Leon Turnbull Photography

I grew up in Rossland, British Columbia. I never once saw a moose there. I never once even heard of moose being around here (though my memory is rapidly fading in my old age).

So here we are, my brother in law and I, driving out to Nancy Greene Lake one day to do some mtn biking. As we passed the lake I saw a big animal off in a marshy area which sure as heck looked like a moose. Impossible, I thought. He was driving pretty fast, however, and I did not get a good look. Yet I could not think of what else it possibly could have been. Both Lynal and my mom confirmed that there is moose in the area. What? Is this a recent development? Could this really be possible?

The next morning I pulled my wife out of bed and dragged her up to the same area. Sure enough the moose was there. Three big boys in fact were there. We walked as quietly as we could down to the marshy area (which was not too quiet on the loose gravel road) and managed to get very close to them, within a hundred feet or so. They were watching us very closely but they did not move off and we stayed there a long time watching them with me shooting tons of pics. It was a fantastic experience, one of the best moose experiences I’ve had (second only to the ones we paddled past very closely to on the Bowron Lakes). After quite awhile, we decided to finally leave them alone and went back to the car, pleased as punch.

So why are there moose in Rossland now? My unconfirmed theory is that moose (and grizzly bears as well) have moved back into this area now after a long absence. It makes sense. With moose there will be grizzly bears also. There are grizzly and moose now back in northern Oregon as well. I love it. Now if only these animals would move back into northern California I would be ecstatic. Maybe some day.

The sun came up quickly in Hope Valley as I was photographing the waterfall on the West Fork Carson River. I knew it would be and that I would not have much time to shoot.

I made my way downstream looking to get at least one more shot of the river and the fall color around it. I found this spot which looked promising and (again) I hopped out on boulders into the middle of the river. You sure couldn’t do that in the spring (but then, there is no fall color in the spring either – LOL).

This image is a blend of two shots. I wanted a super long exposure on the water to give it a real smooth look. But in that exposure the trees were blowing around too much and I did not like how it looked. Fortunately I had an exact image but with a shorter exposure, in which the leaves were not blowing as much. I combined the two in Photoshop … and voila!

Fall Color and Waterfalls. That is what I like. That is what I want. The only trouble is, gorgeous fall color around waterfalls is hard to come by in California. Usually by this time of year, most waterfalls are dry or just a trickle, and I do not know of too many waterfalls that have fall color around them anyway.

I had heard from certain unnamed sources that the color was at peak on the west side of the Sierra Nevada, so I called my friend Rob and off we went at 5:30AM to Hope Valley. It is very late in the  year for Autumn colors here. Rob had figured he had already missed it by a few weeks. But not so. Indeed, we picked the perfect day to head up into the Sierra. Hope Valley was definitely at peak for color. Gorgeous Aspens in bright yellow and orange. It was perhaps the best I have ever seen it here.

I dropped Rob off at Sorensen’s Resort, as he did not want to shoot the waterfall. But I did. I was not sure if there was actually any color around this waterfall and along the river here, but when I arrived I could see that there was some. I have a lot of troubles shooting colorful Aspen trees if there is not any water. Finding a good, stellar composition of Aspen trees is extremely difficult (for me, anyway). But if there is water, I am good to go. Water is my thing. Colorful trees abounded along the West Fork Carson River, and with the recent storm of a couple weeks ago, we had a bonus. The waterfall was actually flowing. Sweetness! I made my way down to the base of the falls, hopping along rocks until I got into the middle of the river, and I found yellow Aspen goodness looking down on me from the top of the falls. I had my colorful waterfall shot after all.

The sun came up quickly but after shooting the waterfall I took a few more shots of the river further downstream, then I went back to find Rob. He was waiting patiently at the Resort for me, going stir crazy from the tempting smell of breakfast cooking. I told him we had to go on one quick hike before breakfast, which we did, though not finding anything worth mentioning on that hike, which meant I had to pay for breakfast since I dragged him on that semi-useless hike. But I was glad to pay. The food was good, though only lukewarm and the service was not so good.

