Leon Turnbull Photography

My plan in the afternoon after going to Jawbone and Granite Creek Falls was to go to Hetch Hetchy and spend the night. First though, I went back to Groveland and ate an entire medium sized pizza at the Pizza Factory. Hmm, that was good. But at Hetch Hetchy, I was denied by the park rangers for no decent reason. I wanted to spend the night in the backpacker’s parking area, so I could get up super early and hike to Rancheria Falls to get there for sunrise and good photography of that waterfall, as well as getting sunset shots of Wapama Falls that evening. But the rangers said that I was not a backpacker, I was a day hiker, and they would not give me a permit. What the heck? When I came here, I had no idea this would be an issue at all, it seemed like such a simple thing, and I know other people have done similar things here in the past. What is the problem with giving someone a permit to sleep overnight at Hetch Hetchy? And why is Hetch Hetchy so unfriendly towards photographers anyway? It is impossible to do any sunset or sunrise photography there because the park is closed at those times. The only chance to photograph the waterfalls in good light is if it is an overcast day, which is extremely rare in the spring. Needless to say, I was very upset.

So after being kicked out of Hetch Hetchy I decided to just go home that evening, instead of staying another night. First though, I went on another hike (to a non existent waterfall – another strikeout), then I went back to Rainbow Pool Falls at sunset. There were quite a few more people here this evening, compared to the previous evening (when there were none). I went down to the falls, and tried to get some shots, but there were quite a few fisherman in the way, so I had to be patient (I’m not good at that). There were even some fishermen at the top of the falls standing in the water. I thought they were going to slip in and go over the falls. That would have been interesting (but not for them). Well, no one fell in, so I went back up to my car and drove home. It was a good weekend, but it sure could have been a lot better.

After work on Friday, I headed up to Lake Tahoe for a quick hike. My goal was Meeks Creek Falls, a new waterfall that I had heard about and wanted to check out.

I arrived at the trailhead in good order and headed out. A couple with some dogs had just started out on a short hike there as well, and one of the dogs was clearly very old, as he was just hobbling along trying to keep up with everyone else. I asked how old the dog was, and the lady said 14 years old. Wow, that is old, but the dog was out in the wilderness and having fun. I like to see that. Anyway, I passed the old mutt by quickly, and continued on. One thing I was not expecting at all: mosquitoes! They were already out in force and biting me. I could not believe it, as it is only May 11. They should not be out so early in the season. Argh! Fortunately, I had bug juice with me, and once I put that on they left me alone.

It is a short and easy two miles to the waterfall, and the creek was flowing strong from snowmelt. When you arrive at the top of the waterfall, it does not look at first glance to be a very big one. The creek makes a straight drop off some big rocks for 21 ft. down, then continues in a very long and steep slide. If you were here in the summer when the creek is just trickling, you would think the waterfall is only 21 ft. high, but the rest of the cascade must certainly be considered part of the waterfall. That makes the entire falls 85 ft. in height. The part pictured above is the upper section, which is 51 ft. I also went down to the lower section as well and photographed it too. After this, it seems the creek levels out for a short distance, but then it looks like there might be another significant drop further down; however, it was getting late and I did not have time to explore downstream. I will have to save that for another day.

I slept in my vehicle in a campground in the area. If sleeping in my vehicle, I could sleep anywhere, but I prefer the safety of a campground. If I were out on some remote road, I would not get any sleep at all, as I would be worried about crazy people coming by, bears, cougars, sasquatches, that sort of thing. In a campground, I do not need to worry about anything, and thus I can sleep much easier, but after paying the $20 for the campsite, if I had known that all they had for services was a simple outhouse, then I think I would have braved the sasquatches. Geepers, $20 for a parking spot and an outhouse!

I got up super early in the morning and drove up Cherry Lake Road to my first destination. I was surprised to learn that all the Forest Roads up here were paved, I was definitely expecting a much rougher route to Jawbone Falls. That made the trip much faster and I arrived at Jawbone Falls a bit before sunrise. In Danielsson’s Northern California Waterfalls book, he describes this waterfall as “just a small cascade”. Yeah, I do not think so. He obviously did not even visit this waterfall before writing his guide book! Jawbone Falls is a large horsetail waterfall, 52 ft. high. This is not a “small cascade” in any shape or manner. It is not a huge one by any means, nor a spectacular waterfall, but it is certainly a good one. You do need to be here early in the spring though, as Jawbone Creek has a small drainage, so once the snow is all melted, it will reduce to a trickle.

