Leon Turnbull Photography

The sun came up quickly in Hope Valley as I was photographing the waterfall on the West Fork Carson River. I knew it would be and that I would not have much time to shoot.

I made my way downstream looking to get at least one more shot of the river and the fall color around it. I found this spot which looked promising and (again) I hopped out on boulders into the middle of the river. You sure couldn’t do that in the spring (but then, there is no fall color in the spring either – LOL).

This image is a blend of two shots. I wanted a super long exposure on the water to give it a real smooth look. But in that exposure the trees were blowing around too much and I did not like how it looked. Fortunately I had an exact image but with a shorter exposure, in which the leaves were not blowing as much. I combined the two in Photoshop … and voila!

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Fall Color and Waterfalls. That is what I like. That is what I want. The only trouble is, gorgeous fall color around waterfalls is hard to come by in California. Usually by this time of year, most waterfalls are dry or just a trickle, and I do not know of too many waterfalls that have fall color around them anyway.

I had heard from certain unnamed sources that the color was at peak on the west side of the Sierra Nevada, so I called my friend Rob and off we went at 5:30AM to Hope Valley. It is very late in the  year for Autumn colors here. Rob had figured he had already missed it by a few weeks. But not so. Indeed, we picked the perfect day to head up into the Sierra. Hope Valley was definitely at peak for color. Gorgeous Aspens in bright yellow and orange. It was perhaps the best I have ever seen it here.

I dropped Rob off at Sorensen’s Resort, as he did not want to shoot the waterfall. But I did. I was not sure if there was actually any color around this waterfall and along the river here, but when I arrived I could see that there was some. I have a lot of troubles shooting colorful Aspen trees if there is not any water. Finding a good, stellar composition of Aspen trees is extremely difficult (for me, anyway). But if there is water, I am good to go. Water is my thing. Colorful trees abounded along the West Fork Carson River, and with the recent storm of a couple weeks ago, we had a bonus. The waterfall was actually flowing. Sweetness! I made my way down to the base of the falls, hopping along rocks until I got into the middle of the river, and I found yellow Aspen goodness looking down on me from the top of the falls. I had my colorful waterfall shot after all.

The sun came up quickly but after shooting the waterfall I took a few more shots of the river further downstream, then I went back to find Rob. He was waiting patiently at the Resort for me, going stir crazy from the tempting smell of breakfast cooking. I told him we had to go on one quick hike before breakfast, which we did, though not finding anything worth mentioning on that hike, which meant I had to pay for breakfast since I dragged him on that semi-useless hike. But I was glad to pay. The food was good, though only lukewarm and the service was not so good.

Sorensens Resort has a lot of photo prints on display, many from a photographer named Tony Rowell, son of the late great Galen Rowell. The lady at the resort said his prints sell very well there, but I just kind of wonder about that. I was not too impressed with a lot of them, which were taken with boring cloudless skies. What is so great about that, I wonder? Is he just selling so many prints because of his name? And why do the ones that are so blah looking sell the best? Rob said that when he was at Elizabeth Carmel’s gallery in Truckee, and talking to one of the workers there, he was told the best selling of her prints he thought were just, again, blah and boring. Are we missing something here, Rob and I wondered? Why did the lady at Sorensens Resort look at us so strangely when we told her we were done photographing for the day as the light was now bad? Should we be photographing during the middle of the day when the light is so flat and harsh? Is that what people want to buy? Hmmm ….

Ah well, we sure did have a gorgeous and fantastic morning up at Hope Valley.

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The weather has turned finally. The summer heat is gone. I think Fall is my favorite time of year as far as hiking is concerned. Unfortunately, the waterfalls do not agree, as it is the worst time of year to see waterfalls. Nonetheless, Tahoe was beckoning to me this weekend with the cooler weather.

I drove up to Lake Tahoe in the afternoon, arriving at the Eagle Falls parking area about 1:30pm. There was one parking space left in the parking area. I took this as a good sign. God must have wanted me to go on this hike. I had my doubts. My hiking plan was ambitious and I was sure the waterfalls would not be flowing very well. I took a quick look at Lower Eagle Falls, and my suspicions were confirmed. Eagle Falls was barely trickling.

There were a ton of people on the trail. I thought that once I got above Eagle Lake, the hiking crowd would dissipate to nothing, but it seemed there was a constant stream of people descending the mountain on this Saturday afternoon.

