Leon Turnbull Photography

If I am honest, I am not too keen on Burney Falls anymore. Someone once said it is the 8th wonder of the world. Now I wonder who that could have been. I’ve only heard that statement a half million times. Maybe I thought as such after the first time I saw it (I don’t think so). After the 10th time? Well … I really had no desire to ever return here again. However … I was already in the area seeing two other new waterfalls that I had not seen before (I will be sharing those pics soon). So since I was already in the area, and since it is the Fall season, I thought perhaps I would just stop by Burney Falls to see if there were any fall colors around the waterfall. I did not think I’d take any photos. The forecast said it would be partly cloudy. However, it was not cloudy, and after the first two waterfalls, it was now late in the morning. Surely, it would be too sunny to take any photos.

As I started down the trail, I could see the waterfall was still in shade. I was not expecting this, but I was on the wrong side of the creek and had to walk all the way around to get in position to photograph it. I started running down the trail, trying to beat the sun. It was coming up over the falls right now. A girl was coming up the trail. At this precise moment, I took my eyes off the trail and looked down towards the creek below me. And I totally bit the dust. I received a pretty ghastly scrape on my leg as well. I had just hiked down two very steep trails to two different waterfalls without any trouble, and now I bite it on this easy one. Oh my goodness. How embarrassing, Madman! If you are like me at all then I know what you are thinking: Jack Tripper bites the dust (for those of you who are old enough to remember Three’s Company). But this was much worse: I was looking down at the creek, not at her.  “I guess I ought to keep my eyes on the trail”,  I said to the girl. She laughed (hysterically). I continued running down the trail (*not* looking down at the creek anymore).

There was a little bit of color at the Falls but not as much as I hoped there would be and mostly all the color was well past peak. I climbed back up to the overlook and took this one photo which shows the best of the colors.   This is all you get, folks. It seemed like we did not really get much in the way of color this season, or at least not as much as usual, or at least in certain places that I saw, or something or other like that. It stayed far too hot for far too late. Indeed it is still much too warm for mid October. What the heck is going on this year? Another summer bites the dust.