Leon Turnbull Photography

I had a thought that it would be neat to try to get to Deadhorse Falls in the winter. It would be very cool with all the snow and ice around the falls (and hopefully, the waterfall would be flowing as well). What I wasn’t sure was how far we could drive on the unplowed dirt roads before we had to walk the rest of the way to the waterfall.

My friend Brian came along for the journey, and his dog, Duke (plus my dog, Kaya). We drove as far as we could, then came to a stop 4 miles from the waterfall. That meant it would be an 8 mile hike there and back through the snow. I was up for the hike, but I wasn’t sure Brian was so keen on that long of a hike. But he agreed to go for it, nonetheless. The dogs had a grand old time tromping through the snow. Kaya is an old pro at these hikes, but Duke had never hiked so far in his life. But he did very well keeping up with Kaya. We were able to follow tracks for most of the way until the last mile. Then we put on our snowshoes to hike the last part up to the falls.

Once we got up near the waterfall, it is a very steep descent down into the canyon. Not so bad in the summer, but a bit treacherous in the winter. Once again, I stood for awhile pondering the situation. There has to be a way down there. I didn’t hike 4 miles through the snow to be stopped here! Finally, I found an easy way down. Even the dogs were able to get down to the bottom without any difficulty.

Deadhorse Falls is a difficult waterfall to photograph. The angles are funny because it is such a tall waterfall (60 ft.), and you have to essentially shoot it right at the base of the falls, looking up at it. With snow around, it is even harder to photograph.

After photographing the waterfall, we took the very long slow 4 mile trek back out. Was it worth it? Brian would probably say no, but I thought it was a really nice hike through the snow, even if the waterfall wasn’t flowing fabulously. Would I do it again? Probably not, but who knows for sure.

I stopped off at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge on my way up to Red Bluff this last time around. I had never been there before, but it is a very interesting area. Thousands of different birds winter in this area along what is called the Pacific Flyway. These refuges were created for the birds after almost all of California’s wetlands were destroyed in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. There is an auto tour route that allows you to drive around the marshy areas. Interestingly, when you are in your vehicle, the birds don’t really bother with you, and you can actually get closer to them than if you were out on foot. Still though, the road doesn’t get as close to some areas that I would like. By far the best shot I got was of this peregrine falcon taking off.

I don’t know what I was thinking with this one. I knew it was iffy getting down to the bottom of Lower Battle Creek Falls, and that was in the summer when there is no snow. In the winter, it is downright treacherous. I should have known that. But I naively figured I could find a way down there. With my dog too.
Well, I wasn’t actually planning on going to this waterfall anyway. I was looking for another waterfall on Battle Creek. But snow stopped me on that quest. I didn’t want to just go home without having anything to show for my getting up so darn golly early, so I figured to try this waterfall since I was in the area. It was rather a fun hike from the highway down to the creek over the snow. Other people had gone down there, so it was easy to follow in their tracks. Once down at the creek, I needed to work my way downstream to the falls. No more tracks to follow. Without snowshoes, it was difficult, and I often fell through the snow. But the snow was hard, so it wasn’t too bad. Battle Creek was a winter wonderland, with plenty of snow and ice all around. The trail goes right along the creek, and it was impossible to tell where the creek was and where the land was. It would have been easy to plop right through the snow into the water. Not a good thing. I decided to take the high road, well above the creek. Eventually, I made it down to the top of the falls. Okay, it was a lot more steep and treacherous than I remembered. With the hard snow, one slip and I would’ve been down at the bottom in a couple seconds, and it would not have been pretty. I stood there pondering the situation for quite awhile. How could I get down there? My dog is apparently much smarter than I am. She was having none of this pondering nonsense. No way was she going to go down to the bottom. Eventually, I decided to heed my dog’s advice and give up trying to get down. But I just had to get some sort of photo out of this adventure, so I took this shot from the top of the falls. It was a bit dicey shooting from this location as well. It is not a great shot, but it does show just how pretty this waterfall is in the winter. Too bad you can’t get down to the bottom without killing yourself in the process.

My first post of 2009 is a waterfall of course. I wanted to get back to Burney Falls while there was still snow there, so I managed to talk my friend Brian into going there with me, even though he had been to Burney twice in the past two weeks. It probably wouldn’t have been his first choice. Indeed, he wanted me to take him to a couple different waterfall locations, both of which were on private property. I’m not keen on trespassing, but I took him anyway to see we could find any legal access to those waterfalls. Instead, we found lots of brand new fencing and no trespassing signs (and surveillance cameras!). It is definitely a huge bummer when once accessible scenic locations (such as waterfalls) are no longer accessible to the public because owners no longer permit access to those locations (sometimes illegally too).

Anyway, it was off to Burney Falls for us instead. It was very cold, and we were the only ones out and about this morning at the park. Unfortunately, it would have been better to have been at Burney Falls right after the last snow storm when there was still snow on the rocks and trees. We did see three river otters near the bottom of the falls, which was very neat. They were very curious looking up at me to see what I was doing. But as soon as I took out my camera to photograph them, poof, they were gone.