, then I would need a permit and I think that’s what he was wondering about. Actually, I did not know if I was in the wilderness or not at this point, and if so would I need a permit even for day hiking? I’ve been asked for them before when hiking in the Desolation Wilderness. I told him I was just on a day hike and down at the waterfall, all the while swatting the mosquitoes away from my face (he made me stop in a mosquito zone in order to talk to me). He let me go quickly, perhaps because he felt sorry for me, standing there swatting mosquitoes. I do wonder though if he even knew there was a waterfall down there.

After that I saw about 10,000 more jeeps and OHVs. I wondered where they all had parked, because the lot really was completely full when I had gotten there this morning. I hoped no one had blocked me in, keeping me stuck there all weekend. How nice would that be. By the time I got back to the car, I was thoroughly annoyed with them all for sure. For each one, I had to get off the road, stop and wait for them to pass, give them a polite wave with one hand, swatting mosquitoes with the other. I guess that is what you get for hiking on the single most popular jeep trail in the summertime, and on the weekend. Shame on me.

After work on Friday I took my son Jadon up the hill to go on an evening hike. It is rare he wants to go with me. I always ask him, and he almost always says no. I strongly suspect it is because I usually get up at bloody awful hours of the morning to go hiking. This time I would be going in the evening, and he said yes. Coincidence? Probably not.

Traffic was awful but we arrived at Squaw Valley Resort and started the hike in good time, however I underestimated just how long this hike would take, and I also grossly misjudged the off-trail section we would be doing. Off-trail section? There is no off-trail section, it is a fine, completely all on-trail hike up to Shirley Lake. Right? You forget who you are dealing with here. Well it was mostly on-trail, and although there are many indistinct parts, it is mostly marked and easy enough to follow, but it is still a tough uphill climb to the lake. There is a small waterfall along the trail that everybody stops and takes pictures of. I knew about this one of course. There is also a second small waterfall above it that I did not know about. It is difficult to get down to it and photograph it, and that is probably why I had not seen photos of it. Nonetheless I was able to get down to it without too much difficulty, but Jadon elected to stay up on the trail, safe and sound. Good choice. Nonetheless, I managed to avoid falling off the scary rock overlook.

Besides these two falls, there are two other bigger waterfalls in the area and this was my major reason to come on this hike, and this is why I was so bummed. The first one is off-trail. It looked so easy on Google Earth, but it turned out to be very brushy, much too brushy, with a difficult creek crossing as well. We tried, and maybe if I was by myself I would have tried to smash through that brush and cross the creek, but it was just really difficult. Because of all the off-trail shenanigans, it was 7PM by the time we got up to Shirley Lake. We had to go back down. As it is, we barely made it back to the car before dark, there is no way we could have continued to the second big waterfall. So yes, I got to see a couple small waterfalls I had not seen before, and Jadon and I had a fun time hiking together, but I was definitely bummed that I could not get to either of the big waterfalls. I will certainly be  back again someday to attempt to smash through that brush.

For last weekend’s hike, I decided to camp out the prior night at the trailhead. That way I would not have to get up at such a bloody awful hour to get there by sunrise. It is a very long drive from my house.

When I arrived at the trailhead and campground, I saw that the creek I would have to cross in the morning was extremely high, with peak snowmelt happening. The very first thing I did was make sure I could cross it. The water came up to above my knees, it was flowing swift, and it was darn freezing cold, but I was able to cross it safely. Ok good, so long as it does not rise any more overnight. I knew it would be rising more overnight, though.

It was quite cold sleeping in the car, getting down to 38 degrees. Again, I survived. I had a weird dream that our company transferred all of us to a fake company in order to save money and not have to lay us all off. We did not know how that would save money. Anyway, sometime during the night I decided to take a different route to the waterfall. The new route still required crossing the creek but at a different place, above where two forks split. So I figured two creek crossings at smaller flows would be much easier. Right? Sure, why not, you say.

