Leon Turnbull Photography

I got out hiking three times over the long Thanksgiving weekend. I struck out wildly on Thursday and Friday in my search for new waterfalls. By Sunday, I was in desperate need of getting to at least some new waterfall. But it had to be an easy one.

I will talk more later about my Thursday and Friday strike outs. I have at least one photo to share from those outings. But for now I wanted to share this photo from Sunday morning first. Because by golly this is a pretty little waterfall, though it is a small one.

The reason for the easy hike on Sunday is because I was hiking with my dog all weekend. She is very old. She is a gamer and goes where-ever, but I think I pushed her a little too hard on Thursday and Friday, unintentionally of course, but that is what happens to me when I go waterfall hunting. Things are never as easy as I plan or expect. So for Sunday, I needed an easy hike, and even as such, this turned out to be a bit harder than I expected. I was also hoping my son would join me on this hike, but he opted out, stating lack of appropriate hiking gear available to him up at Nana and Papa’s house.

It is less than a mile hike over to Waters Gulch in Shasta Trinity National Forest, a small stream dumping into Lake Shasta. I had heard there was a waterfall on this creek, and I was hoping it was flowing well, since the other creeks in the area seemed to be going at a good clip, thanks to recent rain in the past week. Actually I was just hoping I could get to it and photograph it.

I found the waterfall all right, and it was easy enough to get down to the bottom of it, and easy for Kaya as well. It was smaller than I anticipated, though its actual height will depend on how it is measured. I have not decided if I should count the upper tier as part of the waterfall’s height or not (oh, the complications). Anyway, the bottom tier is the prettiest, and is shown here. The waterfall flow was much lower than I hoped. I think at high flow, this would be a really nice one overall, but not so much at lower flows. A local cougar apparently likes dining here also. I found an old bone and what was left over of some small animal beside the waterfall. Hmmm. Thankfully, the cougar was not waiting around to catch unsuspecting waterfall hunters.

After shooting the lower falls, I wanted to photograph the upper tier as well, and that meant climbing up to the top of this lower waterfall. Easy enough for me, but not so easy for Kaya. In her youth, she could bound up the rocks easily. But in her old age, she cannot. I lifted her up two big rock steps to get her to the top. However, once we got to the top, it suddenly occurred to me that I would not be able to get her back down the waterfall. There is no way she would let me carry her down. Phooey. I looked around in a moment of panic for an alternate exit. I found one. There was a path up the steep bank back up to the main trail. Through poison oak. I think I would have much preferred going back the same way, but for Kaya’s sake we went up through the oak instead. We made it safely and hopefully without the itch. It was a nice easy morning at Lake Shasta.