Leon Turnbull Photography

This past weekend, my friend Rob and I headed on back to Canyon Creek Falls in Gold Run, a spectacular set of waterfalls that I had just visited last month. I was a bit disappointed then of the low flow in the creek, which is normally much more exciting. But after two solid weeks of rain, I knew the waterfalls would be ripping and roaring now, and I was anxious to get back to see them. So was Rob.

There were a couple things I wanted to try this time around. Firstly, I wanted to try to get to the bottom of the first waterfall, a gorgeous 42 footer that is best seen above from the trail, but entices you to want to get down to see it up close. It has been beckoning me for many years now. The second thing I wanted to do was go all the way down to the river (1700 ft. below our starting point). More waterfalls abound on the creek lower down, and I hadn’t been down to see them for quite a few years. It is probably my favourite trail in this area, but it is certainly no cake walk.

When we arrived in Gold Run at first light, we found quite a bit of snow on the ground. This was unusual. Gold Run doesn’t normally get snow. It also would make the hike a bit interesting. It is hard enough finding the route through the forest to begin with, but with snow on the ground, it would be almost impossible. But thank the Lord for the GPS. With this, I was able to get us through the forest with only one or two wrong turns. It would be easy getting back, we would just need to follow our tracks through the snow back to the car. But the snow was slushy. Our feet were totally soaked before we even made it down to the first waterfall.

As we arrived at the first waterfall, we could see that the creek was still not flowing as high as we had anticipated or hoped. But on the other hand, it was flowing much much better than when I was here a month ago. When the creek is high, an offshoot from the creek splits off and shoots off a wall in a second gorge beside the main drop, forming a second waterfall. The offshoot was running today. It is a really cool sight to see. But I wasn’t too sure about being able to get to the bottom. After talking to Rob on the phone the previous day, he had told me that he had tried to get down to the bottom on a previous occasion and he found it too steep to go down. I was bummed. I knew that if it was too steep for mountain goat Rob, it would be much too steep for me. But nonetheless, we tried to go down. And we made it. It was steep and tricky, but not too bad going down. Going back up though, we found was much more difficult. But it was indeed glorious down at the base of the falls.

After reveling in the glory of the first waterfall, we continued on down to the Big Waterfall. Then on down to the river and more waterfalls. We saw 6 waterfalls all together on Canyon Creek. I will be posting many more photos of our adventure in the coming days, so stay tuned.

On the way back up, we met a man and woman couple coming down the trail. This is unusual because I rarely see anyone else on this trail ever. But it was even more strange when the first thing she said as we approached her was “You’re Leon Turnbull”. Wow, I didn’t know I was so famous. It turned out to be one of my Flickr contacts. She must have recognized me from my hat (in truth, my hat is probably more famous than I am – thanks, Rob). It was even more strange because it turned out that Rob used to go the same church as them. It is such a small world sometimes.