Leon Turnbull Photography

I am just taking a short break from Oregon waterfalls to bring you the latest from northern California. On Friday evening after work, I took my son and went up for a quick hike back to Horsetail Falls, the 790 ft. monster you can see from Hwy 50, if you are not driving that is – cuz if you are driving and look too hard, you might end up in the ditch. You know what they say, don’t text and drive. Also don’t gaze at huge waterfalls and drive. Anyway … the temperature in Sacramento was 100 degrees on Friday. Up at the trailhead it was 81 degrees when we started. Not too bad actually. I was thinking it might be a bit warmer than that. Surely it would cool off quickly once the sun went behind the mountains. That is what I told Jadon anyway.

Obviously I have been to Horsetail Falls many times before, but I still feel I have not completely explored all possibilities here for photography. It is such a very diverse waterfall with so many different elements. There are two reasons why I like coming to Horsetail Falls in the summer. Firstly, the mosquitoes are tame. There are never too many of the little buggers here and on this day we were not bothered at all. If you go to other areas of the Desolation Wilderness, such as Wrights Lake or up at Lake Tahoe, you will be devoured and left wanting. Not so at Horsetail Falls. Secondly and most importantly, it is essentially the ONLY waterfall in the Sacramento area that flows in the summer (or flows very well at least). But even so, I admit I was surprised at how strongly it is still gushing right now. There is much more flow this year then when I was here in mid July last year. Shocking really, considering this is the second year of our drought. Jadon remarked on this right away, and he was right. I had to look back at my pictures from last year before I could remember (old age, you know).

Jadon also said there were a lot more other hikers compared to last year. Well, that is something I surely have no idea about. I will take his word for it though. The really odd thing though is that three separate people commented to me, asking if we were backpacking. No folks, really, it is only my camera bag! Do I really carry so much gear on my hikes that I look as if I am backpacking?!?!? The funny thing about it is that I don’t think anyone has ever asked me that before, and then on this day, three people ask me in a row. It must be a conspiracy or something. But Jadon also said my camera bag looks like it could be a backpack. Well I suppose all that camera gear is sure heavy enough, I may as well be backpacking.

Because the creek was flowing much higher than I expected, I could not get to the spot where I wanted. I probably could have gotten down there but it would have been too dangerous for Jadon, so I decided to skip it and just take pictures from the usual location. Actually, although this composition is very similar to the one from last year, it is slightly different. This year, I went down on the ledge to get closer to the falls and a slightly better angle. Last year, I felt it too dangerous to go down there, but this year I felt perfectly safe about it. It is odd, and I am not sure why. I don’t think the rocks would have been any more slippery last year, but that is what I felt in my mind. Nonetheless, I was very careful to not get too close to the edge. Which is exactly what some other lady did when I was down there photographing the waterfall. She came up behind me and went right down to the very edge of the creek to take a quick snapshot. Really? One little slip is all it would take, and she would have been swept down the creek and over the last waterfall. Bye bye birdie.

When we got back down to the car, I checked the temperature. It was 79 degrees. It had cooled off a whopping 2 degrees for our hike back down. We were sweating galoshes by the end of the hike. Oh well. We had lots of fun at Horsetail Falls.

After watching that couple almost say goodbye to life at Lower Eagle Falls, I went up the trail to Upper Eagle Falls. It was getting late, past sunset, but I just had time to take a quick shot. I kinda wanted to spend more time here, see if I could get down closer to creek level, but it was getting late, the mosquitoes were coming out, and I needed to get back to the motel to see the family. Or else they might think it was me that went over the waterfall. Well, I did have quite a pleasant evening anyway.

I did not sleep well in the motel. Too hot and too uncomfortable. I crawled out of bed at 4AM and drove up to the Glen Alpine trailhead. It was dark when I started out. And warm. By golly it was already too warm for hiking.

