Leon Turnbull Photography

What do you think folks, does this place really exist? Three spectacular waterfalls, all within a couple hundred feet of each other? All unmarked and unnamed? (until now). Within a few miles of one of the most popular parks in the country? Very easy to get to, yet a virtually unknown location? Within minutes walking distance from an extremely popular picnic area and another (much smaller) but very well known waterfall? What do you think, not possible? Oh, and did I mention that one of the waterfalls was an incredible 182 ft. high?

Oh yes, it is possible. The location is Rainbow Pools, just outside of Yosemite National Park. Most people familiar with California waterfalls and with the Yosemite area have likely heard of Rainbow Pools, and many people have been there as it is very popular. But 99.99 percent of the people who go there do not know about these other three waterfalls, just a very short distance away. Indeed, I did not until recently when the kayaking community alerted me to this location. But even so, I had no idea what exactly I would find there.

There is a road leading from Rainbow Pools downriver, and I was thinking I would be able to drive down it. But the road was closed due to an apparent landslide. It was getting late in the day, but I still had plenty of time and it was only a half mile walk. The road follows the raging South Fork Tuolumne River downstream, alongst plenty of small rapids and cascades, and at least one other significant cascade (which could not easily be seen due to the steep cliffs). I saw no landslide as I made my way down the road, but I am glad the road was closed, because I would not have wanted to drive down it. It is very steep and very narrow. I hate steep, narrow roads.

In fairly short order, I came to the confluence of the South and Middle Forks of the Tuolumne River, and there I was treated to paradise. Two waterfalls coming together at the confluence, a 25 footer on the South Fork and a whopping 182 footer on the Middle Fork. A bridge crossed over the middle fork and the road continues downstream. There was so much mist from the falls it was very difficult to photograph this monster, but I found a semi dry spot in the middle of the bridge, and took a few shots; compositions were extremely limited because of the mist, but it sure was a beauty, and most definitely the best waterfall I saw on the weekend. How could no one know about this place or this waterfall? Just downstream, I could see a horizon line and I knew there was another waterfall there. I continued down the road, and as I turned the corner, I found the landslide, at the top of the third waterfall. Humungous rocks had fallen on the road, and it looked to be very dangerous to continue past them. I was only able to view this third waterfall (51 ft. high) from the side and top of it, but it was certainly another spectacular plunge, and if the landslide was not there you could get around right in front of it very easily. Wow, it was an amazing evening, and a remarkable location. It was getting dark as I reluctantly made my way back up the hill to my car. Very satisfied.

I had big plans all made this weekend, but sometimes plan do not work out as expected. I wanted to go to Hetch Hetchy and stay overnight in the backpacker’s parking area, then hike to Rancheria Falls first thing in the morning in order to get there with good lighting conditions for photography. It was a great plan. All I needed was a permit. But the bloody darn Yosemite rangers would not give me one. According to them, I was not a backpacker, I was just a day hiker. What? Sometimes it sucks to tell the truth, but I really had no idea this would be any sort of issue for them. It was a perfectly reasonable plan, and I am sure I read that people have done this sort of thing before at Hetch Hetchy. With the park not opening until well after sunrise and closing well before sunset it is absolutely impossible to do any good photography in this area of the park unless you stay overnight. Why would they not give me a permit? I don’t understand, and it really irked me.

Anyway, this totally threw a wrench into my entire weekend plan, and it put a huge damper on an already bad  day. I did see four waterfalls on Saturday. The first one I saw was really nice but all the others were not so great, and the light was really bad for them, and some other waterfalls I was trying to see did not pan out either, and I got a tick bite, and my camera lens broke (for an unknown reason), and I got poison oak, and I lost my pack rain cover, and I almost lost my hat off a cliff. None of all those other things would have bothered me much, however, if the Hetch Hetchy plan had come to fruition.

Friday was different though. Friday was a great day, and I saw four waterfalls on that day as well, and they were all great ones. The first one was Diana Falls, pictured here, just a small 21 ft. high falls, and very easy to get to, but I had never been to this one before. When you are going to Yosemite, you don’t stop off at small baby waterfalls along the way usually, and that is why I had never been here before. But this time, I was planning to spend a lot of time out of the park before going into it at the end of the day on Saturday, so Diana Falls was first on my list.

