Leon Turnbull Photography

On Wednesday, I headed up to Oroville to check out some waterfalls on north Table Mountain. It was “supposed” to be rainy in the morning, but cloudy with showers in the afternoon. Well, I arrived in Oroville in the late morning and it was sunny! Sun may be a very welcome thing for most people, but not for the photographer. I had a big hike planned to see multiple waterfalls, and I really needed it to be cloudy to get some decent shots. Well, I started my hike anyway, first heading straight to Phantom Falls, undoubtedly the prime jewel of the many waterfalls on Table Mountain.  It was sunny when I arrived there, but I did take a quick snap anyway. I have never seen so much water flowing over this waterfall. It was amazingly spectacular. If you look closely, you can see it dropping in three separate segments. Normally, this waterfall is just a thin ribbon of water plunging over the cliff in a single segment. But not right now. Wow, what an amazing sight to see this one at high flow.

After stopping at the overlook for Phantom Falls, I continued on my 10 mile hike, past Phantom Falls. I was wondering how easy it was going to be to cross the creek above Phantom Falls. I was barely able to jump across the creeks for Hollow and Ravine Falls. I was sure I would need to get my feet wet at Phantom. And indeed, the creek was flowing wide and deep, a jump across would not be the wisest course of action on this day. However, after a little bit of scavenging upstream, I came to a fallen tree laying in the water. I managed to, with difficulty, hop onto a shaky log resting in the middle of the stream, then hop across to the other side, all without getting my feet too wet. It was interesting, but better than taking my boots off and wading across, and it was more fun this way as well.

I continued on to the two other “new” waterfalls (for which I will post photos later). When I got to them, the clouds had rolled back in over the area. So thank the Lord, I had my overcast skies back, and I was able to get good shots of all these waterfalls. The overcastness lasted the rest of the day, and when I got back to Phantom Falls, I had good lighting. I wanted to try to get some shots from the other, non-standard, side of the canyon. This view is different and unique. Just don’t look down. Across the canyon, I could see some other people at the main viewpoint. I think I heard one of them whoop for joy when they first came into view of the waterfall (and as I found out later, he is one of my Facebook contacts – haha, small world).

I really find this entire area incredibly fascinating. The canyons on Table Mountain are incredibly deep, the dropoffs are so sheer, and the landscape so very interesting. It is so neat how all the little gullies which start off as a gentle depression in the ground, then all of a sudden drop into a very steep canyon. They all have little streams flowing in them (in the rainy season), and many of them form large waterfalls, even the small streams. And interestingly, since the terrain is so similar, most of the waterfalls on Table Mountain have very similar form as well.  It is really a very amazing place.