I hate hate hate this trail. It is so incredibly rocky, which makes it very tough on the feet hiking, and so very hard. Descending the trail later, I am constantly telling myself how much I hate this trail. With perhaps one or two bad words thrown in as I come close to breaking my ankles mis-stepping on the rocky terrain. Every time I hike this trail I say the same thing. Yet I still hike this trail at least once a year. Why do I continue to put myself through such agony?

I suppose because it is so awesomely beautiful up in the Desolation Wilderness.

In addition to the rocky-ness, it is a very tough climb up into the mountains. From 6600 ft., you climb up to 8200 ft., then continue hiking at this high elevation, which is very difficult when you wake up in the morning at only 200 ft. elevation. My hike on this day was 12 miles round trip, and I was completely spent by the end of it. Even a small up hill was just killing my legs. Fortunately, it was all downhill on the return trip.

My plan was to go to Lower Velma Lake, which is a lake that is off the beaten trail. There is indeed no official trail to this lake. Once you get up to Upper Velma Lake, you need to get off the trail and essentially follow the outlet stream from the upper to the lower lake. It is actually fairly easy going and there is a path which others have taken. Once at Lower Velma Lake, the going gets a bit rough and quite brushy as you work your way around to the outlet stream at the end of the lake. It involved scaling along a cliff, and crashing through forest and brush, but there was a bit of a path to follow, and I made it to the waterfall at the end of the lake easily enough.

Lower Velma Lake Falls is a much smaller waterfall than I hoped to find, only 14 ft. high. I found it initially by studying Google Earth, and I must say I was hoping it would be a bit bigger. With the  flow on the low side, it is certainly a pretty little thing, but it would be much nicer with higher flows in early summer. I will probably not ever come back here though, it is just too much effort. I did like the swirlies in the water foreground, though, and I purposely made a longer exposure in order to emphasize them.

I was not long here though, as I had run out of time. I started my hike a bit later than I wanted, and it took a lot longer to hike up than anticipated. 2.5 hours up to the falls, and it would take 2.5 hours back down. I left the waterfall at 5PM, and with sundown before 7pm, you do the math. It was dark by the time I got back to Eagle Lake, and from there down to the highway, it was complete darkness. Initially, I had hoped to get back down to shoot sunset at either Eagle Lake or Eagle Falls. When I started out, there were no clouds over Lake Tahoe. So no big deal I figured if I don’t make it back down in time. But as I left Lower Velma Lake at 5PM, I could see Lake Tahoe, and I could see potentially nice sunset clouds forming. Dang. Sure enough, as I descended the mountain, those clouds put out some pretty sweet color. But it was too late for me to get there. Oh well. Eagle Falls was just trickling anyway, I told myself. It would not be a very good shot. Yeah, right.

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I know I have been pretty quiet lately. I have not been out hiking lately. I have been, unfortunately, extremely busy at work. Deadlines, you know. I have not even felt like going out hiking. Sigh. Well, that is going to change this weekend. I have a plan.

I have also been very busy working on my iPhone app for waterfallswest.com. It has been slow going, but I do see the light at the end of the tunnel now. It is getting close to being done, and I am kinda excited about it. I am optimistic it will be available for the start of next waterfall season. Stay very tuned for the news.

Speaking of next waterfall season, I just heard that La Nina is back. Does that mean we are going to have another epic waterfall season here? Well, let us hope and pray!

http://www.bclocalnews.com/community/129739993.html

This photo is from last month. It is Upper Upper Truckee River Falls. Yes, there are two Uppers in the name. I never said it was a good name. But it is certainly a good waterfall.

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My plan was ambitious. A three hour one way hike from the Horsetail Falls parking area up to the top of the falls and onto Pyramid Lake, and then back down again before dark. All in all, hoping to see three new waterfalls in good lighting conditions. 2000 ft. elevation gain, in about 4 miles of hiking (1 way).

My wife and kids were up for the weekend in Grass Valley, helping look after nephew Soren, as mom and dad were in the hospital in anticipation of new arrival, India Sierra, who came into the world Saturday afternoon. So I had the weekend to myself, and perhaps that is one reason why I planned such an ambitious hike. I left the house around 10:30am, arriving at the trailhead just before noon.

My major concern about all this was actually just finding a parking spot. Horsetail Falls is one of the premier hiking destinations in the Lake Tahoe area, and is extremely popular on the weekend. I would be arriving at the worst time, noon on Saturday. I was praying for a spot, because I did not did not did not want to have to park the car a half mile or so away, which would turn a difficult 8 mile hike into a 9 or more mile hike. The parking lot was indeed full when I arrived, but thankfully, there was one spot available on the other side of the highway, as someone was just leaving. The bonus of parking here is also that I did not have to pay a parking fee, and it was only just across the highway from the main parking lot.

