Leon Turnbull Photography

I went back to Slab Creek Reservoir this morning to try to get up close to Iowa Canyon Falls. It was not my first choice for hiking, but my first idea for a hike could not be done because it turned out to be on private property. So plan B it was, back to Slab Creek.

It was a BRRRRRRR …. very cold morning, the temps were below zero, there was ice on the road, and even snow in Placerville in some spots from the miniscule amount of precipitation we received a couple days ago. I am still hopeful for a big change to the current weather pattern by middle of February. So anyway, here I am down at the bottom of Iowa Canyon, trying to figure out how to get up close to this waterfall. The prickly brush lining the creek bed taunts me saying, yeah come on man, you can do it, we won’t hurt you, hee hee. Well I know better than to listen to those lies. It was wading up the creek bed I knew was the only way to go. Did I mention that it was a cold morning? The bridge over the creek was ice, I could slide the whole way across. Too bad I wasn’t younger, I might have had fun doing that instead of worrying about breaking my neck. I rolled up my pants and started up the creek (though first a bit through some of that prickly brush was a necessity – doh!). The creek was freezing. Yikes. The going was not too difficult however. I made it up to the base of the waterfall in short order. The last pool was a bit deep, coming up to my knees. Did I say it was cold? My feet were starting to get a bit numb, then I realized the only way to photograph this sucker would be standing in the middle of that freezing water.

I always attempt to photograph my waterfalls as best as I possibly can. That means being there in good lighting conditions, and just as important, finding the best composition that can be safely had. This is OFTEN not possible at waterfall locations. Some people have recently mentioned to me things like, this photo would be much better if not centered, or it would be better if you moved over to one side a bit, or it would be better if you did this or that. These people have never been to these waterfall locations, and do not realize those things are not even remotely possible. If I move over, I will fall off the cliff and die! There is one and only one composition of this waterfall, so it must be centered in the frame! Wake up and smell the coffee. Photographing waterfalls is often times much more difficult compared to other easy-to-get-to-within-a-very-short-walk-from-your-car general landscape scenes. Ok, end rant.

This waterfall is a perfect example. The angle from the base of the falls was severe. I could not get any closer to photograph due to the extreme mist from the falls, plus the angle was no good. If I moved to the left here, I would not be able to include the upper tier of the falls, and there would be too many branches in the way. If I moved to the right (which I would have liked to do), then that big rock would have obscured too much of the waterfall, plus I would have been standing up to my waist in a deep pool. This was the best possible composition, and it may not be a great angle, but it was the only one available.

There was only one problem with this. I had to stand in the creek to get this photograph. The freezing cold creek. So that is exactly what I did. I think I would have been fine if I did not have to stand in the creek to photograph. But by the time I was done (and believe me, I did not take very many photos), my feet were completely numb. Really bad. I don’t remember the last time my feet were so cold, probably not since skiing when I was a kid. I took my water shoes off and sat down on a rock, drying them with my towel, and trying to get some feeling back in my toes. I sat there about 20 minutes or so, and my feet were still numb;  I was getting a little bit of feeling back, but still they were very cold. I put my water shoes back on, now having to wade back down the creek, trying to stay out of the water as much as possible. Back at the bridge and walked quickly back to the car where I promptly turned on the heat and sat for another 20 minutes or so, trying to get my feet warm from the heater. My next purchase will be: waders.

I like surprises. At least I like surprise waterfalls. Surprise birthday parties not so much. This weekend I went to Slab Creek reservoir again. When I arrived at the parking area, I realized that my GPS was not working at all. I knew I had just charged the batteries so that should not be the issue, nonetheless I tried my backup batteries and they did not work either. What? The GPS was working perfectly fine just a couple days ago, and I know it was not dropped or anything. It just all of a sudden stopped working. Argh! Now it looks like I’m gonna have to buy a new one. Oh that is just peachy. Well, I did not think it was critical to have the GPS today. I wanted to see if I could hike up along the reservoir to Slab Creek inlet. However, I did not get very far. Not even past the dam. The reservoir was full so I definitely had no chance to hike up along the lake as I hoped to do. Strike one.

Next up was to try to get down to North Canyon Falls. This requires crossing the river below the dam. I don’t know why but I find this scary. What if they released water while I was on the wrong side of the river? Never mind that it would not happen. They keep the flow very constant and with no rain there would certainly be no release. Yet that reservoir sure looked very full. And why were the rocks all wet down below the dam if it hadn’t rained in a month? Hmmm. Anyway the river seemed too deep and fast to cross anyhow. Perhaps it could be done at the right spot but I was not motivated. I have to be motivated. Strike two.