Once again I forgot something. This time it was my hiking pants. Oh come on, madman! What is it with you, lately? I also forgot my hat. Ugh. But the pants is what I was worried about. It was 38 degrees in the morning! Then I got a brilliant idea. I would put my long underwear on underneath my hiking shorts. Who is going to see? There is not going to be anyone out on this trail! I probably would not have even thought of this, except I saw a couple backpackers at Yosemite doing this very thing, or what looked like it. I guess if you wear your long underwear hiking, you do not have to bring hiking pants along and that saves weight backpacking. Is that it? Anyway, it worked perfectly, and no one saw me. Except the birds and squirrels, and I am sure I heard them laughing at me. C’est la vie.

There was snow. I was surprised about this. When I was at Yosemite there was no snow at all below 7000 ft., but here there was snow at 6000 ft. I guess that makes sense because the northern Sierra received more precipitation this winter, but I still thought it was odd and there should not be so much snow. At least I was not sinking in at all. The snow was hard packed. I was following some footprints of a couple that had clearly been here in the past couple days. Did they go to this waterfall? How would they even know about this waterfall? Before long, however, they turned off on a different road and I was alone again. Briefly. I soon realized I was now following a big old bear’s tracks through the snow. Even the big old bear was not sinking in the hard packed snow. But the bear also turned off before reaching the creek crossing. He was a wise old bear. Unlike the waterfall madman. I came to the creek crossing. The creek did not split. There was only one crossing, and the flow was just as substantial as at the other location. Again, I waded across the knee deep, cold, fast rushing creek. Again, I made it across without taking a header into said cold, fast rushing creek.

On the other side, I continued climbing up the road through the snow. No more bear tracks. Now I found deer, coyote, and what I think was a big cat’s tracks. It was fascinating all the animal tracks I saw. But no animals to go along with them. And then all of a sudden there were the two human prints again. What? Where did they come from? They obviously took a different route up here, instead of staying on the main road. I wondered if their route was better than mine, but they still would have had to cross that darn cold creek as well.

When I got to the waterfall however, they stayed on the road. I got off the road and headed cross country. I found this spectacular cascade, and a stupendous overlook of the waterfall. It is 135 ft. in total height, and is a real beauty. I was able to get right down to the bottom, then decided I would try to get to the upper drop as well because that part was obscured from below, so I climbed the rest of the way up the mountain, and was able to get down to the upper drop. From there I decided to keep climbing up the mountain where I eventually found the road again, and the human prints again. I don’t know where they were going, but they did not go down to the falls. They just bypassed the falls and probably had no idea the waterfall was even there since it is not right beside the road. Down the road I went, crossing that cold creek again, and finally getting back to the car. It was an incredibly fun hike, and I think it may have even come close to making up for my shortened backpack trip.

http://waterfallswest.com/waterfall.php?id=talbot-creek-falls-1970

Don’t you love my clever blog titles from my Yosemite trip? I thought they were clever, anyway. Maybe I’m the only one. Sigh.

In the morning, I thought I would try to find this new waterfall on the Middle Fork Tuolumne River. It was not my first choice but my first choice was X’ed out due to a big snow patch I encountered on the road. I was thus late getting started down to the MF Tuolumne. There were clouds, though, so perhaps it would be ok. Then there were no clouds. Then a few minutes later there were clouds again. And on and on it goes.  Crazy weather. For photography, it was touch and go all morning long.

The first part of the hike was easy enough, hiking along a road. Then I had to get off the road and head down the mountain. The wildflowers were abundant through here, and it was pretty much unavoidable stepping on them. It was like hiking on Table Mountain in Oroville, but minus the killer cows. I suppose there were killer bears around but I did not see any.  As I got down closer to the waterfall, I found it was far too cliffy to continue any further. It is a fantastic 60 ft. waterfall but I could see no way to get any clear view of it. Perhaps I will try again another day, but I think the only way is to repel down to the bottom. Not my cup of tea. I like living.

