Leon Turnbull Photography

Black Friday. As most of you know by now, this is my favorite day of the year to go hiking. No one is out, everyone is either out shopping or sleeping. It is definitely my kind of day out in the wilderness.

I decided to go up to McCloud and visit the McCloud River waterfalls. Again, I was trying to get to a new waterfall up there. Again, I did not have my GPS, having left it back home, and thus making it very difficult to find the way where I wanted to go. Again, I struck out, due to me taking the wrong route.

I was trying to get to Big Springs, which is near the Lower McCloud Falls, but way off the beaten path. With my makeshift GPS (ie. My iPhone app), I found a myriad of logging roads leading over to the area of Big Springs. There were a lot of them, and very wisely I marked the junction of every road so I could find my way back. With a GPS I really should not have needed to do this, but I am so glad I was smart enough to do it, or I might still be out there.

My approach to Big Springs took longer than I wanted, and as I neared the river, the road deteriorated into a very overgrown path, and then a steep descent down a rocky creek bed to get to the river. I had my dog Kaya with me, who is quite old now, but she managed to get down all right. The last step was a doozy and she would not let me carry her down it, but we found an alternate (bushy) way. When I got down to the river, I realized that we were nowhere near the waterfall. I came the wrong way. Big Springs was still far upriver. Kaya was already over-tired, and I was worried about her getting back up. I could glimpse the waterfall, but it would be a lot of bushwhacking to get over to it. It was also getting too late, the sun would be hitting the waterfall very shortly. If I was alone and if I had my proper GPS, I would have continued. But as it was, I decided to retreat and try again another day. I found a better way back up the creek bed, but Kaya was plump beat by the time we got back up to the dirt road. Now I had another problem, my iPhone app konked out on me. I still had 30% battery left on it, but it would not work. It is sure a darn good thing I marked all those road junctions. There is no way I would have remembered which way to turn at the jumble of intersecting logging roads that I had to negotiate to get back to the car.

Once back at the car, I went to Middle McCloud Falls. This waterfall would not be in the sun until 9:30AM so I knew I had some time to get to it. Even though Kaya was beat from the last hike, she really wanted to go down to the falls with me. It is a short and easy hike (though still a big descent), and of course I could not keep her from coming along. Just try to stop me from coming, she whined at me. Now, over the past few months or so, I have noticed other photographers’ images of Middle McCloud Falls, shooting the waterfall from way back, which in my opinion, is not a very good composition of the waterfall. I did not understand this at all, but I did not think it through clearly. Why are they shooting from so far back? There are far better compositions of this waterfall that can be had from close up. I have some really nice ones myself on my website. Well … now I know why. When I got down to the falls, there was just WAY TOO much mist near the waterfall, and this is because the river flow was so much higher. When I was here before, the river flow was lower, and there was not nearly so much mist so I could get much closer to the waterfall. Today, not a chance. The ONLY photo possibility was from much further back (and there was still quite a bit of mist from back there). So here you go folks: a Middle McCloud Falls photograph taken from far back. If you’d like to see (and purchase) an image of Middle McCloud with a superior comp, go to my website, and I will be happy to oblige: http://www.waterfallswest.com/gallery/page.php?id=north.

After I arrived back at my car and was getting ready to drive home, I noticed three vehicles pull up into the parking lot. What the hey? Didn’t anyone tell these people it is Black Friday, and no one is allowed to be out hiking here except me!?!? Ah well, enjoy folks. I am going home now anyway.