Leon Turnbull Photography

My son Jadon is not really much of a hiker. Whenever I ask him to go, he always says no. He would rather stay home and play with his Legos. But an opportunity presented itself this week. My parents are visiting us for the week, and the kids have been enjoying swimming in the pool at the hotel where they are staying. On one day, I said to Jadon that I would go swimming with them that day, if he would go hiking with me on Saturday. He agreed. I didn’t mention that he would have to get up at 4:30AM as well. I picked a nice easy hike for him, close to home. Hidden Falls in Auburn. My mother also wanted to tag along as well. So the three of us (plus the dog, Kaya) got up early on Saturday and left Folsom at around 5AM. While hiking down to the falls, Jadon wondered where everyone else was that morning. “Your daddy is the only one in this town crazy enough to get up this early, son”. Considering it was an overcast day, we really didn’t have to start hiking so early. But usually it is sunny, and in order to get good photos, I need to start hiking even earlier than we did today. I thought this was a good starter hike for Jadon, and I wanted to see how he would do on an early morning hike, and he did great. He even really enjoyed it this time. He has a little digital camera that I got him, and he liked taking pictures and video of the waterfall. But my mom got him even more excited about taking pictures of wildflowers. Uh oh. All in all, it was a very enjoyable morning, and I might even be able to talk him into going hiking with me again sometime. We’ll see.

Hidden Falls is certainly not a spectacular waterfall by any means, but it is nice and it is easy to walk to. They have put in a new overlook directly over the falls. It is a nice view, but not a great angle for photography, so I scrambled down the bank a bit to get a better angle while my mom and Jadon waited up above. I was looking out for poison oak down there, and did not see any. And yet, I came home with a very bad case of oak from this hike. I am 100 percent sure that I did not touch any poison oak. So this much prove that I can get it just by looking at it. Seriously, I did not touch any on this hike. The only thing I can think of is that my dog was in it and got it on her fur, and I touched it on her. Ugh, if that is true, it might be the last time I take her on a hike. Just kiddin.

The Governator of California has proposed closing 220 state parks throughout the state of California, in order to cut the budget deficit. Only 59 parks would remain open. This is an outrage in my opinion. These parks are our lifeblood in California, our treasures. There are many magnificent waterfalls in these parks, as well as many many other unique and precious, and fragile scenery and artifacts. Although they say it is only temporary until the budget crisis is under control, I am sure that once it happens, it will be very difficult to re-open them. California has had budget problems every year for the past 250 years (give or take), and that problem is not going to go away soon. The parks will not be re-opening at the very least until Arnold is kicked out. Not to mention, and this is my horrifying concern, what will happen if the gates do close at these parks? Who is going to stop people from going in and committing atrocious acts of vandalism in these precious parks? (Bodie, Mono Lake, etc.). Or even just abnormal littering? Let’s face it: there are many idiots out there who will do exactly this. And with no park rangers to stop it, I can only imagine the atrocity. And what about all the rangers and employees who will lose their jobs? I love what the rangers do; they are so important to our state.

You can help by signing the following petition. Please do so:

Petition

List of parks being closed:

Cal Parks Foundation

Here are some associated news stories:

LA Times #1

LA Times #2

One of the parks NOT on the list just happens to be the one I most frequent: Auburn SRA. I am grateful for that (though, I’m not sure how they could really close that one anyway). Auburn SRA has already experienced enough grief and headache over the years (from the proposed Auburn Dam). But still, I am quite upset about the closures that are on the list, including Burney Falls, Berry Creek Falls, Limekiln Falls, McWay Falls, Pfeiffer Falls, Eagle Falls. The list goes on and on.

Speaking of park rangers and Auburn SRA, if you want to read a great book about the work that these guys do, you really should read this book. It is definitely one of the best books I have ever read:

Nature Noir by Jordan Fisher Smith

I was standing right on the edge of Secret Falls (aka Granite Lake Falls) to get this shot. My tripod leg was practically right in the stream, as I tried to get as close to the edge as possible to get the shot that I wanted. Don’t worry. It was quite safe enough. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to take any more steps to the right, but I didn’t feel I was in a dangerous spot at any time, even though it may not look like it from the photo (and that would be a good thing, because I was trying to give you the viewer a sense of vertigo or precariousness, looking down from the top of the falls). I always play things on the conservative side when I visit waterfalls. I am well aware of the dangers involved, falling on slippery rocks, or into rushing streams. Many people have died at waterfalls, and I don’t plan to be one of them. However, I do have nightmares about that, but that’s another story.

After my beautiful morning visit to Secret Falls, I still had some time to spare before I needed to head back to Cameron Park for the church service. I tried to find another waterfall, but this time I struck out. That happens more often than not, when waterfallin’. I was scrambling up a small stream off trail, and thought I saw a waterfall in the distance. It looked like it might be a pretty nice one too. I continued scrambling up to it, through quite a lot of brush, and when I finally got up to it, I realized it was just a small 5 footer. From the distance it looked like it might be a lot bigger. I was a bit bummed, it would have been so sweet to find a new waterfall, but at least I did get to one nice waterfall, sometimes I don’t even get that.

This is another one of those waterfalls I would never have known existed if not for some very nice person informing me about it. I am calling this one Granite Lake Falls, and it is a beauty, 33 ft. high. The stream is part of the outlet stream from Granite Lake, which dumps into Silver Lake. The other part comes from high up in the mountains at Summit Meadow Lake. In the spring, when the streams are flowing, this waterfall rocks. But how would one ever know this waterfall exists?

From study of Google Earth and topo maps, there is no indication whatsoever of a waterfall in this area. There doesn’t even seem to be any outlet to Granite Lake. Not to mention, the topography just does not look steep enough. “Surprise, surprise!” says God. There is indeed a waterfall, and a pretty good one at that. I probably would never have gone up here had I not known there was a waterfall. But I did not know exactly where it was, and I wasn’t expecting it at this particular point along the trail. I was guessing it would be further up towards Granite Lake, and I also wasn’t expecting such a nice one and such a big one (I was thinking it would be more around 20 ft. or less).

So on Sunday morning, I got up at 3:30AM and headed out to Silver Lake. It is a very short hike from Silver Lake up to the waterfall, and I arrived at the falls about sunrise. Needless to say, I was very happy to find this fabulous falls. I carefully made my way down from the top of the falls to the base (it was actually much harder going back up). There was quite a lot of mist at the bottom of the falls, but moving downstream a bit, I found this cool spot to photograph. It was a beautiful morning.

I continued up another 10 minutes to Granite Lake, but I arrived at the lake about 15 minutes too late as the sun was already up above the mountains. I must have awoke all the mosquitoes there, and I think they were not very happy about it. Or should I say, they were very happy. Breakfast! I quickly took a photo of the lake, then headed back down the trail, away from the mosquitoes, and still had plenty of time to make it to church.