Speaking of living, it was really nice to hear that the missing hiker (Cody Michael) and his dog were found today. They were backpacking in the Sierra and were missing for a few days. The area is very close to where I am planning to hike next weekend. But I don’t really understand what happened. He was not injured. So it seems he just got lost. Well, I don’t get it. Why did he not have GPS? And why no rescue device? It does not seem like he was very well prepared for backpacking in the Sierra Nevada backcountry. I always bring GPS with extra charged batteries, as well as my SPOT device on every hike I do, backpacking or not, easy hike or not. And not to mention, bear spray as well. You never know what will happen. Anyway, he seems like a nice guy, so I am very happy he is safe home now.

Back to the MF Tuolumne, here is one weird thing: While I was down there, I saw a backpack down by the brink of the falls. There was no one around. It seemed to be hanging on the cliff edge (I was a distance away, but I saw it clearly). Did someone accidentally drop it off the cliff, and then could not get down to get it? After this, I moved away to a different spot and when I looked again, I could no longer see the backpack. What happened to it? I know I did not imagine seeing it! I looked and looked but could not see it. I just have no clue.

By the time I got back up the mountain to the car, I was quite tired. My big backpack trip was starting the next day, and I was already tired. Perhaps I should not have done this pre-trip hike. But it was certainly fun.

I woke up excited about starting my vacation to Yosemite. But I was in no hurry or rush to get going early, I just wanted to be over there by sunset. So I took it easy, did some small tasks, then watched an episode of TV on Netflix. Well all of a sudden after that, I had lost my motivation for going on the trip. I just felt like lounging around the house all week on my vacation. It is strange how TV can do that to you! Anyway, I forced myself out of the house and drove to Yosemite as planned. If you are wondering why I went on vacation by myself this year, it is a bit of a hodge podge year in the Turnbull household. My son Jadon went on his vacation to Washington DC with his school mates, and he also gets to go to New Orleans later this summer with his youth group. My wife and daughter are going to Alaska for their vacation in the summer. Well I could not be left out on vacation this year, so I chose a week in Yosemite. Where else?

I had my lunch in Groveland at a new place. I ordered a burger well done as I always do. It came well done all right, but also included a well done bun and well done bacon. I did not think it was necessary to say only the patty well done, please. Otherwise, it was good.

I drove first to Cherry Lake and Eleanor Lake. Eleanor was almost full, but Cherry was very low. I was surprised by that. It is not like they have been releasing any water yet from the lake. How could it be so low, still? Last year I saw Kibbie Falls from across the other side of Lake Eleanor. This year I wanted to get up close to it on the north side of the lake. It was not difficult to follow the shoreline to Kibbie Creek. From there, however, things got very messy. It was an extremely difficult climb up the mountain to the falls, through thick awful brush. I was literally crawling on my hands and knees through the stuff. I got very wet and very dirty, and despite it all, I could not get any decent view of the falls from closeup. Is this a good start to my trip?

On the way back down the mountain, I slipped on a wet rock, and came down hard, landing on my arm. I almost broke it. No joke. Now that would have been a really good start to my trip. Not! I was initially planning to continue past Kibbie Creek along the lake to see how far I could get, but I decided not to go any further since the hike was already way more difficult than I anticipated, my arm was dangling on its limb (or at least hurting very much), and besides that I heard thunder rolling in.

In case you are wondering, I saw zero bears on this trip to Yosemite and area. Even though I was camping in Bear City (Rancheria). I have seen many bears before, but I have never ever seen any in any national park. It is a weird thing with me. Anyhow, I did see many things that “looked like” bears. Every piece of burnt wood I saw looked like a bear in the distance, and I was hiking through the Rim Fire area. I saw many pieces of burnt wood.

After getting back to the car I continued driving to Jawbone Falls, where I have been to before, and I decided to camp here, sleeping in my car. It is a great spot to camp, it is so out in the middle of nowhere, and there was no one else around. It was very cold that night (38 degrees), but I managed. It was supposed to get much warmer by Monday. I hoped.