Leon Turnbull Photography

It started raining as I was driving back from Big Kimshew Falls. I was looking for some Fall color to photograph, as there were a lot of nice color trees turning along the road, but I was looking for something beside some water. Then I came to this river crossing, the West Branch of the Feather River, and I saw this big yellow tree that I really liked, hanging over the water. So I stopped and went back to the bridge to take a shot in the rain. I couldn’t get a comp without the grey sky in it, because of an ugly flume in the way. But this view works pretty well too, I think.

We spent the last few days in the small town of Arnold CA . My mother and my sister and her family were down visiting us from Canada, and they were staying in Arnold for a few days (for some reason or other), and so our family went down to visit them there. It was nice to see them as we don’t usually get to see them more than once a year.The four cousins had a very fun time playing with each other, and of course, Jadon and Nekoda were very happy to see their grandma as well.

It was cold in Arnold. Darn cold. Yet, it was sunny. The Fall colors were a non show, sadly. In this area, they are extremely late changing this year. The Aspens (shockingly) were still mostly green. The dogwoods were just starting to change color, but were still mostly green as well. I was hoping to get some nice shots of the dogwoods with Giant Sequoia trees but I did not even bother. I took my mom and brother-in-law on a couple hikes to a couple different waterfalls. At least those were flowing.

On our last day there (Thursday), I decided to go up to the summit of Ebbetts Pass to catch the sunrise. It was pretty cloudy as I headed up and I was thinking there would not be any sunrise to speak of either. But as I drove up to the summit, the clouds broke, and I could tell a good sunrise was a brewing. I had never been up there before, so I had no idea where to shoot from or if there would even be a spot to shoot from. I got lucky, as I came across this vista point just before reaching  the summit. The timing was about perfect, as the color was already happening as I arrived. I did not waste any time getting my camera out and setting up for the shot. It was a very good morning.

Last weekend, my friend Rob and I headed up to Monitor Pass for sunrise and to find some Fall Colors. I got up at 3:45am, had myself some breakfast, coffee, and waited for Rob to arrive at my house. And I waited. And waited. He arrived about 15 minutes later than planned; he said his alarm clock did not go off. He just happened to wake up at about 4, then sped down Folsom Auburn at record speed in order to get to my house. I guess it was lucky he was only 15 minutes late. Anyhow, we got in my car and scooted up the hill. Then we ran into some stupid road construction. The flag man was in a total daze. He looked like a zombie, literally. He must have been standing there all night long. We waited. And waited. About five minutes or more later, the pilot car came and directed us (slowly!) through the construction zone. By the way, there was no construction going on! It was too early in the morning, and they had not even started yet. What the hey? Why did we even have to wait? Meanwhile … the clouds were rolling in, the sun was coming up, and it looked like it was going to be a total killer sunrise. Finally, we got through that nonsense, and continued driving up to Monitor Pass. We arrived right at about sunrise, but we could not really find a good spot to shoot the sunrise from, with so little time. Rob got a good sunrise shot though, but I did not. If only we had arrived 20 minutes earlier. 🙂

Anyway, the Fall Colors on Monitor Pass and elsewhere were just about perfect. Beautiful yellow colors in the Aspen trees, and some nice orange as well. Personally, I have a lot of trouble photographing Aspen trees, and finding good compositions that I really like. In fact, I wasn’t even into photographing Fall Colors this year. Normally, I like to get up to the Tahoe area at least 3 or 4 times. But this year, not.

What I like is water. If I can find some water to photograph, I am a happy camper. This was my vision for this particular morning, finding some nice Aspen trees in color along Monitor Creek. And as we drove back down from the top of Monitor Pass after sunrise, I saw a nice possibility along the creek beside the highway.  I stopped, and scrambled down the steep bank to the creek. I got to the creek, but I got blocked by some very thick brush. I needed to go a bit further upstream to get my shot. The only way to do that would be to wade, but I didn’t feel like taking my boots off. So I picked up a couple big rocks, and threw them in the creek. Then I stepped on them to rock hop further upstream. Hey, it worked. I got the shot that I wanted.

This past weekend, we headed up north and I went over to Lassen Volcanic National Park, again. I was leading a workshop on Saturday, but on Friday I headed up by myself to check out conditions. I was pleasantly surprised.

My plan was to head up West Fork Hat Creek to Paradise Meadow again. I was concerned the creek would not be flowing much, if at all. But thanks to a recent storm, there was fresh snow on Lassen Peak, and the creeks in the park were all flowing again quite nicely from the snow melt. They were also darn cold. That will be a subject of a subsequent post.

In the meantime though, I took this sunrise photo before I headed up the Paradise Meadow trail. It was sunrise as I got to the trailhead, and there was some pretty nice alpenglow light on the peak. I couldn’t resist taking this photo, even though there were not any great colorful clouds around the mountain.

On another note, I seemed to have hurt my leg quite badly. It started hurting the day before I went to Lassen, but it is much worse right now. I have absolutely no idea how I hurt it. But it is putting me out of hiking commission. Bummer. Yet I am still hoping to get out this next weekend to see some Fall colors.

Here is a huge waterfall for you. It was so big I could not even measure it with my laser rangefinder. I guess it must be 1000 ft. high at least. Or is that 1000 millimeters? Since I have moved down to the USA, I have forgotten all my metric. Ah well.

Anyway, huge waterfalls aside, this is definitely a very pretty little spot I found along the North Fork of the North Fork American River. I did not get to where I wanted to go today, and was not even going to take any photos, but I happened upon this scene and could not pass it up. The river is just so beautiful and amazingly green.

Although I did not get where I intended, I did get a good hike in this morning. It was my first hike since my surgery more than 2 weeks ago, and I am happy to say it went great and I am back in the groove (for hiking). It is a pretty tough climb out of the canyon, so it was definitely a good test for me.