Leon Turnbull Photography

Horsetail Falls is THE waterfall I love to visit in the summer. This 790 ft. monster waterfall always has good strong flow in the summer, and this year, it is pretty much the only waterfall left around here that is still flowing at all.

As I drove up Hwy 50 on Friday evening after work, I saw that the South Fork American River looked pretty pitiful. It seemed much lower than just a week ago when we drove up to Tahoe. This was bad news. Since Horsetail Falls flows into this river, I had no doubt the waterfall would be pitiful also. Well, not so, actually. In fact, it seemed that Horsetail Falls had quite a strong flow still. I don’t really understand how it could be that Pyramid Creek had a bigger flow than the American River. Makes no sense, but perhaps it was just my imagination. Anyhow, I paid my parking fee and marched up to the falls.

When I arrived, I found a couple different people enjoying the view at the base of the falls. This is not allowed. I am the only one that is allowed to be here on a Friday evening. Just kidding folks. But it is surprising because usually I am always alone when I come here in the evenings. Well, I explored a bit further up the mountain this time, but did not find any interesting photo spots, then came back down, and by that time, the others had left, so I had my favorite spot to myself (actually, I have a few favorite spots at Horsetail Falls). This is definitely not a new composition for me but it is all I got this time around. It seems that I stupidly left my image stabilization ON, and I did not realize this until I got home. When you do this combined with using a tripod, your images are ALL blurry. Well, I managed to scavenge this one photo which is not too horrible, but it would have been much sharper had I not been so stupid. Anyway, at least I only did it at this easy to reach waterfall, which I have already been to a hundred times, and will return again many more times. The only other time I left the I.S. on was at a waterfall in which I will likely never return to again because it was so difficult, and I did not get any good pictures of that one.

I will probably be back to Horsetail Falls again very soon. I have one more idea for a new composition of this waterfall (IF I can get to this one particular spot which I was eyeing on Friday – and not kill myself in the process). The flow is definitely on its way out. In another couple weeks, you will be able to cross the creek easily at the base of the falls; I could have almost done it this time, but decided to play it safe. That’s a good thing.

I continued upstream from Upper Cascade Falls. Surprisingly, there was a pretty decent trail. It was hard to follow in places, but overall quite decent. Considering that this section looked rather brushy on Google Earth, I was pleased. The trail took me right through all the brush easily. It did, however, meander all over the place, weaving in and out of the brush, across streams, and through the forest. Yes, the forest was interesting. It was late in the afternoon now, and the light in the forest was getting dark. Gloomy dark. Menacingly dark. The trail was quite overgrown through the forest. I was afraid I would be ambushed by a Sasquatch. There were only mosquitoes.

Finally out of the forest, and I could see the waterfall ahead, dropping down from Azure Lake. It took much longer than anticipated to get up here. And now time was my enemy. Sunset was approaching rapidly. I made my way over to the base of the falls. The waterfall is 46 ft. high but it is difficult to view it from the bottom. The angle is wonky and extreme. I looked around but I could see no other viewpoint available, so I did what I could, but I was not happy with this one. I decided to try to climb up to the top of the falls. I estimated that I had two minutes to climb up, get a photo, and start hiking back to the car. Otherwise, I would be hiking back through that forest in the pitch dark. Sasquatches abound in the Desolation Wilderness (and mountain lions). The trail continues from here up to Azure Lake, so there was a good path. Once up there, I found a huge rock that you can walk out on where I found an excellent viewpoint of the upper tier of the waterfall. I was out of time, but the view was worth it, so I quickly got out my camera, and walked out to the end of the huge rock with deadly drop-offs on either side of me. It is such a very pretty view and waterfall. I will definitely be back up here someday. I was about 10 minutes late starting back down, but I made it back to the car just as it was getting dark. The timing was perfect.

After running out of daylight last week, you know I was going to be back here again the next weekend. I was anxious to get to the upper tier of this waterfall while it was still flowing. I think it would have been better last week, though. I estimated the flow in Cascade Creek was about 3/4 of the flow from the previous week. It was still ok, but this upper section especially would look much more impressive with more water flowing in the creek.

