Leon Turnbull Photography

Rain rain on my face. It hasn’t stopped raining for days. My world is a flood. Slowly I become one with the mud. (Jars of Clay)

What a crazy, difficult, and fun adventure! It was well worth it to find this gem. I will have to  say this is my find of the year thus far, a magnificent 100 ft. high waterfall. Yet another new discovery from waterfallswest.com. You are welcome. You gotta come see this beauty.

It was the beginning of the end in northern California this weekend. Well, more to say, the beginning of a huge storm to get March rolling on the right foot. We picked up 6 inches of rain in the foothills so far this weekend, with another big storm today. Certain areas of the state had up to 10 inches already. We could get up to 20 inches of rain by the end of next weekend. That would be incredible if it comes to pass, but at least we should have a good chunk over 10 inches.

The snow levels were high to start with on Saturday, so that means the creeks are overflowing with rain and snow melt. I headed up to higher elevations on Ice House Rd, hoping to find some amazing waterfalls. I found one.

I woke up to a bit of a break in the weather Saturday morning, which made hiking a lot more pleasant. The rain would be starting up again though, by 10am or so, and in the afternoon, there was supposed to be crazy big winds, and the snow would be starting. I wanted to be off the mountain before that happened. I thought I should have lots of time, this should be an easy hike. Have you heard that one before?

I was able to drive up the road a bit further than I expected, but finally hit a snow wall. Walk from here. I did not need my snowshoes at first, but figured I would need them later, so I carried them along the way. They are heavy for my aching back, so essentially I carried them in my hand the entire distance. So my back was ok, but my arms were sore by the end of it! I did use them though, so it’s a good thing I did that.

After about a mile, I had to get off the main road and follow another road through a campground area and continue following the road up stream. This is when things got difficult. As I said, it should have been an easy hike. However … the snow was all melting from the warm weather and rain, there had been a couple inches of rain so far, and all the unnamed side creeks were going nuts. There was literally a river running down the middle of the road. Not kidding. I had to cross numerous side streams, and some of them were quite difficult to cross without getting wet feet. In other words, I got wet feet. (trying to cross a stream on a slippery, flimsy log is not a good idea). And if that was not enough, the whole area was a swamp fest! Trying to negotiate around all the flooded area was a nightmare. It took a lot longer to get up to the falls than I expected.

By the time I finally got up there, the rain was just starting up again. I just barely had time to take some photos. Unfortunately, I could not measure this beast because the battery died in my laser range finder, but it is about 100 ft. high. There is an upper section and a lower section as well. Absolutely magnificent. The hike back was wet, needless to say, and by the time I got back to the car I was soaked through and through, and cold, and hungry.

I had initially entertained the idea of going to Bassi Falls after this hike. That creek was very very full when I passed by it. It would be awesome, but it is much harder to hike Bassi Falls in the winter than the summer, and I was just dead tired after the first hike. Plus, I did not have any dry jacket and it was raining pretty good by the time I got back down there. Ah well. I had a fabulous day on Ice House.

http://waterfallswest.com/waterfall.php?id=rocky-basin-creek-falls-658

 

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Nice little roadside waterfall here, a very pretty one, 48 ft. high. Normally this creek is dry when I drive by here, but this time it was flowing rather nice. I wish I had more time to explore because I think there could be other falls on this creek, but I had to get out to a different hike. No time to waste.

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This past weekend I returned again to Moore Creek to further the exploration of that awesome little gem. It is a killer long drive (especially so in winter) – and took about 20 hours to drive it, give or take about 20 hours. I was expecting to find snow from the recent storm, and indeed I did, but fortunately the road was clear of snow, but not clear of potholes. I do believe they plow this road in the winter, at least partially. That is good news because I thought I might not even make it all the way out there, in which case it would have been a big waste of time and gas. Fortunately it was not (a big waste) and I had another fantastic day.

I photographed six waterfalls on this newest adventure: 4 new ones and 2 re-shoots, (plus I re-visited all the waterfalls again on the creek), and yet I still have not completely explored this amazing creek. Indeed, I think I will have to come back at least three more times in the future to complete the exploration of this area. When I do that is the million dollar question, I don’t have much desire to do that long drive again soon, but I imagine I will probably be back sometime in the spring if we get any decent snowmelt this year.

With snow on the ground, I saw that I was following another set of prints up to the waterfalls. It was definitely not Bigfoot. Whoever it was must have been there in the last day or two. I followed the prints the entire hike, to all the falls, and following my GPS route fairly precisely. That’s how I know it was not Bigfoot. Does Bigfoot have GPS? But who was it? A fan of waterfallswest? Please let me know if it was you!

