Leon Turnbull Photography

I arrived at Shasta in the afternoon and ready to start my hike. Soon after I started, I encountered snow. Snow patches at first but then solid steady snow at 6300 feet. I would be gaining 1500 feet in elevation, which is hard enough as it is, but with most of that through snow it would be more difficult. I was not expecting much snow at all until about 7000 ft, so this was a big surprise, and at some spots I was hiking through 7-8 ft of snow under my feet! No joke.

But it was fun! The snow was very solid and I was not sinking through, and even though it was very warm out, the snow was not melting much, if at all. I was not a little worried the waterfall would still be snow covered, and not flowing at all. I followed many bear tracks up through the snow. I was one with the Bears. It is funny that I have seen so many bear tracks this year, but I’ve never seen the bear that goes along with them. Just as well, I suppose. The snow is what made the hiking fun and it was easy enough to get all the way up to the creek on logging roads (easy is relative when you have to gain 1500 ft. however). Once at the creek I just had to climb up the steep snowbank for a little, and I would be at the waterfall. Easier said than done. This last part was definitely a bit treacherous, but I made it up close enough for a decent view of the 45 foot high falls. No one has previously documented this waterfall before, and it is quite a pretty one. I had to wait, as expected, for the sun to go behind the ridge. It took quite a while, so I ate my dinner, sat in the cold snow, froze my bum off, and waited and waited and waited. I still did not get all the sun out of my frame but I think this shot is quite decent.

It was easier to hike down the mountain of course, but it was still tiring. It is not so fun when you are tired. I think I saw some new bear tracks that were not there on the way up, I am pretty sure, but the bear was not anywhere to be seen as usual.

After this, my plan was to camp out somewhere around Mount Shasta, deep in the woods, all by myself. This was in order to do an early morning hike somewhere else. However, the hike I wanted to do was not going to work. That creek was completely dry. This was mind-boggling to me. All the other creeks on Shasta are running with decent snow melt, why is this one dry? I had to come up with a plan B and that was to hike to Ash Creek Falls next morning, which is not something I wanted to do again, but I had no better options. I did do the hike to Ash Creek Falls in the morning, but I did not take any photos because it took longer than expected and it was in the sun when I got there. It was still a good hike. It involved a lot more snow hiking too. By the end of it all, I was doggone tired.

http://waterfallswest.com/waterfall.php?id=upper-squaw-valley-creek-falls-shasta-2037

Three times is a charm, right? Big Springs Falls on the McCloud River has been a thorn in my side for awhile, but I was finally able to get to it this weekend. It was not a cake walk, however, and I almost did not make it.

The thing is, getting to this waterfall basically requires crossing the McCloud River, and McCloud River is basically uncrossable for most of the year. It is far too brushy on the north side of the river, which I found out big time on two prior attempts trying to get here. There is a potential route on the south side which does not require crossing the river but it is too long. However, when I was here a couple weeks ago, the river flow was low and I thought it could be done. So this was my plan, cross the river and hike down to the falls on the south side. It would be a short and mostly easy hike and I would have plenty of time to reach the falls before the sun got there, which was of course, very early in the morning.

Things do not always go as planned, do they. Certainly not with the waterfall madman, anyway. I arrived at the parking lot in the dark. I could tell right away something was awry. The river was quite a bit higher than two weeks ago. How is this possible? The only thing I could think of was snow melt from the storm we had a couple weeks ago. When I arrived at the spot where I was planning to cross, there was just no way. The river was flowing too deep and too strong. Oh boo hickey. Here comes strike three.

Well what to do, what to do. I decided to walk down river and see what could be done. At first there was a path, but eventually I ran into that deadly brush and no way to continue. Still no possibility of crossing the river. However, I decided on an alternative, and that is get in the river and wade along the shore down to the falls. Now here is where I pat myself on the back big time. The temperature in the morning was 35 degrees. Wading in the river, even for just a simple crossing, would be foolishness at best, and frostbite at worst. I do not have waders, they are too heavy to carry on hikes. But I anticipated this coldness would be coming, and I went to the scuba shop beforehand and picked up some wet socks (or whatever you call them), in order to keep my feet warm while I was in the river. This was one of the best purchases I have ever made. The river was freezing, but my feet were toasty warm in the sock booties (or whatever you call them), and I was in the river wading down stream for quite some time. The going was very slow. The river was shallower on the edge, but there were a lot of slippery rocks big and small that I had to walk over, and I had to be very careful I did not slip and fall. When I came to a little rapid, I decided to try to get out of the river and go around it. Through the brush. That was a big huge mistake. After much distraught-ness, I got back into the river below the rapid. The rest of the way was uneventful, and I made it down to the waterfall, and still had time before the sun got here. I was able to stand in the middle of the river thereabouts to take this photo.