I had a big agenda again for my hike this week, and the timing would be paramount. I hiked straight to the upper falls. I made nary a glance at Cascade Falls as I hiked by it, continuing on to the Upper Cascade Falls, and completely bypassing the lower tier. I crossed the creek, and climbed up the granite slope and back over to the upper tier, where I found a great viewpoint as I expected, though it was slightly tricky to get over to it. You don’t want to be sliding down the slick slope to the bottom, if you can help it. That might hurt. I measured the upper tier to be 37 ft. high, exactly the same as the lower tier. Go figure. As I said, it would look pretty amazing at higher flows, but will I be able to cross the creek (twice) at higher flows in order to get here? I will definitely be trying it someday in the future. Not this year, obviously.

After shooting the upper falls, I continued my hike up into the wilderness where I found yet another waterfall. It was a pretty one indeed, and I will be sharing that post next. You won’t want to miss it. It did take a bit more of an effort than I expected, so it was a good thing I was quick getting to Upper Cascade Falls. I made it back to my car just as it got dark. Perfect timing. It was a great hike into the Desolation Wilderness.

After getting down to the base of Cascade Falls, I boogied on upstream of that big cascade in search of more goodies. And I found this little surprise.

There is no trail upstream but there was a well worn path, and obviously many people have been up this way before. It is not difficult and actually quite fun, involving rock hopping across the creek, and zipping up and over the granite rock, and through the occasional manzanita. I was not expecting to find much of anything here, and although I suspected there might be a small waterfall, I thought it more likely there was nothing. Imagine my surprise. This lower tier I measured to be 37 ft. high (although it seemed more like 25ish feet to my eye). It is a very pretty cascade. Considering that I am certainly not the first to see this little falls, I am shocked that I have never seen any photos of it before, and that no one else has ever documented it before. Although much smaller than the big waterfall downstream, it is nothing to sneeze at. And there is more! I scrambled up on the left side of the falls, and I found another pretty little 15 ft. high waterfall. And there was even more! Above that one is another waterfall which is at least as big if not bigger than this lower falls. Unfortunately, I could not get to it from the left side of the stream, but I think it could be done from the other side. Unfortunately by this time it was only 30 minutes to sunset, and I still had to hike over a mile back to the car, plus it would have been a significant effort to get up on the other side. But I will definitely be back. Very soon.

Friday evening’s adventure saw me off to Lake Tahoe after work. Why you ask? Waterfalls of course. But the waterfalls are not flowing anymore you say? Not exactly. There is actually still a bit of snow in the mountains but definitely the creeks are on their way out for the year.

My plan: Cascade Falls. You can see the waterfall from Emerald Bay Road before you get to the trailhead, and I examined it closely before starting on the hike. It was looking a bit meager from a distance without a doubt, but I decided to go anyway. Up close and personal, I thought it would be decent enough. And it was.

The trail was busy with plenty of other hikers, as expected. But no one would be thinking of going down to the base of Cascade Falls. Right? I had never been down to the bottom before, and this was my primary goal for the evening. How hard could it be? The waterfall only drops off a sheer 149 ft. cliff. No problems, right? Well of course, it would be a rather big problem if I went down to the bottom from the top of the cliff, but there is another way, my friends. And as it turned out, it was fairly easy. Also, fairly difficult. It was easy in the sense that it was not very steep and certainly not dangerous. It was difficult in the sense that it took quite a while and there is a lot of manzanita brush to negotiate. The “trail” winds its way down through the brush, down down down, almost all the way to the lake, then finally cuts back to the waterfall. The low flow in the waterfall allowed me to get up very close to it, which I certainly could not have done at higher flows. It was certainly quite decent.

So when I was here, I witnessed more full fledged Darwinism at work. Why does this always seem to happen at Lake Tahoe for me? Some dufus with three bushels short of a full load decided to scale down the sheer cliff beside the waterfall. I thought I was about to witness his certain destruction, and even tried to video it (but I messed up on that part – ugh). One missed step and he would have been done for, but he made it down the cliff safely. I expected him then to go over to the waterfall, but he disappeared and I did not see him again. He must have just gone back up the cliff in a spot where I could not see him, but that makes no sense at all. If you are going to risk your life and limb to scale down a sheer cliff (and not to mention when there is another easy path down to the bottom), why on earth would you not even go over to see the waterfall? I don’t get it. I suppose it is quite possible he was an expert climber and this was all child’s play to him, but I have seen too much stupidity in my lifetime.

Anyway, I decided to follow his lead, and went straight up the cliff to get to the top of the waterfall. Just kidding!!! I did go to the top of the waterfall though (the normal way), and then beyond. What I found next will amaze you. I am kidding again. Well, it might amaze you. Or surprise you. It did surprise me. But you will have to wait for my next post to find out what it was. Hint: it is probably a waterfall.