Some interesting tidbits: The creek was flowing a bit stronger than last time I was here, not much but definitely noticeable. Oh yeah, it was also a heckuva lot colder than last time (not that I fell in, or anything like that). I saw that someone had cut down the zipline at the campsite area beside the 21 foot falls (pictured above). Was it the mysterious person whose tracks I was following? Or someone else? It was still distracting, nonetheless, because it was still attached at the top of the falls on the other side of that fast flowing creek. I looked around a bit more at the campsite area. Other things I found: a bunch of interesting wood carvings (what else are you going to do if you are living there all summer?). I did not see any river otters this time, but I did see a bobcat. A big old boy, and I got a good look at him too (from my car and no pics unfortunately – I suppose I should have my camera ready at all times when I am driving, eh). All in all, it was a great day again in the Sierra Nevada.

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Social media is lighting up this week (literally) with images of the FireFalls – aka Horsetail Falls – in Yosemite National Park. Rightly so, I suppose. It is an amazing natural phenomenon that only occurs for a short time every February, and not every year depending on weather conditions and water flow. This year, however, is a special year, all the conditions have been perfect for the FireFalls. But will you see a FireFalls photo from the Waterfall Madman? No! I say no again!

It is not that it is an uninteresting or crappy waterfall to see. Hardly. Two things I will say: Every single image of Horsetail Falls that I have seen (of the thousands that I have seen) is essentially exactly the same. Some are technically much better than others no doubt, depending on the skill of the photographer, but basically every image is the same. I’m not saying that is a bad thing, necessarily. Do you want your own token shot of Horsetail Falls? I would myself, except for one other thing: All the hundreds of photographers that go there every night in February to see it and photograph it. I hate crowds and I have literally no desire to go duel tripods with hundreds of others lining up at the exact same spot to photograph something in the fleeting moments of sunset. Even go take a look on my website of my photo of Bridalveil Falls from Tunnel View. If you look closely you will see it is indeed *not* at Tunnel View, it is at a different spot. That night, while hundreds of photographers were lined up at Tunnel View, I was at a different spot with one other photographer only. The viewpoint is only slightly different than Tunnel View, and I had a much more pleasant time than all those other photographers battling for a prime shooting spot (and no broken bones from fighting them).

So last weekend while all those hundreds of photographers were lined up at Yosemite for the FireFalls freak show, I was out exploring brand new waterfalls on a new creek, which I had all to myself, no other person within miles of me (literally), and the only living thing that came close to me was a river otter (and some birds, and some squirrels, and perhaps some other small microscopic creatures). I guarantee you I had a much better time that day than I would have had at Yosemite. So get out and explore. There is so much to see. If going with the crowds is your thing, then great, there is nothing wrong with that. But if you’re like me and prefer to be alone in the wilderness, then I say Yahoo, let’s go for it. There are so many awesome places to see in God’s creation, and this is just one of them:

http://waterfallswest.com/waterfall.php?id=moore-creek-falls-1942

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I’ve been trying to get to a certain waterfall for some time now. I still can’t get it right. I thought for sure it would be flowing from all the warm weather we’ve had this week. Yet once again I found it to be just a trickle. Ugh, what to do now?

I tried a different nearby waterfall that I’ve put off exploring until now. And for good reason, it’s not really much of a falls. It’s also way too much trouble to get to.

It is a tough climb up the mountain (which just happens to be named after the best ski hill in the world – Red Mountain). Once I got up near the falls I found a lot of heavy thick brush. I had to crawl my way through it with a steep drop off below me, and over to the creek. To get over to the bottom of the cascade I then had to cross over one branch of the creek. The rocks in the creek were extremely icy and treacherous and there were more dropoffs below. Well I got to the bottom of the cascade without any broken bones, but I did manage to scratch up my leg enough on that crazy brush to make it bleed – I suppose that is appropriate for Red Mountain. The falls is 26 ft high. There is another tier right below it but I could not get down from here. I had to go back across the treacherous creek, then back through that brush and back down stream. From there I could cross the creek but I was too much below the falls, so I had to climb up the bank on the other side where I found a lot of icy snow. It was soft enough and deep enough that I was breaking through it, so basically I had to crawl up the icy snow bank on my hands and knees to the waterfall (going back down on my butt was much more fun however). Unfortunately there was not much of a view of the lower tier anyway. All that effort and it was not much of a reward. Ah well. It was fun to explore.

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