Big Springs Falls is a real beauty. It is much like Mossbrae Falls, a spring flowing right out of the side of a hill, though it is smaller than Mossbrae (25 ft. high), and much harder to get to as we found out. It also flows year round, and even in this drought year, it was flowing like a charm.

Clear Creek Falls is a very pretty 144 ft. high falls on Mt. Shasta. It would be spectacular in the spring, but it was not too bad on this day especially considering that the creek was certainly dry just a week before. It’s a beauty, and I will be happy to return here again, even though it was a tough one to get down to.

Mud Creek lived up to its name this past week. A large section of the Konwakiton Glacier on Mt. Shasta broke off sending huge muddy flows into the Mud Creek drainage, and flooding over a road miles below. The event only lasted a few hours, but it got me thinking about visiting Mt Shasta again. I figured that with melting glaciers, plus the recent rain and snow we had in California, that the waterfalls on Shasta might be actually flowing quite nicely, and perhaps even quite strongly.

So after work on Friday, I packed all my weekend gear into the Gator (that would be our pet name for our SUV), braving the crazy busy traffic, and headed up I-5 all the way to Mt Shasta, finally arriving there well after dark. Mud Creek was not the only waterfall on Mt Shasta that I wanted to visit this weekend. I had high hopes of finally seeing Whitney and Coquette Falls. Surely these creeks would also be experiencing good decent flow from the melting glaciers and recent rain. The area got 2.5 inches of rain at the end of this past week. But alas, as I stopped to examine Whitney Creek with my head lamp that night, I found it bone dry. Huge disappointment. Whenever I have ever driven by here, no matter what time of year, Whitney Creek has always been dry. I am certainly beginning to wonder if this waterfall ever flows at all.

I drove on back to the McCloud campground and set up shop there for the night. And promptly froze half to death that night. My weather app told me it would be in the mid forties that night, and it said the same thing in the morning. Wrong! It was 34 degrees when I woke up in the morning. Even though I was in my (supposedly warm) sleeping bag and wearing layers of clothing, I was freezing the entire night, and slept very little.

The next afternoon I drove up to the Clear Creek trailhead. Before the hike I tried to get a little nap in the car. That did not last long before a couple drove up to the trailhead and parked right next to me. I could hear them talking as they prepared to start out on their backpacking trip. So much for sleeping. The girl was having a major ordeal getting ready. Apparently, there was a huge spider living in her hiking boot, and she was freaking out, and trying to get her husband/boyfriend to get rid of it for her. I am guessing you do not get out hiking much if you have spiders living in your hiking boots. After much time and consternation, they finally left. I am not sure where they were backpacking to, but it was certainly at a much higher elevation, and it would be well below freezing that night. Good luck to them in surviving. Well, I definitely was well past being able to nap, so I ate my lunch and started off on my own hike. No spiders in my boots, guaranteed.

At the viewpoint, you are 1 mile away from the 100 ft. high Mud Creek Falls. It is a magnificent waterfall, with an even more magnificent backdrop, 14,179 ft. high Mt. Shasta. The only way to photograph it is with a long lens, and that is why I lugged my very heavy 100-400mm lens up the mountain with me, which is not something I would normally do. One of these days, I will get up closer to this beauty. I think I now have an idea how to do it, so that will certainly be in my future plans. The waterfall was flowing fairly decently, and I think most of it was from snow that was melting from this past storm. No major glacier events today. It certainly would have been amazing to be up here during the event last week. Of course, it happened during the night so it would have been tough to see it then. Ha ha. From the viewpoint, I could also see that Clear Creek had some water flowing as well. There is a waterfall on this creek as well, and I wanted to try to get to it if possible.

