Leon Turnbull Photography

Digging into the archives. This shot is from a couple months ago. I did have a very nice day in the Eastern Sierra yesterday, and I will be posting shots from there soon.

I went searching for a new waterfall up by Emigrant Gap on the East Fork of the North Fork of the North Fork of the American River. The what? That is actually the official name of this river. But perhaps we shall just call it the East Fork. It was flowing pretty good when I was here. There is no official trail leading down the river, but I did find a very old, very overgrown, very faint resemblance of a trail. I followed it with great difficulty downstream. The problem was, it was taking much too long. It is only a mile to where I think there is a waterfall on this river, but after an hour of hiking, I still hadn’t gone half way. There is no way I could continue down and be back before dark. Thus I decided to turn around early, and try again another day. I think that I could have continued further and hopefully reached the falls, though I’m not sure I would have even been able to even get a view of the waterfall from what I have read about it. Nonetheless, I will have to try another day.

I returned back to the car, then went back down to the easier to reach North Fork Falls. This one is on the North Fork of the North Fork of the American River. That name is a bit (albeit just slightly) easier name to digest. The waterfall is 27 ft. high, but it is more difficult to view than what I remembered as well. You need to cross the river near the bottom of the falls. That was easy enough, though I did need to get my feet wet to do it. The river’s flow was significantly reduced, I had hoped to see the falls with much greater flow. On the other side, there are some steep cliffs that you need to scramble up, then across, and back down to the waterfall. That was more difficult than what I remembered, and I was not wearing my hiking boots, making it slightly more treacherous. I took this higher perspective photo this time of the waterfall, instead of going right down to the bottom. I do like this higher perspective, though I wish I had gone down to the bottom as well.