Before I got too far up the trail and before it got light, the mosquitoes came out to play. I got out my bug spray quickly. That seemed to help … for the moment. However, by the time I got to Far Glen Alpine Falls, the mosquitoes were everywhere. Millions of them, swarming around me. Completely ignoring my bug spray. I could not breathe. If I fell down, they would be on me immediately, and I would be a goner. Have to keep moving. So this presents a dilemma. How am I going to stop and photograph this waterfall? I did the best I could, getting into the creek in front of the falls, but I could not handle it for long. I was suffocating from the swarm. I could only take a quick shot, then I had to get the heck out of there. The mosquitoes were not bad at all at Eagle Falls, the previous night. Why so awful here at Glen Alpine? I am not happy with my shot of Far Glen Alpine Falls, but I could not stick around to find a better composition. I had to move. Or die. I am going to have to come back next year. In MAY. Not JUNE.

And why did the buggers ignore my mosquito repellent? Epic fail. I am trying out some new deet free repellent. It has worked well up until now. But this was I suppose the first major test for it, and it bombed big time. But I wonder if any repellent could have worked today. The mosquitoes were very determined. To kill.

On the way back down the hill I was hoping to stop at Upper Glen Alpine Falls. I was not sure if I would be able to get there before the sun hit the falls. I calculated it would be in the sun at 6:15am and it would be 6:30am when I would arrive. Would I make it? I was also feeling very stressed and exasperated. My pleasant morning hike so far was completely awful because of the mosquitoes. This is not why I signed up for hiking. Hiking is supposed to be enjoyable. So I prayed: Please Lord, let there be no mosquitoes at the waterfall, and please let it still be in shade. I arrived at the waterfall. There was a bit of sun at top, but it was still mostly in the shade, and I still had time to photograph. I turned off the road and through the trees towards the waterfall. The mosquitoes were still hounding me at this point. Then I broke through the trees onto the big rock face that goes down to the creek. The mosquitoes were gone. Huh? I checked around again. No mosquitoes. Where did they go? There is no logical explanation for this. There was no breeze and no spray from the falls here. There is no reason how they could be all around me everywhere, but not here at this one spot in front of the waterfall. It was a miracle. The Lord answered my prayer. I took my photographs of the waterfall, then I just sat down on the rock face for about 20 minutes, loving the respite from the mosquitoes, relaxing, and enjoying the waterfall, and thanking the Lord. When I got back up and headed back down the trail to the car, the mosquitoes found me again, but I did not care.

Saturday … forecast 107 degrees for Sacramento Valley. No thank you. Time to go escape the heat and head up into the mountains to Lake Tahoe. Forecast for Tahoe was not much better at 90 degrees but I’ll take it. We arrived at the motel, I dropped the wife and kids off. Apparently, they would rather swim in the pool at the motel then go to see a waterfall. The horror. I think I am failing as a father. Well, where should I go? There were no clouds in the sky, but I decided to go to Eagle Falls anyway.

I wanted to go down to the bottom of the falls, on the south side, ie. not on the regular trail to the bottom, but straight down the steep hillside from the highway, looking for some new comps of the waterfall from down there. It was easy enough getting down, there is a well trodden path. I could not find any place to photograph the waterfall, however. The waterfall is still flowing very well. All the waterfalls around Tahoe are still going pretty good, and there is still snow melting in the mountains. There was too much mist and spray from the falls to get up close to it from below. I was bummed. I really wanted to get something from down there, and I spent a lot of time trying, but it just was not happening. Finally I went back up to the top of the falls and I found this nice composition overlooking Emerald Bay. It is obviously not a new composition, others have shot it before, but I had not. It was quite nice, a very pleasant evening, and the mosquitoes were not bad at all. This is surprising as usually they are quite bad here and it was so warm out you would think they would be biting. I was happy about that (but stick around for my next post to find out where they were really hiding).

