Leon Turnbull Photography

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.

The view of the North Fork American River from the Canyon Creek Falls viewpoint is simply stellar. It is of course my favorite river on this planet. On this morning the river was raging at around 7000 cubic feet per second. By Sunday afternoon, it actually got up to 30,000 cfs. Wow, I wish I would have gotten out to see it then. If it was clear, you can see Lovers Leap from here, which also has some waterfalls on it, if they are flowing. You can also see some ephemeral falls at the top center of this photo, and in the lower left, the main Canyon Creek trail going down towards the river. It is a very awesome view.

With all this rain lately, I wanted to get out a few more times to enjoy the waterfalls (before they all dry up), so I headed out one evening to Traverse Creek Falls. It has been awhile since I have been to this one, but usually I go at least once a year.

I arrived at the trailhead late in the day and started the short hike into the falls. I knew it was going to be interesting at the very first small stream crossing, at which I had to make a significant effort to jump across. Hmmm, I never had to do that before. At this point already I knew the creek was in full torrent mode, higher than I have ever seen it before. Traverse Creek Falls has four modes: Dry, Single, Double, and Torrent Mode. I may need to add a fifth mode: Super Torrent.

Along the way, I came across some people carrying kayaks back up the trail. They were out for the afternoon enjoying themselves on the waterfall. When the creek is high like this, kayakers like going over this 30 ft. high waterfall – crazy people if you ask me, but they seemed to be very happy on the walk back (happy that they didn’t break anything, perhaps?). It is too bad I did not arrive 30 minutes or so earlier, or I could have seen and photographed them going over the falls.

The trail descends steeply to Traverse Creek, at which point you need to walk along the creek bed to the brink of the waterfall, then climb past the waterfall and descend on ropes to the bottom. With the creek very high, it was quite a challenge to walk along the creek bed. There were some spots that the water was practically right up against the bank, making it difficult to continue without getting wet feet. Again, I have never seen it like this before. Hmmm. Much higher and I would not have made it at all (and I suspect it was a lot higher last weekend). I climbed up past the waterfall and began the descent to the bottom. This part was also very tricky because the ground was wet and slick. There are ropes, but there is one spot that is especially difficult when the ground is wet, and instead of risking it, I got out my own rope to help me down this part (the rope that is there is not in the correct position for this section).

Once down at the bottom, I set up shop to photograph the falls, before it got too dark. The waterfall was absolutely incredible, and there was a lot of mist making it very difficult to get in close to the falls to photograph. I had to move back a bit and shoot more of a wide angle shot of the waterfall. This worked quite all right. There was a bit of fog above the falls, and on the drive back home the fog was extremely thick on the road. I kinda wished there was more fog down by the waterfall. Oh well. On the plus side, I did not see any garbage this time down by the falls. Usually, I have to truck out a big bag every year cuz certain idiots like to come here in the summer and leave their crap behind. I am very happy to see that this place is not a trash heap anymore.

This is a shot taken just as the fog moved in over Canyon Creek Falls. Seconds later, you could not see a thing. I like this one much better than the last because of the atmosphere. What do you think?

The results from last weekend’s rain storm are in. Sacramento received 4.5 inches of rain, the foothills received 13.5 inches. The Folsom Lake reservoir rose from 37% to 53% capacity. Shasta and Oroville went from about 50 to 60 percent capacity. I actually expected the reservoirs to increase a lot more than this, but they are still increasing quickly. At our house in the Sacramento area, I measured 7 inches of rain at our house. It is interesting that I measured a lot more than the official numbers. The North Fork American River got up to 30,000 cubic feet per second on Sunday afternoon, incredible, and I wish I had gone out to see it on Sunday. Unfortunately, now we have one more storm tonight, and then things are going to dry out for at least a couple weeks. All the creeks will be back down to normal or below normal fairly soon.

A couple days ago I wrenched my back doing yard work. Oh crikey, what lousy timing. I should just take the weekend and recover properly. That is what a normal person would do, and if it was a normal weekend, that is probably what I would do. It was not a normal weekend, though. Huge rain storms are moving through northern California this weekend. Through the end of Friday, the Sierra foothills received more than 7 inches of rain. It continued to rain on Saturday, and there is another huge storm coming in Saturday night. Of course this all means, the waterfalls are going nuts, and there is no way I could NOT go out hiking on Saturday morning, bad back and all.

