Leon Turnbull Photography

Last weekend, my friend Rob and I headed up to Monitor Pass for sunrise and to find some Fall Colors. I got up at 3:45am, had myself some breakfast, coffee, and waited for Rob to arrive at my house. And I waited. And waited. He arrived about 15 minutes later than planned; he said his alarm clock did not go off. He just happened to wake up at about 4, then sped down Folsom Auburn at record speed in order to get to my house. I guess it was lucky he was only 15 minutes late. Anyhow, we got in my car and scooted up the hill. Then we ran into some stupid road construction. The flag man was in a total daze. He looked like a zombie, literally. He must have been standing there all night long. We waited. And waited. About five minutes or more later, the pilot car came and directed us (slowly!) through the construction zone. By the way, there was no construction going on! It was too early in the morning, and they had not even started yet. What the hey? Why did we even have to wait? Meanwhile … the clouds were rolling in, the sun was coming up, and it looked like it was going to be a total killer sunrise. Finally, we got through that nonsense, and continued driving up to Monitor Pass. We arrived right at about sunrise, but we could not really find a good spot to shoot the sunrise from, with so little time. Rob got a good sunrise shot though, but I did not. If only we had arrived 20 minutes earlier. 🙂

Anyway, the Fall Colors on Monitor Pass and elsewhere were just about perfect. Beautiful yellow colors in the Aspen trees, and some nice orange as well. Personally, I have a lot of trouble photographing Aspen trees, and finding good compositions that I really like. In fact, I wasn’t even into photographing Fall Colors this year. Normally, I like to get up to the Tahoe area at least 3 or 4 times. But this year, not.

What I like is water. If I can find some water to photograph, I am a happy camper. This was my vision for this particular morning, finding some nice Aspen trees in color along Monitor Creek. And as we drove back down from the top of Monitor Pass after sunrise, I saw a nice possibility along the creek beside the highway.  I stopped, and scrambled down the steep bank to the creek. I got to the creek, but I got blocked by some very thick brush. I needed to go a bit further upstream to get my shot. The only way to do that would be to wade, but I didn’t feel like taking my boots off. So I picked up a couple big rocks, and threw them in the creek. Then I stepped on them to rock hop further upstream. Hey, it worked. I got the shot that I wanted.

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This one is from last month. On this particular day, I managed to talk my son to come hiking with me. This is a small miracle in itself as he usually doesn’t like coming with me. I had to pick something relatively easy, so I chose Caples Creek Falls at Kirkwood. I wanted to go back there for two reasons: I noticed that Caples Creek was flowing pretty good when I was up at Kyburz a couple weeks earlier, and I also wanted to explore Caples Creek more downstream from the falls as I think there might be more waterfalls.

Caples Creek Falls is just a small little waterfall, really not very interesting. That big log hanging down the middle of the falls makes it even a bit ugly. While there, I was considering if I could possibly remove it, but it looked to be lodged in there pretty darn well.  The creek was also significantly down from when I saw it a couple weeks ago, making me think that waterfall season in California is officially over now. Considering it is August, that is actually very good. We had a great waterfall season this year, thanks to the above average snow pack we had last year. Now I just pray that this coming winter will be just as good.

Jadon and I did explore a bit downstream. We found a trail, but it was highly overgrown. Jadon was not happy about this and complained most of the way. There is one nice cascade just down from the main falls, and  I think it would be definitely worth photographing (if the creek flow was a lot higher). I did not get downstream as far as I had hoped though, because it was getting too late. The trail was a lot more slow going than I anticipated and we had run out of time (and I knew Jadon had enough anyway). So back up the trail we went, stopping at the main falls so I could take my photos, then back up up up the trail to our vehicle. I think Jadon had some fun hiking with his old man.

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Here is a huge waterfall for you. It was so big I could not even measure it with my laser rangefinder. I guess it must be 1000 ft. high at least. Or is that 1000 millimeters? Since I have moved down to the USA, I have forgotten all my metric. Ah well.

Anyway, huge waterfalls aside, this is definitely a very pretty little spot I found along the North Fork of the North Fork American River. I did not get to where I wanted to go today, and was not even going to take any photos, but I happened upon this scene and could not pass it up. The river is just so beautiful and amazingly green.