Twelve noon and off I went. As expected, the first part of the trail up to Horsetail Falls was very busy, with lots of people on the trail. Once I got up to the falls, I expected to leave most of these people well behind. Horsetail Falls was roaring, in prime form. Bryan Swan (of waterfallsnorthwest.com) and I both measured the height of this magnificent creation separately, and we came up with the numbers: 790 ft. At peak melt, this waterfall is absolutely stunning.

Now for the hard part. Getting to the top of the waterfall. It is a 1000 ft. climb to the top. I have been up to the top three times before, but this time, I had incredible difficulty. I could not find a good route, it just seemed very dangerous, and difficult. I do not remember it being this bad before (and I did this hike just last year). What happened? Am I just getting too wimpy in my old age, or what?  I was not the only one either. There were others who were waffling on the ascent. I examined three or four different routes, and they all looked bad. Finally, I just picked one and went up, very carefully. Usually coming down is a lot harder than going up, and needless to say, I was worried about the descent later that evening. This was not the route I have done in the past, so perhaps that was the problem, but I’m not sure. I do remember there was one difficult section on our ascent last year, but I do not remember having a lot of problems with it. Next time, I will try to find that other route and see if it is any easier or not.

Finally at the top, I rested. It is an easy jaunt over to Ropi Lake from the top of Horsetail Falls, then a bit of an ascent up to Pyramid Lake, but nothing too difficult at the least. Ropi Lake Falls was roaring as well. Gee, I sure would have liked to get a good photo of this waterfall in peak form, but it was in full sun. I’ll be thinking about making a return to this one at a later date. At Ropi Lake, I caught up to a group of about 10 boys, who as it turned out, were also on their way to Pyramid Lake. So much for leaving everyone behind at Horsetail Falls and having this hike all to myself. They were hiking at a good clip, but I passed them up, and continued up to Gefo Lake, and then on to Pyramid Lake. It took about an hour from the top of Horsetail, as I anticipated. There was no one at Pyramid Lake when I arrived, and the boys had disappeared. Where did they go? They were right behind me. Did they turn back?

I ventured to the waterfall at the end of the lake, cascading down from towering 9983 ft. Pyramid Peak. It is a really really tall cascade, about 400 ft. high, but you cannot see the entire waterfall from any vantage point. It was also flowing on the poor side, and I was quite a bit disappointed actually, as I was expecting a lot more flow. I made it up to a spot where it drops most significantly, essentially a 100 ft. drop in two major tiers separated by a long slide. The upper section was in full sun, but the lower 23 ft. drop was in partial shade. I estimated the falls would be in the sun until about 6pm. I could not wait that long, or I would be hiking back in the dark down Horsetail Falls, not something I had any desire to do. I decided to shoot the lower falls in partial shade, then head back to the falls below Pyramid Lake, which I knew was already in shade.

On my way back down, I saw the boys again. They were traversing down to the lake from high above the waterfall. They definitely took the long route to Pyramid Lake. They caught up with me, and I found out they had initially intended on climbing to the top of Pyramid Peak but decided against it, as they would be hiking back in the dark without any lights. Good decision, guys. They also told me (when I asked them) that there was not really any spectacular or significant drops of the waterfall up above where I could not see. Good.

The waterfall at Pyramid Lake was also on the low side, and it was also impossible to get a view of the entire waterfall due to the cliffs. I could only shoot the top portion of this waterfall, but at least it was in shade. The waterfall at Gefo Lake was also in shade when I got back down to it, a very tall cascade, and I think it would be very interesting at high flow, but not this day. I think I’d like to return here earlier in the summer next time I am up this way.

Back at the top of Horsetail Falls, I rested. I was extremely tired from the hike, and my back was killing me. I actually briefly considered (for maybe two seconds) just sleeping there at the top of Horsetail Falls. I didn’t think it would be too terribly cold, or there would be too many mosquitoes. Hmmph, but I had to go play drums in church first thing in the morning.  I had to suck it up and get back down, and I had an hour before dark. The descent was easy. I found the “proper route”, and made it back down in very good time. The dangerous section also was a lot easier going down then up (usually, it is the other way around). I did not shoot Horsetail Falls, as it was already almost dark (and of course, I was super tired). As it is, I did not get back to the car until well after dark. What an incredible day in the Desolation Wilderness.

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