Leon Turnbull Photography

After visiting Little Roaring Creek Falls, my wife and I went down the road to Roaring Creek Falls. Little Roaring Creek Falls is bigger than Roaring Creek Falls, but Roaring Creek Falls is (or can be) a lot more roaring. But not today. The unfortunate problem with this waterfall is that it is situated below a hydro facility which diverts a lot of water from the creek. But when it has been raining very hard, there can still be huge amounts of water flowing in the creek.There hasn’t really been enough rain yet this year, though the waterfall is still a nice one, dropping 57 ft. along the creek.

Getting to the waterfall is a bit tricky as there are steep cliffs all around the falls. You wouldn’t want to slip and fall, that’s for sure. When I was here a couple years ago, I noticed animal bones scattered around the ledge area where I was photographing. It seemed to me this might be a dining area for the local cougar. This time around, I did not notice any new bones here, but I did see the same animal jawbone that I saw a couple years ago, from possibly a deer. Perhaps the cougar has moved on to other waterfalls. If you come here though, don’t go looking for the jawbone. It is not there any longer. My wife scoffed it.

Oh yeah, one more thing. My dog and wife each managed to collect quite a few ticks here (fortunately, she didn’t get any bites). Presumably, they were sitting in a nest of them while I was photographing the falls (or something). I didn’t get any ticks on myself. I was actually more worried about touching the poison oak. But I guess I managed to avoid that as well. Lucky me. My wife, however, was not so lucky. Not only did she get ticks, she got a bad case of poison oak, and not to mention a really bad cold on top of that. Whoops. I guess I’ll be sleeping on the couch for awhile. 😉

This past weekend was my wife’s and my birthday weekend. Our birthdays are one day apart in January (kinda cool, eh). Well, we were up north visiting the in-laws for the weekend, and since it was scheduled to rain, I thought it would be fun if my wife and I went on a waterfall hike together without the kids. How romantic is that? Okay okay, I know it is not romantic. I should have arranged some nice dinner out or some weekend get away for just the two of us. But hey, I really wanted to go waterfall hunting this weekend. And really, my wife rarely gets to go hiking with me, so I thought this would be a good chance for the two of us to go out together and have some fun. Did I convince any of you that this was a good idea? Or all you are sure now that I am just totally un-romantic? In my defense, my wife said afterwards that she had a fun time hiking with me.

Anyway, onto the waterfall. Little Roaring Creek Falls was the first one we went to. This is one of my favourite waterfalls in all of northern California. And it is one of the tallest waterfalls in the north state (97 ft. high). And it is drop dead gorgeous too. And not too many people know how to get to it. Heck, even I don’t know how to get to it properly, and I have been here three times now. The first time, I went the very long and strenuous way, which involved a difficult bushwhack up the creek through all sorts of brush and poison oak. Last year, I found an easier way, but took a wrong turn and still ended up having to do some serious bushwhacking to get up to it. This year, I was sure I knew how to get to it properly. But we still ended up doing some unnecessary bush whacking. Maybe next year I’ll get it right. Who knows.

It is a very beautiful waterfall and very refreshing standing right up next to it. It is a bit difficult to photograph especially if there is a lot of spray. But when it is really roaring, it is a spectacle to behold. I do hope we get a lot more rain this year. We sure need it, and I’d love to come back here again when it is over flowing.

Harbor seal found in Monterey Bay on the outside deck at the Aquarium. I like in this photo that you can see his entire body under the water. It was a beautiful, very warm day in Monterey when we were there, and we saw plenty of wildlife around the Bay. It was pretty cool.

Don’t worry folks. My next post will be a waterfall. Guaranteed.

On Monday we took the kids to Monterey Bay Aquarium, which is always a fun place to visit. The kids especially love seeing all the fish there. I took quite a few pics from inside the aquarium, but nothing turned out really special, so I probably won’t post any. But outside the aquarium on the deck, I also took a few pics. This one of a pelagic cormorant in particular turned out really nice. We also saw harbor seals, sea lions, sea otters, and even a gray whale that was surfacing quite close in the bay (though I did not get a picture of it). All in all, it was a gorgeous day in Monterey. In fact, it was warm, way too warm for January. It felt more like May or June. But thankfully, we finally are getting some much needed rain this weekend now. Maybe I’ll even get to check out some waterfalls.

We took a very quick trip to Monterey this past long weekend, primarily to take the kids to the Aquarium. But I wanted to try to get one sunset in for photography. I had to play drums in church on Sunday, so immediately afterwards, we left to go to the coast. We arrived at the coast at about 4pm, giving just enough time to find a place for sunset. We went down to Garrapata State Park, just south of Monterey. It is a pretty area, with lots of jagged rocks and beautiful coastal scenery. We even saw quite a few gray whales spouting off in the distance, though they were too far off to get any pictures.

We climbed down from the road into a neat little cove, which required some careful footwork to get the kids down. There were already a couple other photographers down there. However, I realized the sunset would not be visible from there, so I left the wife and kids and climbed back up on the ridge where I could get an overlook of the cove and see the sunset. There were no spectacular clouds around, but it was still a gorgeous view. This shot was taken just after sunset, using a longer exposure to get the ocean waves to smooth out more evenly.