Although I did not get where I intended, I did get a good hike in this morning. It was my first hike since my surgery more than 2 weeks ago, and I am happy to say it went great and I am back in the groove (for hiking). It is a pretty tough climb out of the canyon, so it was definitely a good test for me.

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Digging into the archives. This shot is from a couple months ago. I did have a very nice day in the Eastern Sierra yesterday, and I will be posting shots from there soon.

I went searching for a new waterfall up by Emigrant Gap on the East Fork of the North Fork of the North Fork of the American River. The what? That is actually the official name of this river. But perhaps we shall just call it the East Fork. It was flowing pretty good when I was here. There is no official trail leading down the river, but I did find a very old, very overgrown, very faint resemblance of a trail. I followed it with great difficulty downstream. The problem was, it was taking much too long. It is only a mile to where I think there is a waterfall on this river, but after an hour of hiking, I still hadn’t gone half way. There is no way I could continue down and be back before dark. Thus I decided to turn around early, and try again another day. I think that I could have continued further and hopefully reached the falls, though I’m not sure I would have even been able to even get a view of the waterfall from what I have read about it. Nonetheless, I will have to try another day.

I returned back to the car, then went back down to the easier to reach North Fork Falls. This one is on the North Fork of the North Fork of the American River. That name is a bit (albeit just slightly) easier name to digest. The waterfall is 27 ft. high, but it is more difficult to view than what I remembered as well. You need to cross the river near the bottom of the falls. That was easy enough, though I did need to get my feet wet to do it. The river’s flow was significantly reduced, I had hoped to see the falls with much greater flow. On the other side, there are some steep cliffs that you need to scramble up, then across, and back down to the waterfall. That was more difficult than what I remembered, and I was not wearing my hiking boots, making it slightly more treacherous. I took this higher perspective photo this time of the waterfall, instead of going right down to the bottom. I do like this higher perspective, though I wish I had gone down to the bottom as well.

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This is called the Pool of Cold Fire. It is located on the North Fork of the North Fork American River. It is for sure a stunningly beautiful location, and this was my second time down there.

This hike was a sort of a good news, bad news. So let’s start with the good news.

Good news … This trail down to the North Fork of the North Fork American River in Blue Canyon is now open again to the public! I was ecstatic to learn this because a certain owner in Blue Canyon put up a gate on this public road, illegally blocking public access to this trail. The North Fork American River Alliance took him to court and won, forcing him to re-open the road to allow access to this historic trail. This actually happened awhile ago, but I just recently learned of the news (I’m always the last to know). So anyway, I was anxious to get down there again after a few years since I was first down in this beautiful canyon. This was very excellent news.

Bad news … I did not intend to shoot the Pool of Cold Fire again. I was actually hoping to get a bit further. (there are waterfalls further up the canyon). But the going was much tougher than I anticipated and I did not make it any further. I was a bit bummed, but I am not giving up. I think what I need next time is to take a small blowup raft so I can get past this pool without getting my camera gear drenched.

Good news … There were no mosquitoes.

Bad news … The gnats were absolutely awful, particularly on the hike back up. What was I thinking, going hiking in the American River canyon in August. I put mosquito juice on, but that did not help. I think it made things much worse.

Good news … I did not encounter any rattlesnakes. (I had heard reports that they are quite plentiful down here).

Bad news … I did encounter tons of poison oak. I sure did not remember there being so much oak down there before (or any, for that matter). I scrubbed myself thoroughly when I got home, and I am hoping I don’t get the itch this time.

Good news … I did get another nice shot of this incredibly magnificent pool. I waited for the morning sun to come down the canyon, reflecting in between the steep cliffs on each side of the pool. I sure love this spot. It is just so beautiful there.

Bad news … My tripod head broke. The screw knob which holds the ballhead in place fell off somewhere and was lost. So the ballhead was all wiggly and there was no way to tighten it. I was determined to get a shot though, so I used a screwdriver which I jammed against the tripod and was able to secure the ballhead enough so it would not wiggle around. It worked.

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