As I was standing here photographing the waterfall, a lot of teens arrived and were walking around on the other side of the creek at the top of the falls. It seems they were from a church group, or at least some were. Then I cringed. A couple of them starting walking out in the creek, climbing over the rocks, right at the very edge of the waterfall. I am not exaggerating when I say they were in an EXTREMELY DANGEROUS position. I watched them for a bit, expecting one of them to fall off the cliff at any moment. I was within a few seconds of going to say something, but then they moved to a safer location, so I decided to let it be. But perhaps I should have said something anyway? I am not entirely sure if they were with the church group because they seemed a bit older than some of the other kids, but it seems very ironic that the church kids seem to be winning all the Darwin Awards lately. The teen who went over Nevada Falls last week was with a church group, as were the two that went over Vernal Falls last year. I wonder … Well, I suppose it is really all teenagers that are like this (well, not all, but certainly many). They think they are invincible, macho, they can do anything etc. If I had said anything to these two, I am sure they would have said they were not being unsafe, they were in control of the situation. They would have said that what an old and feeble geezer like myself thinks is unsafe, is not unsafe to them, young and strong and virile. Many people have died at Eagle Falls as well. Those rocks in the water are very slippery, I am not kidding. And I am positive that the kid who went over Nevada Falls was thinking the very same thing. He was strong, he was not being unsafe, the current in the river was calm enough to swim in, and he could easily handle it. Yeah, right. Next! I am not being unsympathetic to these people who have died, but come on people, you need to be smart. Waterfalls are very dangerous. Ok I think I have said enough about that. Stay tuned for my next post, where I tell you how I almost died, and it was not from a waterfall.

This one should have been flowing better. Much better. I really wanted to get to a good waterfall this weekend. The last three weeks have been below satisfactory for me. Now make that four. Strike four.

My goal was to get to the Shealor Lakes waterfalls. I was certain they would still have decent flow. There was still snow on the mountains so that gave me some hope. However, as I climbed up the trail to the top of the ridge and looked down on the upper Shealor Lake, I could see that the inlet waterfall was not flowing. At all. Dang! It is June 1 and the waterfall should be flowing very well. There should be lots of snow still to melt. It should be amazing. Huh. I feel gipped this year. Last year, I did not feel this way. It was just as bad of a winter, but the year before that was beyond amazing so I didn’t mind so much. This is now the second straight bad year we have had. Waterfall season is done, and we barely had anything at all. I feel gipped. Sigh. Well, it is time to go to Oregon I guess.

Anyway, back to Shealor Lakes. What should I do? I pondered the dilemma for about 5 minutes (meanwhile, the sun continued to rise). If I turned back now before going down to the lake, I could get over to Granite Lake Falls in good light. I didn’t really want to go to that one, but it would be something at least. I could hear, however, that the outlet stream from the upper Shealor Lake was flowing. From the top of the ridge the creek sounded decent. I could perhaps get to the lower Shealor Lakes Falls. It might be flowing. I got down to the lake and to the outlet stream. Well, not really very decent after all. Kinda lame actually. I did see, however, that there was another waterfall at the outlet to the lake (pictured here). I did not know about this waterfall. It is 28 ft. high, and would certainly be a very pretty falls if the creek had good flow.

I continued on down to the lower Shealor Lake. The trail on this lower section is not very easy to follow, it is quite indistinct in many places, and there is a bit of brush to whack through as well. The waterfall down there is not on the same stream. I thought, however, that the drainage size would be the same and there would be a similar amount of water in the other creek. Not so. The waterfall was dry. Ugh! How disappointing.

I made my way back up to the upper lake and decided to stop to take a picture. Better this than nothing. As soon as I stopped, the mosquitoes came out to greet me at the waterfall. It is supposed to be 100 degrees back in Sacramento today. Crikey. I was glad to be in the mountains, but the mosquitoes like it too. I juiced myself up and they left me alone after that. After taking a photo of the falls, I continued on up the trail and back to my car. I definitely want to return here and see these three waterfalls when they are flowing well. Next year, perhaps.