Leon Turnbull Photography

I struck out again. I have been trying to get to the lower falls on Traverse Creek recently. I have been looking for an “easy” route down to that waterfall. I know it is there, and I know where it is, but the only possible route is a difficult scramble downstream from the upper Traverse Creek Falls. I was hoping to find an alternate, and easier route. But on both times I have tried, I ran into various dead-ends, which usually means thick impassable brush. So I guess I will just have to suck it up and just go the hard way next time, which I think will be very soon. I am determined to make it to that one this year. I just need a good overcast day because I don’t want to go down there if it is sunny, and thus I wouldn’t be able to get a good photo of it.

In the meantime, after failing for the lower falls, I went back to the upper falls yet again. It is in beautiful double form mode right now. A couple more rains and it will be in full torrent mode.

The rocks and cliffs are very slick, and it is a bit dangerous to get down to the falls right now. The last part is very steep, and you must hold onto ropes to get down to it. You do not want to slip and fall. Well, I didn’t. Not even one tiny slip this time. (knock on wood for next time).

At Traverse Creek Falls, I always try to remember to bring a garbage bag there. In the past, it has been a trash heap. Don’t get me started on a rant about stupid idiots who litter out in the wilderness.  Anyway, thanks to quite a few various people, it has really been cleaned up in the past few years. There was, however, still a bit of trash at the bottom of the falls. I forgot a garbage bag, but I managed to pick up all the trash that I saw. So hopefully it should now be clean for another year.

Big Kimshew Falls has been on my list for quite a few years now. It is a 89 ft. beautiful triple decker falls, located out in the middle of nowhere. Literally.  It is actually very easy to get down to see, but the problem is that the drive takes forever. Literally. It is located out past Stirling City, which is quite a long drive in itself. But once at Stirling City, you need to drive an additional 15 miles on a very bumpy and slow going dirt road. It takes about an hour just to drive these 15 miles.

I figured it was about time, though, that I made the long trek out to see it. I needed to be in Chico for lunch, anyway, since we were celebrating my brother-in-law’s birthday at the Sierra Nevada Brewery restaurant (one of my favorite restaurants, and definitely my favorite American brand of beer). So I decided to just get up very early (4AM) and try to get out to Big Kimshew Falls first. It was a rainy day, but I did not encounter any rain while I was at the falls trying to photograph it (fortunately), but I did certainly encounter rain whilst driving. I was hoping the rain would have increased the flow in the creek a bit more, but it was still a very lovely flowing waterfall. The low flow allowed me to get right in the middle of the creek to take my shots. In the spring, this creek is raging, and there would be no possible way to stand where I was standing. The kayakers like to go over this triple falls at high flows, but with the two logs that are there now, I don’t think they would be doing that anymore. Bummer. The logs also make the waterfall appear not as aesthetically pleasing as it would be otherwise (though it still looks pretty darn nice).

So is it worth the very long drive out to see Big Kimshew Falls? Yes, most certainly. It would be better in the spring when the creek is much higher, but the window in the spring to see this falls is very short because you have to wait until the road is open and completely free of snow. Still, I am sure that I will be returning here sometime in the spring.

We spent the last few days in the small town of Arnold CA . My mother and my sister and her family were down visiting us from Canada, and they were staying in Arnold for a few days (for some reason or other), and so our family went down to visit them there. It was nice to see them as we don’t usually get to see them more than once a year.The four cousins had a very fun time playing with each other, and of course, Jadon and Nekoda were very happy to see their grandma as well.

It was cold in Arnold. Darn cold. Yet, it was sunny. The Fall colors were a non show, sadly. In this area, they are extremely late changing this year. The Aspens (shockingly) were still mostly green. The dogwoods were just starting to change color, but were still mostly green as well. I was hoping to get some nice shots of the dogwoods with Giant Sequoia trees but I did not even bother. I took my mom and brother-in-law on a couple hikes to a couple different waterfalls. At least those were flowing.

On our last day there (Thursday), I decided to go up to the summit of Ebbetts Pass to catch the sunrise. It was pretty cloudy as I headed up and I was thinking there would not be any sunrise to speak of either. But as I drove up to the summit, the clouds broke, and I could tell a good sunrise was a brewing. I had never been up there before, so I had no idea where to shoot from or if there would even be a spot to shoot from. I got lucky, as I came across this vista point just before reaching  the summit. The timing was about perfect, as the color was already happening as I arrived. I did not waste any time getting my camera out and setting up for the shot. It was a very good morning.

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.

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.