Leon Turnbull Photography

The second best waterfall in the Eastern Sierra is only about a mile or so upstream from the best waterfall. Minaret Falls cascades 250 ft. or so from snowmelt in the Minaret mountains, down into the Middle Fork of the San Joaquin River. It is incredibly impressive, and spans out very wide, falling in many little waterfall rivulets down the mountain side. This shot is taken from the base of the falls, after treading through extremely cold water to find a spot to photograph it.

I took my family to see this waterfall during the day. It was a pretty easy 3 mile long hike (round-trip). But Nekoda was tired from the prior day’s hiking, so I had to carry her most of that distance. She’s getting rather heavy, if I do say so. Heavier every day, I’m sure of it. Once we arrived at the falls, the kids had fun, you guessed it, playing in the water and throwing rocks. Jadon managed to, without my seeing it, climb out on a log to get across the stream into a middle section of big rocks, where he played happily for quite some time. The little turkey. I did not bring my tripod and all my lenses on this hike, as I had no intention of photographing the falls in the middle of the day. It was mainly a family trip, and also scouting for the best viewpoints to photograph the falls when I came back here.

I came back here the same evening, sans dog and and sans family, to be here at sunset. That means I hiked about 9 miles this day, some of that carrying a 35 pound girl on my back. I was definitely tired, but I hiked as fast as I could because the mosquitoes were out in the evening. And if you stop to take a rest, they are all over you immediately. But if you keep moving, they seem to leave you alone for the most part. There were no mosquitoes, thankfully, right at Minaret Falls. So I had a very enjoyable time photographing the waterfall in evening light.

I noticed that the flow of the falls was noticeably higher than when we were here earlier in the day. That is because all the snowmelt from that day in the mountains, was finally getting down to the waterfall. In fact, the area where my son had crossed over and was playing on the rocks was now over flowing with water. I had, unfortunately, forgotten my water shoes back in the car. Argh. But I knew I needed to cross over into that same area, now covered with water, to photograph the falls from the bottom. So I went barefoot. The water was extremely cold from the snow melt, and I could not stand being in the water for long. I got across the stream and climbed out of the cold water onto a rock to photograph the falls. The mist was quite heavy from the waterfall, and it was a challenge keeping water off the lens. But all in all, it was a very enjoyable evening, and I even made it back to the campsite before dark.