Leon Turnbull Photography

I took a lot longer photographing the lunar eclipse than I anticipated or wanted. My plan was to leave by 6:30AM and drive on up I-80 right afterwards to Yuba Gap, and back to the Emerald Pools. I ended up leaving 30 minutes later than that, and that was after stopping at Starbucks to refuel. I thought about just going back to bed, but according to my calculations, the sun would not be hitting the Emerald Pools until 9AM or 9:30AM, and so I figured that would still give me plenty of time to get there. And it did.

If you remember my last photo of Emerald Pools, you will recall I could not in any way get down to the bottom to photograph the waterfall from below. My intent this time was to approach the falls from the other side of the river. It looked quite steep from the other side, but do-able. As it turned out, it was actually fairly easy to get down, though it did take longer than I expected. I ended up following what appeared to be a mountain biking trail in recluse, abandoned to the elements, or at least to only the occasional summer hiker. It followed the river downstream for awhile, then turned away from it, and seemed to end along Bowman Rd. At that point I went cross country, making my way back to the river, and then down the steep hillside to the river. I ended up exactly where I wanted to, at the bottom of the Emerald Pools, with a great view of the two tiered waterfall that I could not get from the other side. I got two super nice photos of this place, and I could not decide which one I liked better. I’ll probably share the other one later, but this one is more of a closeup of the falls. It perhaps looks a bit bigger than it really is, but it is precisely 20 ft. high, the upper tier 15 ft, and the lower 5 ft.

After shooting Emerald Pools, I went down river a ways more and found a really interesting 30 ft. high waterfall, but with too much sun, and no way to get in position to photograph the waterfall in any respect, due to the cliffy terrain. I know there are even more waterfalls on the river below this one, but the gorge gets crazy steep in very short order. Only kayakers can get down there. Or maybe not.