Leon Turnbull Photography

Our company moved its office to Roseville this week and I must say I’m hating the commute thus far. I used to work 10 minutes from home. Not anymore. The traffic is not so bad but it’s all the darn lights. There are about 5000 of them and I swear the city has programmed them so it is impossible to hit any of them green. Argh.

It also means it is now too difficult to get to the south shore of Tahoe after work on Friday. Going to the north shore is about the only option. So that’s what I did.

It was raining hard when I got to Truckee but by the time I started my hike it was all done. A nice sunset over looking the lake would sure be nice. I haven’t had good luck up here for sunsets this year. I hiked up the Tahoe Rim Trail (first time I’ve ever been on this trail). The info I read said there were good views of the lake on this section. I found nada. I think I would have had to walk a lot farther on the trail to see any, so I decided to climb up to the top of Barker Peak. Surely there would be a good view from up there. Instead I found a big old ridge blocking my view. I could only see a partial view of the lake and it didn’t seem worth staying up there for sunset. I did not like it. Plus I was way off the main trail and I did not have my GPS. Hiking back in the dark might be big trouble.

So I ran back down the mountain to the car as fast as my chubby legs would take me, and drove back down to lakeside, arriving there just before sunset. There was a dock there which I walked out on, but there was not much color out over the lake. Bummer. Then I looked behind me and saw some spectacular color. I was on the wrong side of the lake. Doh! I should have gone to the east side. No time to do that now. I tried to take some shots anyway. It was pretty nice but the angle was not great. The weird thing was there was another photographer there on the dock shooting the nice color but he was standing right along the shore, a far worse angle. Why didn’t he pass by me to get a better angle? Strange. Anyway the color was all done so I packed up and made the long drive home.

Sunset at Horsetail Falls, Desolation Wilderness. This is just above the lowest section of the falls. As you can see, the water level was very low. Normally all that rock would be covered in water, in fact I have never before seen it otherwise until now.

Anyway, I had to wait around 30 minutes or so for the sun to set. I knew those clouds would color up, just not sure how much. It was not too shabby.

From here it is a 45 minute hike down the mountain, so for most of the hike I was hiking in the dark netherlands. No worries, I had my headlamp. No unruly critters were seen on the way back down.

My favorite summer waterfall destination is Horsetail Falls. It normally flows strong all through summer, but this year, however, the flow is as low as I have ever seen it. Nonetheless, that low flow did allow me to get up close to this particular spot, which has never been even remotely possible any other time I’ve been here.

I arrived at the trailhead after work and made the hike up to the falls. There were quite a few people on the trail, as usual. Don’t all these people have to work on Fridays?

When I arrived at the waterfall I saw a big group of kids (pre or early teen) coming down from the top of the falls, with one adult leader. They were coming down the wrong way. I have to say that I hate this place. Now now, I do not hate Horsetail Falls, obviously, I love it … but I do not like the terrain around here. When I was younger it never bothered me, but now it kinda freaks me out. Does that mean I am wiser now, or just an easily frightened old fogey? It is very steep at the waterfall, with big dropoffs, and the granite rock is slippery and very dangerous, even when dry. Many people have died here, and if you are not  careful, you might be next. Well onto my story …

Most of the kids went back up the mountain to come down again the proper way, except three: the adult and two of the kids. The two kids were just wearing running shoes, with no proper grip for this slippery granite. They came down, somehow, to the top of this 50 ft. section of the falls (shown here). I am not even sure how they got to this spot, but there is no way from there to continue down on that side. They then proceeded to JUMP across the creek at the top of the waterfall. Did I mention that this rock is very slippery? One mistake and you are a dead man (or kid). They all made it. I was holding my breath the entire time. The last thing I wanted to do was fish a body out of the water from the bottom of the falls. Once on the other side, they then had to scale down the cliff to the bottom of the falls. It is steep on the other side as well, and again very slippery with big dropoffs. At the bottom of the falls, they jumped back to the other side again, where there is another smaller waterfall. I watched as they cleared the wet section of rock on their jump by mere centimeters. Oh my Lord!