The North Fork American River gage at Lake Clementine reached over 16,000 cubic feet per second by Friday evening, more than 16 times the flow it had just that morning. This is a monster flow for this river. Why is it important? Because if the river has that much flow, then all the creeks flowing into it will also have monster flow as well, you can be sure of that. Canyon Creek is my favorite of these that flow into the North Fork. Seven significant waterfalls drop along this creek including a 134 ft. high beauty. My destination for Saturday was set.

Even though it rained all night, it was lighter rain, and the flow in the river started going back down Friday night, and by the morning it was down to 7000 cfs. This was still pretty fantastic, so I did not change my plan in the morning, though I have been wanting for quite awhile to get to this location when Canyon Creek is at monster stage. Indeed I have been waiting three years for the timing to be right. I will get there someday.

The idea was to not go down the main Canyon Creek trail. That trail would have been too dangerous in the wet weather, and I believe that the bridge is out anyway, so it would have been impossible. The idea instead, was to find a path down to a viewpoint of the biggest waterfall on Canyon Creek on the other side of the canyon. I know of a couple people that have made this trek before, so I knew it was possible.

It was raining when I woke up in the morning. And windy, very windy. These two things would make my morning rather interesting. And wet, very wet. I arrived at the trailhead without any problems, and started my hike. The first part of the hike is along old roads leading through the Gold Run diggings, and the road followed my GPS route perfectly. So far so good. The path leads over and across Indiana Ravine, and after that I needed to find a route over to the ridge I needed to scramble down to the viewpoint. Along the way I came across an old garbage can that was tipped over on the ground, with its contents strewn all along the ground. This is the middle of nowhere, why on earth would there be a garbage can here? What is worse though, is why people would throw their trash out here in the wilderness? Garbage can or not, obviously no one is going to be cleaning it up way out here. Some people need to use their brains a little more than they do. Stupid. Anyway, I picked up the can and put the garbage back in it, but it will only last until the next big wind comes along. Or the next big bear comes along (or the next little bear). I crossed Indiana Ravine and found the spot where I needed to cut over to the ridge. It got a quite a bit brushy through this part, but I made my way through and found a well trodden trail leading along the top of the ridge. I am sure this trail goes all the way back to the main Canyon Creek trail.

Now for the hard part. Getting down the ridge. I found a spot that looked promising and started scrambling down. I got down one or two hundred feet, and then it just got far too brushy to continue any further. I tried to find a way through the brush, but to no avail. I had to give up and go back. I could not believe that anyone else could have ever made it down here. It was just far too brushy. When I got back to the main trail, I was quite tired from all that scrambling, and my back was complaining. I did not want to give up, however. I decided to continue on the trail and see if I could find any other better way down the ridge. Lo and behold, after five minutes more of hiking, I came to a trail going down the ridge. A TRAIL! Not just any trail, a well trodden trail. Clearly quite a few people have been down this path before, not just one or two. I continued down the trail and although it had a couple steep parts, and poison oak scattered all about, all in all it was pretty darn easy.

As I descended, I caught glimpses into the canyon. What do you think I saw? FOG! It was clear to me that I would get down this trail to the waterfall viewpoint, and not even be able to see the waterfall! It was also raining quite hard now as I descended. So I prayed of course: Please God, no rain. No wind. No fog. Pretty please with a cherry on top? I could hear the waterfall now, thundering down the canyon. I could hear the river, thundering below. I could not see anything. Finally, I got down the ridge. You will not believe this. The fog had disappeared, I could see the waterfall clearly. There was no wind. And just as I arrived at the tremendous viewpoint, the rain stopped. I am not fooling you. Thank you Lord, this was just really incredible.

The 134 ft. high Canyon Creek Falls was thundering before me. It felt so close I could almost touch it. Yet really it was a good half mile away. The viewpoint is on some rock outcroppings on the edge of a cliff. I could see the North Fork American River off to the right, and it was magnificent. Directly below me, I could see what I think was the sixth waterfall on Canyon Creek, but the angle was severe from here for a photo of that. I quickly got out my camera and took some shots of Canyon Creek Falls before the rain thought to start up again. As I finished up, and started looking around for alternate views, the fog rolled back in. I could not see the waterfall at all! Wow. I figured that was it, so I put my camera and tripod back away, but waited around for awhile. Five minutes later, the fog rolled out and I could see the waterfall again. Alrighty then, I got my camera back out and took some more shots, and also some shots of the river as well. And then the fog rolled in yet again. This time I decided to pack it up for good, and as I did, the rain started. It rained for the entire hike back to the car. It was a crazy morning, but it was certainly an awesome one.