Speaking of snow, I did find some on the road past here, as I continued past Jawbone Falls to attempt to find another waterfall. At about 5500 ft., I had to turn around as there was too much snow on the road to continue. Strike one. This was the beginning of my bad day after visiting Jawbone Falls (Jawbone made my day start out very nice, but it would not continue that way).

For my second hike of the day I was in a bit of a dilemma where to go. It was a sunny day but I was really hoping to get to a second waterfall location before the light got bad. There are other falls on Jawbone Creek but they all get early sun so I had no chance for them. There were some on Granite Creek that got later sun or one on Cherry Creek. I chose Cherry Creek because that was first on my way back down the road. Bad choice. The hike started out very well, following a nice trail along Cherry Creek canyon. Apparently I was not the only one who thought so because I was following some fresh tracks all the way down the trail. At first I thought they were bear tracks (I am not very good at identifying animal tracks!) and when I got down the trail further into a clearing I could see bear poop (fresh and old) everywhere. Okay then it must be a bear I was following. The poop was definitely bear but when I looked at my animal tracks app later I realized that the tracks resembled much more like a mountain lion! If I had realized that at first, would I have continued hiking down that trail??? Well I did not make it far down the trail anyway. The trail ended quicker then it should have as it was supposed to descend much further down the canyon, but it ended up being much too brushy and overgrown with manzanita. I was forced to go back. Strike two. I am not sure where the bears and cougars went either.

The sun was up by the time I got back to my car, disappointed that I did not get to a second waterfall location. I made my way down to Granite Creek and I was surprised to find a steep trail descending from the road down into the canyon. I had never seen photos of this waterfall so I figured it was impossible and much too steep to get to. Should I go down? I decided to try it. It was incredibly steep but not exactly dangerous though there were a few tricky sections for sure. The trail continued down so I did as well. There was a lot of poison oak and I ended up getting the itch quite bad from this hike, as well as a tick bite (though that was probably from a later hike). It got more cliffy as I got down closer to creek level, and as I was scrambling down my hat came off and tumbled down the hill just stopping at the edge of the cliff. Oh gee, how would I get that? I went down as close as I dared but was still too far away to reach it so I grabbed a long stick and reached out to drag the hat back up to me. Whew. After this I made it around the cliff and down to a long sliding cascade; the sun was already on the falls but I took a quick shot. I realized that I was still too far downstream from the actual waterfall so I made my way upstream through the poison oak and finally came to the waterfall which was a big one but really impossible to shoot as it was hidden up in the canyon and only the lowest and smallest drop could be viewed. Strike three (sort of) for Granite Creek. I took some shots and this is when I realized my 24-105 lens was not working. Why? I did not drop it or anything, it just stopped working. I sent it in for repair when I got home. $300 to fix. Ugh.

The third waterfall at this location is on the South Fork Tuolumne River just below the confluence with the Middle Fork. I walked down the road towards the falls from the bridge, rounded a corner, and came upon a huge landslide blocking the road. Giant boulders had crashed down onto the road. If the landslide was not there it would have been easy to continue around in front of the falls to get a top notch vantage point of the waterfall. As it was, however, I could only view the falls from the brink, it was too dangerous to try to get around the landslide. Could it have been done? Perhaps but in my view it is the same thing as wading into a raging river at the top of a 400 ft high waterfall. You are just tempting fate. Stupidity kills and we all know about the recent deaths in the last couple years at California waterfalls. This is a similar thing. What if the rocks had given way while trying to cross the slide? Off the cliff and into the river would I go. Not fun. Anyway, I do hope the forest service is able to clean up this slide. It looks like it will be a lot of work to do so.

As you make your way down to the confluence of the South and Middle Forks Tuolumne River, the first waterfall you encounter is this one on the South Fork. It is an utterly spectacular 25 ft. plunge. From the bridge you can see both of these falls (the other one being on the Middle Fork), though not in a single camera view, and the mist from them both is great, making them both very difficult to photograph. I took this photo from a bit up the road (away from the Middle Fork), where the mist was much less.

I am naming this waterfall “Lower Rainbow Pool Falls” due to its close proximity to Rainbow Pool Falls, just upstream on the South Fork. When I came down here on Friday evening, there was no one at Rainbow Pools (and obviously no one at the lower falls here either). But when I went back on Saturday evening, there was a ton of people at the Rainbow Pools. Geepers. Yet, not very likely was there anyone down at these falls on Saturday either. Perhaps once this is up on my site, this location will get more traffic now. The Lower Rainbow Pool Falls is almost twice as high as the upper falls, and about 100 times more spectacular.