I continued hiking up the trail and caught up to the spider couple, resting ahead, and no doubt clearing out more unruly creatures from their hiking boots. Just before I got to them, however, I cut off the trail and headed down down down. I found a bear path traversing along the mountain side, but eventually I had to leave it because I guess these bears do not like waterfalls. I went straight down the mountain. It was steep, but not cliffy or dangerous. In a surprisingly short amount of time and without too much difficulty, I found myself at the Clear Creek drainage with a glorious view of the 144 ft. high waterfall on Clear Creek. It was not flowing too well, but considering this creek was no doubt dry as a bone a week ago, it was not bad. It would be an awesome waterfall to visit in the spring, and I am sure I will be back here. I will be sharing that photo next, but in the meantime enjoy spectacular Mud Creek Canyon Falls.

Black Friday. As most of you know by now, this is my favorite day of the year to go hiking. No one is out, everyone is either out shopping or sleeping. It is definitely my kind of day out in the wilderness.

I decided to go up to McCloud and visit the McCloud River waterfalls. Again, I was trying to get to a new waterfall up there. Again, I did not have my GPS, having left it back home, and thus making it very difficult to find the way where I wanted to go. Again, I struck out, due to me taking the wrong route.

I was trying to get to Big Springs, which is near the Lower McCloud Falls, but way off the beaten path. With my makeshift GPS (ie. My iPhone app), I found a myriad of logging roads leading over to the area of Big Springs. There were a lot of them, and very wisely I marked the junction of every road so I could find my way back. With a GPS I really should not have needed to do this, but I am so glad I was smart enough to do it, or I might still be out there.

My approach to Big Springs took longer than I wanted, and as I neared the river, the road deteriorated into a very overgrown path, and then a steep descent down a rocky creek bed to get to the river. I had my dog Kaya with me, who is quite old now, but she managed to get down all right. The last step was a doozy and she would not let me carry her down it, but we found an alternate (bushy) way. When I got down to the river, I realized that we were nowhere near the waterfall. I came the wrong way. Big Springs was still far upriver. Kaya was already over-tired, and I was worried about her getting back up. I could glimpse the waterfall, but it would be a lot of bushwhacking to get over to it. It was also getting too late, the sun would be hitting the waterfall very shortly. If I was alone and if I had my proper GPS, I would have continued. But as it was, I decided to retreat and try again another day. I found a better way back up the creek bed, but Kaya was plump beat by the time we got back up to the dirt road. Now I had another problem, my iPhone app konked out on me. I still had 30% battery left on it, but it would not work. It is sure a darn good thing I marked all those road junctions. There is no way I would have remembered which way to turn at the jumble of intersecting logging roads that I had to negotiate to get back to the car.

Once back at the car, I went to Middle McCloud Falls. This waterfall would not be in the sun until 9:30AM so I knew I had some time to get to it. Even though Kaya was beat from the last hike, she really wanted to go down to the falls with me. It is a short and easy hike (though still a big descent), and of course I could not keep her from coming along. Just try to stop me from coming, she whined at me. Now, over the past few months or so, I have noticed other photographers’ images of Middle McCloud Falls, shooting the waterfall from way back, which in my opinion, is not a very good composition of the waterfall. I did not understand this at all, but I did not think it through clearly. Why are they shooting from so far back? There are far better compositions of this waterfall that can be had from close up. I have some really nice ones myself on my website. Well … now I know why. When I got down to the falls, there was just WAY TOO much mist near the waterfall, and this is because the river flow was so much higher. When I was here before, the river flow was lower, and there was not nearly so much mist so I could get much closer to the waterfall. Today, not a chance. The ONLY photo possibility was from much further back (and there was still quite a bit of mist from back there). So here you go folks: a Middle McCloud Falls photograph taken from far back. If you’d like to see (and purchase) an image of Middle McCloud with a superior comp, go to my website, and I will be happy to oblige: http://www.waterfallswest.com/gallery/page.php?id=north.

After I arrived back at my car and was getting ready to drive home, I noticed three vehicles pull up into the parking lot. What the hey? Didn’t anyone tell these people it is Black Friday, and no one is allowed to be out hiking here except me!?!? Ah well, enjoy folks. I am going home now anyway.