Leon Turnbull Photography

I slept absolutely awful the first night in Yosemite. I was sleeping in my SUV not in a tent. I was very wired, looking up at every light or sound in the campground, and the worst of it was that my back was hurting from how I was laying in the vehicle and there was nothing I could do to make it better. I was seriously thinking that I should just drive home the next day. Another night in the car would be perhaps unbearable. I wanted to go home the next day but I also wanted to see all the waterfalls on my agenda that I was planning to see. Perhaps I could do both and just drive home late the next day. But how would my back feel in the morning?

The back was not great in the morning but I got up early after very little sleep and drove to the trailhead at Alder Creek Falls. I had not been to this waterfall yet and it is not a particularly easy hike either, climbing 1000 ft up in a four mile one way hike to the falls. Most of that 1000 ft is in the first mile. You are climbing amongst burnt trees left from a forest fire that went through here four years ago. Although the general public view of fires are that they are bad, in fact they are good if not unnaturally suppressed by man. I especially like how the fires clear out the thick brush on the forest floor which normally makes it impossible to bush whack to hard to reach waterfalls. No bush whacking is required for Alder Creek Falls however. My back held up on the steep hike up the mountain after which the terrain was much easier on the remaining three miles over to the falls. There was still some snow at the top (5800ft) which I had to walk through but much less than I anticipated. Most of it was all melted.

The viewpoint of the waterfall is quite a nice one from the trail overlooking the waterfall. I was surprised though. Firstly, about the height. It is listed commonly as a 250 ft. high waterfall, yet it was very clear to my eye that it was no where near that height. More like around 100 ft. high or so. Indeed, my measurement of the falls confirmed the height of the falls was 87 ft. Secondly, from all I had read it was clearly indicated that it was not possible to get down to the bottom of the falls. Yet it seemed that it was a possibility after all. It would be a difficult descent for sure, but definitely do-able (maybe – at the very least you could get down closer to it). Anyway I did not try it this time. I wanted to get back down to my vehicle quickly. Why? I had a lot of other destinations to visit that day still. I was concerned about my back as it would be a difficult descent. And stupidly, I was worried about a bear breaking into my vehicle cuz I had left food in it. I got back to my car and no bear had broken into it.

But as I sat in my car munching on a snack a very cool thing happened. About 8 or 9 deer came down to the road and then five of them (including a baby) crossed the road and came right up to my car. They could see me looking at them but did not mind me so close as they picked at food in the dirt. I don’t know what they would be eating in the dirt. I crawled into the back of my car to get my camera, changed lenses, then went out and started taking photos of them from the front of my car. I was only about 10 or 15 ft away from them. They stayed there a long time not minding me. Finally some other cars stopped as well and I no longer had them to myself. Eventually they had enough and left reluctantly. It was a pretty cool experience and one I would not have had I went down to the bottom of the falls, so I think God was the one who put it in my heart to get back down to the car quickly. Also, it is a story that my daughter Nekoda really would like as she loves deer and told me a long time ago she wanted me to take a picture of a baby deer. I don’t normally take photos of deer as they are so common but this was a very special case which I think happened as much for Nekoda as for me.