I went up to photograph Iowa Canyon Falls next. I wasn’t really into doing this either. I already have a good shot of this falls but I figured I needed to get at least something this morning. There is too much prickly brush along the creek to get right up to the base of the falls (well, perhaps if I was motivated to do it!) so you need to climb up the bank and shoot the waterfall from a distance. I noticed that there were quite a lot of ticks in the grass but I was wary of them and I did not get any on me. Little freakin’ buggers. Ugh.

As I hiked back up to my car afterwards, bummed from a somewhat disappoingting morning thus far, I saw a trail going off the road and back down to the creek. Hmmm, that is interesting. I could see a small waterfall down there and it looked like the trail was going down to it, however another part of the trail continued up the creek, but I could not see what was around the corner. I did not think there would be anything but I decided to just go see anyway. I guess I was motivated enough to do this, despite the ticks and poison oak. I am sure glad I was because what to my surprise when I saw this nice waterfall hiding around the corner! Not a little one either, but a beautiful 33 foot high cascade! Getting up to it was a challenge though. There was a lot of prickly brush to get through. I also saw four old cars down here, two right in the creek and two on the hillside. I’m sure they’ve been there for fifty years or so. You really don’t like your car so much you have to drive it off a cliff into a creek! Crazy. It reminded me of back home in BC when I was a kid, people would drive their old cars off the cliff into the Columbia River. At the time, being so young, I thought this to be very fascinating. Anyway, once down at the creek I had to get my water shoes on and wade up the creek the rest of the way to the falls. This was to avoid all the prickly brush lining the creek bed. It was not hard but it sure was cold! Once at the waterfall I then had to cross a narrow fast moving channel to the other side to get the best viewpoint. Very carefully! Upper Iowa Canyon Falls sure is a marvelous cascade and it turned my morning from BLAH to GREAT. I do love waterfall surprises!

If I am going to get up super early in the morning to go hiking, I need to be motivated. Some weekends I feel more like sleeping in than getting up to go hiking. Funny that. Sometimes, it does not take much to motivate me, other times it takes a sledgehammer. This weekend was one of those sledgehammer type weekends. I did not feel much like driving a long way from home to go on a big hike, so I was initially thinking I would just go somewhere close to home, but I wasn’t really much into that either when I thought about my options for close to home hikes. As I pondered my dilemna, I thought about Deadwood Creek. I had heard of a big waterfall on this creek a couple years ago, and have been wanting to try to get to it for a long time, especially since a friend recently sent me some photos of the waterfall (actually, photos of him kayaking off the waterfall – he is one of my crazier acquaintances). It seemed to be a good time to try it. Even though it was a long drive from home, I was now motivated. The plan was set. This was on Tuesday. Now I just had to wait for the weekend to arrive!

Saturday arrived, and I was still motivated. Excited even. I got up early and started the long drive out to the trailhead. Did I say it was a long drive? Deadwood Creek is way out in the land of nowhere, many miles past Clipper Mills (if you know where that is, and you probably do not). It is about an hour drive past Marysville, well you probably have heard of that town at least. It was a freezing cold day, below 20 degrees, and as I drove past Clipper Mills, I came upon snow. Oops, I did not anticipate this. The last few miles requires driving on a dirt forestry road. With snow on the ground, would I even be able to reach the trailhead? The answer was a big fat NO. The road had obviously been driven on, however, there was a big snow patch stopping me from proceeding. If I had more clearance on my SUV I could have made it, but I did not want to risk getting stuck way out here, that would be very uncool. So … what do I do? Go home? After driving all the way out here to nowhere land, and not even able to start any hike at all? Nope. Well, I suppose I could just hike along the dirt road to the trailhead. It would be about 3 miles. So instead of a difficult 3 mile hike, I would have a difficult 9 mile hike. I had the time, and most importantly, I still had the motivation. Time to hike.

With the late start and the extra long hike, I would be getting to the waterfall much later than expected (if at all), but from my prior calculations I knew that the sun would not be hitting the waterfall until at least noon. I had loads of time. If it were otherwise, I would not even have started the hike. Photography is perhaps THE most critical part of my waterfallin’ exploits. I absolutely hate getting to a waterfall and not being able to take a good photograph of it. Sometimes it is just not possible to get to waterfalls in good lighting conditions, but I do a lot of preparation beforehand to make sure the odds are in my favor. For this one, I should certainly have lots of time but already it seemed the sun was high in the sky and shining down into the canyons. Did I make an error in my calculations?

The trail down to Deadwood Creek and the North Yuba River is a dirt road, descending a whopping 1200 ft. in 1.5 miles. It was going to be a killer hike back out of the canyon. At the top of the trail I saw bear prints in the snow. Aren’t these dudes supposed to be sleeping right now? Hmmm. The hike down was fairly quick, and I saw no bears or other wildlife, except for some horrid squirrels and the thunderous quail. At the bottom of the canyon there is a powerhouse; they suck the lifeblood out of Deadwood Creek above the waterfall and siphon it down into the powerhouse along the river. Argh. Why do they need a powerhouse here? It irks me to no end. Frankly, I was not even sure there would be any flow at all in the creek. Not because of the powerhouse, but because it was so darn cold. I really thought the creek would be completely frozen. That would be just splendid. Drive all the way out here, hike all the way down to the creek, and then find no waterfall at all.

