Leon Turnbull Photography

Surprises are nice.

After shooting Kings Creek Falls, I hiked back up to my vehicle. Of course, by the time I got back to it, the sun was fully out. I wanted to do one more hike before I met up for lunch with my family down at Lake Helen. My choice was the West Fork Hat Creek to Paradise Meadows, a hike that I had not ever done before, but I knew that there were a couple small waterfalls along this creek. I had no bones about what to expect, namely that the falls would be in complete sun and high contrast by the time I arrived, but that was fine with me.

There was construction going on the road beside the trailhead, so I had to park up the road a bit. After getting away from the noise, the hike became a very pleasant one, following the creek up to Paradise Meadows. The mosquitoes I met at Kings Creek did not follow me up to this location, but the sun was out now, so that was not a surprise. I came upon the first cascade and was treated to a very pleasant surprise: it was still in shade! This was about 3 hours after sunrise, so it was definitely a shocker, but I was extremely happy about this. Nonetheless, the sun was trying to poke its way through the tree cover, so I didn’t have very much time. I scrambled down to the creek, crossed it on unsturdy rocks, set up my camera quickly and took my photos. It was a very pretty 27 ft. high cascade in such a gorgeous little location.

I then crossed back and continued up the trail. That is when I realized Surprise # 2 and Surprise # 3. I came upon the next waterfall along this beautiful little creek. It should not have been there. What I mean is that I was only expecting to find two waterfalls on this creek, but there are actually four beautiful cascades all in the neighborhood of 20 to 30 feet high. All the guidebooks I have read indicated that there are only two cascades, not four. That is because the trail only goes beside cascades #2 and #4. To get to cascades #1 and #3, you need to go a bit off the main trail, and I suppose these authors did not even bother with that (though really, I don’t know why – they are not hard to get to). I personally thought cascades #1 and #3 were the two prettiest ones on the creek (the one pictured here is #1). As a bonus, the first 3 cascades were still in shade (mostly) when I got to them. I was pleased as punch on this hike.

As soon as the sun starting hitting Kings Creek Cascades, I packed up my gear and booted my behind down to Kings Creek Falls. I knew I had about 30 minutes and not much more before the sun started to hit this lower falls as well.

I took this first shot from the overlook. It is the typical, standard, un-unique, most highly photographed spot for this waterfall. But as it turned out, this was the best shot of the day that I took of this falls. I did go down to the base, and I did get on my water shoes and stand in the middle of the extremely freezing cold stream to take a shot of the falls, but I wasn’t really too pleased with how that shot turned out. There was quite a bit of mist down there (even though the falls were not roaring) and that always makes it tough to shoot. Anyway, this shot is pretty nice I think.

I arrived at the trailhead for Kings Creek in the dark. I knew that the sun would be hitting Kings Creek Cascades right at sunrise, and then hitting Kings Creek Falls very shortly after. If you want to photograph these falls, you must be down there at or before sunrise. Because of this, I had not previously gotten any really good shots of the Cascades, and I wanted to be sure that this time was different.

There were mosquitoes out and about along the Kings Creek trail. Bummer. I sprayed myself with bug juice to keep them away. It worked. There was also still some snow along the trail in various places. Kings Creek had a good flow to it, but I was actually expecting it to be rushing a lot harder. I was thinking that it would not be crossable (which I needed to do – down at the falls), but in fact it would be very easy to cross. I approached the junction which leads down to the Cascades and found that it was closed! I have no idea why, it is not like this trail was too dangerous to follow or anything like that. This closure was really bad of course because this is where I wanted to go. And of course, I obeyed the closure and went around on the horse trail down to the falls. Ahem.

I must say that I am very pleased with this shot. Initially, I had thought that I arrived about ten minutes too late to capture the best color in the sky. That is probably true, however, when I got home, I was very happy with how this shot turned out. In fact, I think it is my personal favorite of this year so far. It was a very beautiful morning in Lassen Volcanic NP.

Everyone knows that there are three and only three waterfalls in Lassen Volcanic National Park: Mill Creek Falls, Kings Creek Falls, and Kings Creek Cascades. It is a very beautiful park and has plenty to see, but there are only three waterfalls there. Yeah right. Everyone can keep thinking that.

If you are reading this, you should know by now that I cannot accept such a paltry number for such a beautiful park.If there is steep terrain and plenty of creeks, then there must be waterfalls. And Leon Turnbull will find them.

I did have a bit of help with this one (thanks Michael J.). But I am definitely a bit shocked that Grassy Swale Falls has never been documented or posted before.  Okay, it is not as big or spectacular as Mill Creek or Kings Creek, but still it is quite a lovely cascade, 43 ft. high. And it was high on my list to visit this summer when I was up north.

It is quite an easy hike to get to this waterfall. I was thinking it would be much more difficult than it was. The maintained trail begins at Summit Lake, leads down to a couple of crossings of Kings Creek (I didn’t even need to get my feet wet there), and then voila, there it is. Getting down to the bottom of it was a bit tricky and steep, but nothing too bad. I arrived at the falls early, and there was still a lot of sun shining on the falls. So I found a spot to sit and I waited for the light to get better. It was actually very pleasant, and surprisingly, no mosquitoes (there “were” mosquitoes at Kings Creek so I was happy about that). I was happy sitting here, enjoying the waterfall, then after taking my shots, hiked back up to Summit Lake, arriving well before sunset. A good day at Lassen and a new waterfall found. And in case you are wondering, there are more waterfalls to be found in Lassen than just this one as well. But that is another post.