Leon Turnbull Photography

I arrived at the trailhead for Kings Creek in the dark. I knew that the sun would be hitting Kings Creek Cascades right at sunrise, and then hitting Kings Creek Falls very shortly after. If you want to photograph these falls, you must be down there at or before sunrise. Because of this, I had not previously gotten any really good shots of the Cascades, and I wanted to be sure that this time was different.

There were mosquitoes out and about along the Kings Creek trail. Bummer. I sprayed myself with bug juice to keep them away. It worked. There was also still some snow along the trail in various places. Kings Creek had a good flow to it, but I was actually expecting it to be rushing a lot harder. I was thinking that it would not be crossable (which I needed to do – down at the falls), but in fact it would be very easy to cross. I approached the junction which leads down to the Cascades and found that it was closed! I have no idea why, it is not like this trail was too dangerous to follow or anything like that. This closure was really bad of course because this is where I wanted to go. And of course, I obeyed the closure and went around on the horse trail down to the falls. Ahem.

I must say that I am very pleased with this shot. Initially, I had thought that I arrived about ten minutes too late to capture the best color in the sky. That is probably true, however, when I got home, I was very happy with how this shot turned out. In fact, I think it is my personal favorite of this year so far. It was a very beautiful morning in Lassen Volcanic NP.