Leon Turnbull Photography

Dutch Creek in Coloma is truly a magical place. It is certainly one of my favourite places in the greater Sacramento area. In the winter when the creeks are flowing, Dutch Creek and Johntown Creek collide in spectacular beauty, twin waterfalls each about 100 feet high, side by side, in a steep narrow canyon, joining together in a glorious display of splendor, force, and fury. It is magic. No, it is Creation at its finest. Only a God of power and love could create something so magnificent.

Ah, but of course it is also a dangerous place. Such beauty and magnificence must only come with peril as well. Anything truly worthwhile getting to must come at a price. C’est oui? The canyon is precipitous, the dropoffs are deadly, the paths are narrow and slippery. A place for children, not. A place for the timid of foot, not. A place for the faint of heart, not. But for the brave, the valiant, the rewards are stupendous, the scenery breathtaking.

When I first laid my eyes on these waterfalls a year ago, I was in awe. The beauty was undeniable. I was not expecting to find such an astounding scene. I have returned many times since then and I have seen the falls in full flood, and when only trickling. But I think they are best like they are right now, showing their full splendour and form, and accessibility is perhaps a tad easier.

But how to photograph such beauty? Johntown Creek Falls in particular, is one that I have not yet solved. It is tucked away in a narrow canyon and difficult to view, let alone photograph. From the main trail at the bottom where the two creeks join, it is partially visible. The first time I was here, I worked my way down to the creek and took a long distance, unsatisfactory, photograph of it. Getting up close to the falls seems impossible, even when there is no water in the creek at all. The photo shown here, above, is from the brink of Johntown Creek Falls, with Dutch Creek Falls in the background. This was seriously as close as I dared approach this monster, this beast. A mountain goat could, perhaps, get a better view of it. I love this photograph, because I think it does show the beauty of this canyon, as well as the danger of it. But one day I will have to return again, and try to find a way to shoot the ever elusive beast of Johntown.

I returned again to Dutch Creek in Coloma and this time I came away with what I was looking for.

The forecast was for a steady rain all day long. I was prepared to get wet. But it is difficult to take photos when it is raining hard (not to mention that I would be totally soaked after 5 minutes of hiking). But I woke up to a very light rain in Folsom. Okay I thought, I can deal with this. This is nothing. Almost perfect hiking weather. Off I went to Coloma. Of course, by the time I got to Placerville that light rain turned into a hard rain. Oh I thought, maybe I can’t deal with this after all. Nonetheless, I continued on to Coloma, and by the time I got there, it was back to a nice light rain again. Sweet. The entire hike up to the waterfalls was perfect, just a light rain, and a very lovely hike.

Except that the trail had turned into an obstacle course. There were a large number of downed trees across the trail from the recent storms we had in January. The last time I was here (which was this year, before the storms) the trees were not down. Interestingly enough, there were well worn paths around the downed trees. That meant that a number of people had been up here in the last month. I was a bit surprised about that, because I didn’t think this was such a popular trail (I’ve certainly never seen anyone else hiking on this trail). Dutch Creek was flowing along nicely, not too crazy, but a definite good flow to it.

Now of course once I arrived at the waterfalls, the nice light rain had turned into a hard rain again. Doh! I scrambled up to the top of the waterfall on Johntown Creek in the now hard rain. It is a difficult scramble up to the top. It is also a dangerous spot right where the two creeks (Johntown and Dutch) come together forming two beautiful waterfalls side by side. I was a bit worried about that spot, as the rain makes the rocks and dirt very slippery, and a fall there would not be a good thing. But I found a way around that spot, an easy and safe path leading up to the top (though steep of course). Once at the top, I continued up to Upper Johntown Creek Falls, which was my primary goal for the day. First though, I continued hiking on the trail past the upper falls. I was curious how far the trail went, and if there might be additional waterfalls along the creek. I did not find any more waterfalls, just one small cascade, but the trail continued for quite a distance, and I followed it until the creek leveled out in a little clearing, then turned back.