When I finally got to the bottom, I could see (happily) that I was wrong about the flow in the creek. It was flowing, and at a pretty darn good clip to boot. The last section down to the falls is steep so I used my rope to help me scale down the treacherous slope. I felt like a canyoneer. Once at the bottom, I needed to cross the creek and make my way up to the falls on the other side. Deadwood Creek Falls drops 43 ft. into a large and deep pool, and I was able to get down right in front of the falls. It was icy and cold and magnificent. And the water in the pool was just wow, such an incredibly intense blue green color. I was so happy how my photograph turned out, and how my camera portrayed this amazing scene before me. And the hike back out of the canyon? Much easier than I anticipated. I had heard horror stories about the hike up, a hike that would suck the lifeblood out of you worse than the powerhouse. Not so. It was not easy by any means, but the grade on the trail was mostly very good, with plenty of switchbacks. I have done far worse hikes than this one. It was surely a beautiful cold winter day in the North Yuba River canyon.

Here is one more view of North Fork Falls in the snow. Which do you like better?

We are getting a huge storm this weekend here in northern California. Up to 8 feet of snow over the weekend in the Tahoe area, up to 14 feet in the Shasta area. This storm will bombard us right through almost to Christmas Day. It is going to be crazy crazy!

This past weekend I headed up into the mountains arriving in Emigrant Gap early in the morning. There was fresh snow on the road but only a few inches, so the road was still fine to drive. My plan was not to return to North Fork Falls. However, I just could not resist. I said a couple weeks ago that I would love to shoot this waterfall in the snow. Indeed, I have been wanting to shoot this waterfall in the snow for a couple years now. The timing this weekend was just perfect. With another storm coming on Sunday, the road to North Fork Falls will be snowed in now until spring. There will be no more opportunities this year. I had to go to North Fork Falls, and it was absolutely stunning.

I parked along the road and hiked the short half mile through the snow to the waterfall. Once at the falls, there is a very steep descent down to the river. It is difficult to do this when the ground is dry, but when there is snow on the ground, it is certainly a bit dangerous. I did not intend to go all the way down to the river (like I did last time), I just wanted to go down to a certain viewpoint, which is easier to do, but still potentially treacherous with snow on the ground. I used my rope again to make the descent to be certain of no difficulties. This was actually the third time this month I had to use my rope (twice at this waterfall). Once down at the overlook, I was totally inspired by the beauty of the scene. Fresh snow all around me. It was incredible. Unfortunately, my cable release decided to stop working so I had to use my camera timer to take my photos. It worked out all right, but a cable release is so much better to use.

I was a bit longer at North Fork Falls than I intended, but figured I still had time to do the other hike. I wanted to try to get to East Fork Falls, a waterfall that is hidden in a remote canyon on the East Fork of the North Fork of the American River. I am not sure the best way to get to this waterfall, but I definitely picked the wrong route. I hiked two miles up a dirt logging road (which was not dirt because it was covered with fresh snow). It was a gorgeous hike through the snow. There were plenty of fresh animal tracks all around: deer, bobcat, coyote, squirrel, rabbit and probably some others too. These all must have been from that same morning, because it had snowed the previous day, yet I did not see any of these animals (except one squirrel). After hiking two miles, things get difficult. Somehow you need to scramble down the cliff to the river. It is about 1000 ft. straight down, very cliffy, and with the snow on the ground, potentially very dangerous. I was thinking that I would not even try it. However, I came to a clear cut area, and I could hear what may have been a waterfall or the waterfall down at the river. I thought I was too far downstream to be close enough to “the” waterfall, but there may have been “a” waterfall down there. I decided to go down through the clear cut area. It was steep, and very difficult, and I had to be extra careful because I did not want to twist my ankle again, which would have been very easy to do with all the mess from the clear cut. I made it down successfully, but I did not see any waterfall. I decided to go upstream some more, however the route got too cliffy. I realized I was still very far downstream from the waterfall, and there was no way I could make it by the cliffs. So I retreated and found a different route back up. The loggers must have cut a path down the mountain for some purpose (perhaps to get down or their equipment down more easily). It was not a trail, but it was a path that just went straight down the mountain, no messing around at all. I thought it would be easier to go back up this path. But 1000 ft. straight up in less than half a mile is brutal to say the least. By the time I finally got back to the road, I was completely wiped out. I rested on the road for quite a while before hiking back to the car (thankfully, the hike back on the road was mostly downhill, so that part was easy at least). It was a gorgeous day and I was very pleased I finally saw North Fork Falls in the snow.