It is a long drive down there from Sacramento, and I left work early. Still traffic was bad leaving the city. When I finally arrived at the trailhead, I saw 3 other cars there. Not good, as I was hoping to have the falls all to myself, but all the others I met on the hike in, so I was alone once I got to the falls. It is a bit of a steep descent down to the waterfall, slippery, and laced with poison oak (but this is not where I picked up the oak, I am certain). Those rocks you see on the right side were incredibly slippery. I scrambled up there close to the falls, and I had to be extremely careful or I would have slipped right into the creek. That would have been quite bad. Anyway, it is a very pretty little area and waterfall. I took my time here taking photos, then afterwards, hurried back to the car, to get in one more location before dark, which was triple decker awesomeness. Stay tuned for that.

A man was swept over 410 ft. high Feather Falls this past weekend. He slipped on the slick rocks above the falls and bye-bye. It is sad of course, but sometimes I just don’t understand why people do things like this. Why was he even close to the raging water?

Here are a couple links to the story:
http://www.redding.com/news/2012/apr/23/search-and-rescue-unable-find-body-chico-man-swept

http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/51f98261ce7a41de80d11be14366efa3/CA–Waterfall-Death/

It is interesting to note though that some of the news articles I read about this incident used the very often cited and very incorrect height of 640 ft. for Feather Falls, but other news sites used the correct figure of 410 ft., which was my measurement. Feather Falls has often been touted as the 6th highest waterfall in the U.S., and at a height of 640 ft. I do not know where this number came from but it is certainly very wrong. It was myself who first determined that the correct height of the waterfall was 410 ft. This height has been confirmed now by one other group as well. So it is nice to know that some news sites did the proper research and were using my measurement (and the correct one) for this tragic news story. This is one reason why measuring waterfall heights is important.

By the way, the photo here is obviously not Feather Falls. It is Federal Falls, which is a very precise and very small 11 ft. high.

This weekend I took a trip up to Downieville to check out some new and old waterfalls. My first stop here was Pauley Falls. You may recognize this one, as it is the header waterfall I have in my blog. But as you can see, the flow was a lot more than when I was here previously in winter. Clearly, there was no way I could get right in the middle of the creek to take photos like I did when I was here the last time. I settled for just a quick shot from the side of the creek this time, as I did not want to spend much time here. I also did not feel like getting my feet into that cold snow melting creek. So what do you think? Should I change my header over to this new shot?

After stopping at Pauley Falls, I headed up to Federal Falls, which is another waterfall on this same creek but further upstream. It is a bit smaller than Pauley and not as nice a waterfall, but I will probably share that photo next.

My third destination ended up being a killer hike to try to find another new waterfall, but unfortunately I struck out. I scrambled up a mountain through poison oak to try to get to Humbug Creek Falls. I went further than I went last time, and came pretty close to the falls, but could not quite get there. I’m not sure if I could have gotten any further or not, but I was out of time and out of gas (literally). I needed to get home or my wife was going to be mad at me for being late (I was late anyway, and yes, she was not happy about it). The hike back took a lot longer as well, as the scramble back up the mountain was killer, and I was totally spent. When I got back to the car, my muscles were spasming, and I was incredibly hungry, but I had no food with me. I had to wait until I got to the small town of North San Juan, where I could pick up some food. I did get to a pretty interesting spot down in that canyon, with a good view up close of Little Humbug Creek Falls (which was roaring incredibly strong), but I am not sure about getting to that other waterfall down there, and I am just not sure if I will ever get back down there since the hike was so difficult.

As I biked down Fallen Leaf Lake Road I came upon this scene as the almost full moon was setting behind Mt. Tallac with a stellar reflection in the lake. Well, it was not a waterfall so I did not stop. Yeah, right. I could not not stop and take a shot of this glorious scene. The little bit of clouds coloring just prior to sunrise also added to the beautiful scene.

This was a semi half planned shot, actually. I knew the moon would be setting behind the mountains at sunrise, and I was thinking of shooting it as I hiked up to Glen Alpine Falls, but I was thinking of shooting from a different location, not behind Tallac. The scene at Tallac did not occur to me beforehand, though it should have because it is a much more magnificent scene then the one I had in mind. Well, it was a gorgeous morning indeed.