Upper Johntown Creek Falls is 60 ft. high. The last time I was here, the creek was in flood and it was roaring. I could not get a good photo of the falls at that time because I could not get close enough to the waterfall due to the raging creek. That was also the time I almost lost my wallet, due to a broken zipper on my backpack. This time, I had a new backpack, firmly zipped up, and the creek was not in flood. Still though, in order to get close enough to the waterfall to photograph it, I had to cross the creek twice. And that required getting wet (actually, I was already quite wet due to the rain). I had anticipated this though, and I had brought my water shoes. So I put them on, and was able to cross the creek without too much difficulty. On the other side, I had to scramble a bit upstream, then cross back again, in order to get in this position right in front of the waterfall. It is a tough beast to photograph, as the creek makes a right hand turn halfway down the falls, in a steep narrow canyon. Thankfully, by the time I got ready to photograph the falls, the rain had subsided. Indeed, it had stopped. It was supposed to rain all day long, and now the rain had completely stopped. I was able to go back and photograph the other waterfalls, and had no more rain for the rest of the day – that was a very pleasant blessing.

This one is from my outing last weekend.

This is the third waterfall on Arroyo San Jose (35 ft. high). It is probably my favourite of the four waterfalls on this creek, and it is probably because of the difficulty getting to it. It is quite dangerous to get down to, requiring a very steep descent, on a slippery slope, with not much to hold onto. Once down at the falls, it is particularly difficult to photograph as well. You cannot get right down to the creek, so I was taking the photo on the side of the steep slope, planting my foot against a tree for support so I would not fall, and trying to setup my camera and tripod in a stable enough spot. It worked, and I kinda like how this photo turned out, actually. It is not clean due to the branches at the bottom, but I do not think they detract from the photo, in fact I think they enhance it in some odd way.

This is the second place I went to in Novato last weekend: Pacheco Creek.

Pacheco Creek was not flowing very well at all, compared to Arroyo San Jose. I was thoroughly disappointed as I hiked up this canyon. I was also a bit disappointed at the height of this waterfall. It is 24 ft. high, and I had been told it was quite a bit higher than that. Still though, it is a pretty one and worth seeing, though it would be better when the creek is flowing much higher.

Like Arroyo San Jose, it does take quite a lot of work to get up to it, and requires hiking along steep, narrow paths, with dangerous drop-offs. That is just par for the course, I suppose.

After doing these two hikes in Novato, I had initially thought of going to Cataract Creek on Mt. Tam, and I knew that one would be flowing very well. But all this scrambling and steep hiking made me much too tired, so I decided to leave that hike for another day.

I had a very nice morning outing in Novato. Though will I ever return to these two waterfalls? I do not know.

This weekend I decided to head on over to Marin County to find some new waterfalls. With all the recent rain we’ve had, I figured this was the best time to seek out waterfalls in the Bay area. The vast majority of waterfalls in that area only flow well right after heavy rains. We did have heavy rains. But the thing is, the last rain was about a week ago. Would I be too late? The answer is yes and no.

My goal for this day: Novato.

I had heard about some new waterfalls in this area, and I figured this was a good time to check them out. Sometimes I like going to waterfalls that I have visited in the past. Sometimes I like going to new waterfalls that I have not visited before. This weekend I wanted to see some new ones.

The name of the first set of waterfalls I found was Arroyo San Jose Falls. I cannot pronounce it (just ask my wife), but I can tell you that this creek holds some gorgeous waterfalls. There are actually four separate waterfalls on this creek, all in the range of about 25 to 60 feet high. The one pictured here is the first waterfall you come to (37 ft. high), a very short easy hike up the creek from the trailhead.

In order to get to the upper ones, however, requires a bit of work. The trail continues up above this first waterfall. It is steep, it is slippery, it is narrow in places, and it has dangerous drop-offs. After last week at Canyon Creek, I was not really in the mind of doing any difficult or dangerous scrambling. But I have come to realize that virtually all waterfalls can be quite dangerous. Even if it is an easy and safe hike to the waterfall (like this first one here), if you do any scrambling around the waterfall (like trying to get to the top of it, for instance), then all of a sudden you are in a danger zone and need to be extremely careful. So … I was very careful of course, as I scrambled up to waterfalls two, three, and four. Number two was the smallest one, and it was fairly easy to get to. Number three was the most difficult, requiring a steep, dangerous, descent down to the creek. I almost didn’t go down to it, but finally found some branches to hang onto, to guide my descent. Number four was the biggest one, 55+ ft. high. All of them were quite pretty, though not all easy to photograph. And the creek was flowing fairly well too, a week after the rains, but it was not “rushing”, and I was hoping that it would be flowing a little better than it was. That is the trouble with most of these Bay area waterfalls. You really need to get to them the next day after a storm. Still though, this one was sure pretty nice.