Leon Turnbull Photography

Wild adventure part II.

Here I am at Grass Lake and there is a spectacular 150 ft. high waterfall off in the distance. How can I get there? There is no trail leading up to the waterfall. The trail officially ends at Grass Lake. It seems a bit brushy, more than I anticipated. But today I am determined. My mind was set days ago. I would shoot sunrise at the lake, then work my way up to the waterfall. Nothing would stop me. Not thick manzanita brush. Not a torrent from Heather Lake’s outlet that I needed to cross. Not any number of immense talus slides that I needed to cross. Not a steep cliff section that I could only cross safely by grabbing onto manzanita brush and pulling myself across it (that stuff is good for something after all). Not a very steep, crumbly, rocky slope that I needed to scramble up in order to get up to the waterfall viewpoint. Not wondering how I would ever get back down all that. I encountered all these things on my way up to Susie Lake Falls. As I said, I was determined to get to this waterfall. And let me tell you, it was worth every penny. What a gorgeous waterfall. Nothing beats standing right next to a powerful, beautiful 100+ foot waterfall, feeling the spray on your face. At a spot where very few people, if any, have ever been before. Susie Lake Falls was officially bagged. But did I break the cardinal rule of waterfall hunting?

The above photo was taken with my 70-200mm lens from Grass Lake. It is my favourite shot of the waterfall. I am glad I did not leave that lens at home after all. The below photo (just to prove to you that I did make it there) is from up close beside Susie Lake Falls:

But the wild adventure is not over yet.

My second goal for the day was to get up to Heather Lake, where I had heard there was another small waterfall. I also had a grand goal of making it to Lake Aloha, and perhaps even Half Moon Lake as well. It was a classic case of my eyes being bigger than my stomach (or in this case, my body). I had initially thought I might be able to scale the cliffs to get to the top of Susie Lake Falls. No way that was happening. The cliffs around the falls were way too steep. On the other side, maybe it could be done. But there was no way to get across the creek easily. I had another idea, however. Why not follow Heather Creek’s drainage on up to Heather Lake that way. It looked rather do-able. The terrain looked open, and it didn’t look very steep to my eyes, or on my topo map. But I couldn’t see what was around the corner up there. I might get all the way up there and reach a dead-end. Then I’d have to turn back to Grass Lake. That would really suck petunias. But I thought I could do it all right. It would be a grand adventure in the making. More thick manzanita brush. More immense talus slides to cross. I got about halfway up the drainage, and all of a sudden my legs started to protest, scream, rebel. They were tired. Too tired. Over tired. Too late to go back down. The cardinal rule of waterfall hunting is to have enough “oomph” to make it out of the canyon at the end of the day. I just only had to get up to Heather Lake, then I could take the easy, well-maintained trail all the way back down to the trailhead where I parked. I had to continue on. And so I did. Slowly.

I finally made it up. Along the way, just a short distance below the lake, I found Heather Lake Falls. I had heard it was just a small 20 foot waterfall. I wasn’t expecting much of anything here. What I found, instead, was a beautiful 38 ft. high, fan-type waterfall. Not only that, there was a double falls here as a small stream fed by snow melt from the mountains, made its way down and formed a second waterfall at the same location. I took this photo from the top of that small stream looking over at Heather Lake Falls. What a beautiful location, and a perfect spot to eat my sandwich. So I did.

Once up at Heather Lake, I was way way way too tired to think of doing any additional hiking (ie. to Lake Aloha). So I made my way back down the trail to the car. It was very slow going. My legs had completely had it with me. I had scratches all over my legs. I had blisters on my feet. I had sunburn. Fortunately, it was (mostly) all downhill. But even so, it took a very long time to hike back down. But I made it. And what an incredible adventure in the Desolation Wilderness, going where few have gone before.