Sorensens Resort has a lot of photo prints on display, many from a photographer named Tony Rowell, son of the late great Galen Rowell. The lady at the resort said his prints sell very well there, but I just kind of wonder about that. I was not too impressed with a lot of them, which were taken with boring cloudless skies. What is so great about that, I wonder? Is he just selling so many prints because of his name? And why do the ones that are so blah looking sell the best? Rob said that when he was at Elizabeth Carmel’s gallery in Truckee, and talking to one of the workers there, he was told the best selling of her prints he thought were just, again, blah and boring. Are we missing something here, Rob and I wondered? Why did the lady at Sorensens Resort look at us so strangely when we told her we were done photographing for the day as the light was now bad? Should we be photographing during the middle of the day when the light is so flat and harsh? Is that what people want to buy? Hmmm ….

Ah well, we sure did have a gorgeous and fantastic morning up at Hope Valley.

On the way up to Rossland, we stopped off at Northport, WA. I’ve been meaning to try to get to this certain waterfall on Sheep Creek. It is on private property and there is a powerhouse right beside it, but the owner allows people to come here. I previously was not sure exactly how to get here, but Gregory Plumb (Waterfall Lovers Guide to the Pacific Northwest) provided me with fresh off the press directions and I was eager to try them out. His directions were pretty good, but I did miss the turnoff from the highway, as there is no indication you are on the right road (except for no trespassing signs). But I knew it was ok to trespass here from others who have told me. There was no one around anyway.

It is a fairly easy descent down to the base of the falls, and the whole family made the journey. We had an enjoyable time down at the falls, playing in the water. Jadon of course had to try out his new rain boots, and went splashing across the creek, but it was deeper than he thought, however. I measured the waterfall as being 149 ft. high, but it sure did not seem that high. It seemed more like 80 ft. or so to my wife and I both, but I will stick with the official measurement of 149 ft.

This was one of three waterfalls I went to on my vacation. I had planned to go to more. I even went on additional hikes. In Rossland, I was really hoping to find one particular waterfall, but unfortunately, I did not have good directions, or good hiking maps, and I did not know exactly where it was, though I had a vague idea. By looking at the map I did have, I estimated the hike down to it would be 12 miles round trip, 14 tops. That is well within my hiking range, so I decided to give it a go. Well, it was not 12 miles. It turned out to be 20 miles, and the worst part was the descent. You need to climb up a mountain, and then down the other side all the way down to the bottom. I had no idea before I started as to the topography of the area, but the trail just kept going down, and down, and down. By the time I got to the bottom, I had descended 2800 ft. And there was no waterfall in sight. By this time, I knew I was well past my hiking limit. I was not even sure I could get back up the mountain. I should never have gone down in the first place, but I just kept thinking the waterfall was not too much farther, and how much farther could I descend anyway? I had to turn around before I got to the waterfall, though I think now that I did not really need to go too much farther to get to it, but as I said, I was well past my hiking limit, and I could not have gone any further. 2800 ft. is definitely a long way up. I took it slowly, one step at a time, and eventually I made it. I did not really have too much trouble on the ascent, the worst part were the blisters on my feet, making it very painful to walk, especially the last few miles. I estimated the total elevation gain for me on this 20 mile hike (with all the ups and downs) was about 4300 ft, making it one of the worst hikes I have ever done (for elevation gain). But the good part was the entire hike was at low elevation, so this is why I was able to do it. On one of my recent hikes at Lake Tahoe, I had a lot more difficulty even though the distance and elevation gain was much less, and that was due to the high elevation of that hike. Anyway, as it was, I barely made it back to Rossland by dinner time. Fortunately, my mom had her famous lasagna in the oven and ready to eat when I got back. Thanks mom. That sure helped me recover some energy, but I was essentially out of commission for a couple days after this hike, thanks to blisters and bruises on my feet. I definitely overdid it this time.

Well it has been awhile, but I am just now back from a vacation. We drove up to Canada to visit my family and celebrate my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. As I write this, I am sore, tired, and sick. I did not see as many waterfalls as I would have liked, and I did not take as many photos as I would have liked, but it was not for lack of trying. More to come on this later.

On the drive up, I was hoping to get a good sunrise shot of Mt. Shasta. In order to accomplish such a feat, I got up at 2AM and drove up from Folsom. I picked my family up in Red Bluff (at my wife’s parents’ house) at around 5AM (she was not all that pleased about the time). We arrived in the Mt. Shasta area and it looked to be rainy and overcast, and the mountain was not visible, so we kept on driving. North of Weed, we came to a vista point at sunrise time. The clouds were clearing up, and it was a cold, but pleasant sunrise. Though the color was not very interesting as I had hoped, we did get some nice alpenglow on the mountain. It was a good start to our trip.