I was just sitting there watching them do all this from my (safe) vantage point on this side of the waterfall. I swear I was not going to say anything to him when he came up past me. I wanted to say a lot, but I was not going to. Really. It is one thing to put your own life in danger, but quite another altogether to put the lives of your kids in danger unnecessarily. I don’t know if any of these kids were his own children, or not, possibly one or two of them was, but it does not matter. He is responsible for all of them. I wanted to smack him over the head. But I was not going to say anything. When he came up to to me, though, he said something or other, like that was not a very good route to take down. The words just came out of my mouth, I had no control over them, whatever spirit was possessing me at the time said them. I said: It was pretty darn stupid if you ask me. Ok, that was harsher than I wanted to say it. Like I said, I had no control over what I said. Well perhaps it was not really that harsh, he agreed with me that it was stupid. Maybe he learned his lesson and next time he won’t be such an idiot, and he won’t end up with a Darwin award.

Anyway, after they left, I then proceeded to follow in the footsteps of their stupidity. I am kidding! I did, however, go down to the bottom where they had jumped back across, and then rock hopped up the bottom of the creek bed to the base of this 50 ft. section of the falls. There were a couple tricky spots to be sure, and some of the rocks were quite slippery. I was careful and made it without incident. I sat on a big rock in the middle of the creek, enjoying this magnificent spot. Even with a little bit more water, it would not have been possible to do this.

The clouds over the valley were looking quite promising, so I stuck around for sunset. It was not electric, like I thought it might be, but it was decently colorful. That picture is coming up next. Then I hiked back to the car in the dark. This time, I had my headlamp. No worries. As usual, I was the last one off the mountain.

Last day of the recent summer storms so I thought I would head up to Lake Tahoe again for a sunset.
It seemed like it could be a very good one as I headed up over the summit. There were plenty of clouds, and the sun was breaking through, but where would the best color be tonight, if anywhere?

I hiked up to Granite Lake where I thought there would be a good view overlooking Cascade Lake and Lake Tahoe (and indeed, there was!). I realized, as I started the hike, that I did not have my headlamp with me. Doh! That could be quite serious because I would be hiking back down in the dark. However, it is only a mile up to the lake, the trail is easy to follow, it would be all downhill coming back, and I had my iPhone flashlight with me (though it is not nearly as bright as my headlamp, and the battery level was down to 50 percent). Anyway, it should be no problem, right?

When I got up to Granite Lake, I passed by some campers at the lake, who were right in my path for getting to the end of the lake. They and their dog seemed friendly enough, but I took a semi-shortcut on the way back so I would not have to pass right by them in the dark – but I could smell their smoking on the way back nonetheless, and I assure you it was not anything legal.

I climbed up on the ridge behind Granite Lake, and worked my way to a viewpoint. I had to climb a bit further up than I anticipated to get a clear view with no trees blocking the way. From this spot, I could see the two lakes, as well as Fallen Leaf Lake, and I could also see Upper Cascade Falls (but not the lower Cascade Falls). Cascade Creek was just trickling, but if it was flowing strong then the view of the upper falls would have been a very sweet one.

It was about a half hour before sunset and things were looking good as far as the clouds were concerned. But then, about 20 minutes later, a rain storm moved in from the south, blocking the clouds that were starting to color. I thought it was going to drench me as well, but the rain did not come my way; nonetheless it seemed I was going to be skumped yet again by Lake Tahoe. Craning my neck, I could see lots of good color on the north shore of the lake. Of course. At the very end, however, the sun tried to make a comeback, and the clouds started to color up again. It was not overly impressive, but it was enough to get a shot. Not too shabby.

I packed up quickly and headed back down the hill. When I got to the main trail I jogged all the way down to the car. I probably did not need to do that, but it was good exercise anyway, and I did end up having to use my iPhone flashlight once it got too dark. I arrived back at the car 30 minutes past sunset. All was good.

So there apparently were great sunsets all week at Lake Tahoe. Except the day we were there of course.

It looked like it might be another good one when we headed up to the north shore on Thursday after work. There were plenty of clouds, the possibilities looked very good, but alas there were too many clouds. It was raining when we arrived, and it was a good drenching, even though it apparently only rained 0.1 inches. Well, we had dinner, then walked around, got ice cream, before heading back to the lupine fields.

I had seen and heard plenty about these lupine fields along the shore of Lake Tahoe, and was wanting to get a good sunset photo from here. Well, this is the most color that ever showed that night. It is not a bad photo, really, and Tara and I had a very nice date night, so it was all good. But I’ll be heading back here some day again.