Leon Turnbull Photography

Thanksgiving Day. Time: 3:30AM. Event: Alarm Rings. Action: Wake Up. Make coffee. Drive north to meet family for Thanksgiving Day. First stop off at Brandy Creek for a quick morning hike and exploration.

This was how my day shaped up for me. Getting a good solid hike in before eating a big meal is always a good thing. My first stop along Brandy Creek was Lower Brandy Creek Falls (Rich Gulch Falls), which I have not stopped at in a very long time. Though I have called it Lower Brandy Creek Falls in the past, the waterfall is not actually on Brandy Creek but on Rich Gulch. The small 10 ft falls on the right is Brandy Creek. The larger one on the left (which I measured as being 18 ft high) is Rich Gulch.

It is a steep descent from the trail down to creek level but is not really too difficult. I quickly decided the best viewpoint was from the other side of the creek and since the creek was flowing higher due to recent rain, that meant getting wet. I donned my water shoes and crossed the creek. It was cold. Fortunately, there was a nice large rock on the other side to stand on so I did not have to shoot from in the creek.

After spending quite a lot of time here shooting this lower falls I continued on up the trail as I still had some time before Thanksgiving lunch with family in Redding. Not to the upper falls though. I was in an exploring mood for searching out new waterfalls on Brandy Creek. Did I find any? Stay tuned.

Well it has been awhile, but I am just now back from a vacation. We drove up to Canada to visit my family and celebrate my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. As I write this, I am sore, tired, and sick. I did not see as many waterfalls as I would have liked, and I did not take as many photos as I would have liked, but it was not for lack of trying. More to come on this later.

On the drive up, I was hoping to get a good sunrise shot of Mt. Shasta. In order to accomplish such a feat, I got up at 2AM and drove up from Folsom. I picked my family up in Red Bluff (at my wife’s parents’ house) at around 5AM (she was not all that pleased about the time). We arrived in the Mt. Shasta area and it looked to be rainy and overcast, and the mountain was not visible, so we kept on driving. North of Weed, we came to a vista point at sunrise time. The clouds were clearing up, and it was a cold, but pleasant sunrise. Though the color was not very interesting as I had hoped, we did get some nice alpenglow on the mountain. It was a good start to our trip.

I needed to get out this weekend. And I did.

My wife Tara was being promoted to second degree black belt in Kenpo Karate. She had asked me a long time ago to go up there to see the promotion. At the time I said yes, of course I would. But things got a little too crazy at work, and with a deadline approaching this Tuesday, I was pretty sure I would be working all weekend. Well, as of Friday morning, I figured I was caught up enough at work that I would not have to stay home and work all weekend, so I hopped in the car and boogied on up I-5 to Red Bluff Friday evening. Actually, I did end up working a bit on the weekend, but fortunately I could do that up in Red Bluff.

One thing I wanted to do while up north was take my son Jadon out hiking in the Whiskeytown area. I decided on Brandy Creek Falls, which Jadon had not been to before. I woke him up super early. Knowing that the light hits the falls pretty early, I wanted to be up at the waterfall by sunrise or shortly afterward. Well, the hike is a tough one, even though it is only about a mile and a half. Jadon was struggling, and I was worried we would be too late to the waterfall, but as it turned out, we arrived in plenty of time. The creek was flowing a bit less than I was hoping for, but it is about normal for this time of year. I took my photos while Jadon waited around semi-impatiently. On this particular image, I was having Jadon hold back some branches in the way, while I set up my tripod at the edge of the creek. Well, the rocks were wet and slippery, and indeed I did slip, my feet sliding into the creek and into my tripod. My first instinct, of course, was a good one. Save the camera at all costs. And I did save it. My feet got a bit wet, but that was all. I tried to make it into a teachable lesson for Jadon. Be careful around creeks and waterfalls! It can be very treacherous. I’m not sure how well he got the point, however, as he scampered back along the rocks, splashing through the creek to cross to the other side. Sigh.

When we were at the Coast last month, we went one day to the Elkhorn Slough in Moss Landing. We walked around there, and saw plenty of bird wildlife. Afterwards, we stopped at the beach there for lunch and to let the kids play on the beach. They had a lot of fun playing in the waves. Daddy had a bit of fun too taking pictures. These little sanderlings were running along the beach while we were there, scooping up little tidbits to eat that they found on the shoreline. They let me get pretty close to them, until a jogger came running along to the beach and scared them away. All in all, it was a very fun day.

After my trek to Ranch Falls, I really wanted to try to get to one more in the area. Unfortunately, the sun was not co-operating. Although it was supposed to be cloudy with showers all day, the sun had come out. There were still clouds in the area, and they were moving in and out from in front of the sun, so I decided I may as well do the hike anyway and hope for the best. It was a 6 mile round trip to this other waterfall, so I decided to bike it instead of hike it.

I packed my camera and tripod onto the back of my bike and started out around Lake Oroville (Thermalito Pool). It was a very easy bike ride along a mostly flat (and quite muddy) dirt road. The biggest obstacles were the cows. They come right down onto the road and it is treacherous getting past them. I am kidding about the treacherous part. But I did have to pass by within a few feet of them because there was no where they could go to get out of the way. Cows make me nervous. My wife laughs at me about this, but when you are surrounded by big beasts and then they all start coming towards you, I wonder what evil they are plotting. I am kidding again. They are obviously very used to seeing bikers and hikers along here, and they are just very curious.

Anyway, I finally arrived at the creek inlet to the lake after 30 minutes of getting through the bovine obstacle course. The waterfall is a bit upstream, so I had to stash my bike and walk up the rest of the way. It is not a big waterfall, just 22 ft. high, but  it is nice little one, and very easy (in other words, no deadly dropoffs for once). It is called Burma Falls (or Bermuda Falls). But as I said, the sun was not co-operating. I got my camera ready, setup in the middle of the stream, and waited. And I waited. Fortunately, the stream was not too cold to stand in. I was waiting for the clouds to cover up the sun, so I could get a decent shot. They did not ever do that completely, but this one shot turned out all right. Interestingly enough, on my bike ride back to the car, most of the cows had all moved off the road. There were just two left on the obstacle course.

More info on Burma Falls:

http://waterfallswest.com/waterfall.php?id=960