Leon Turnbull Photography

I pulled off the highway onto an unmarked road near where I would be hiking the next day. As usual I slept awful. Of course, I had to get up at the crack of dawn. Ugh.

In the morning I drove a bit more down the road to its end and started hiking. No mosquitoes. That was a good surprise at least. I was looking for a great viewpoint of Niagara Creek Falls, a spectacular 700 ft high waterfall dropping into Donnell Lake but it is extremely difficult to get a good view of it. I had seen a photo that was taken from a certain ridge where it seemed a great view of the falls was a possibility so that was my goal for the morning. The hike was much more difficult than I imagined and it did not help that I went the wrong way, first climbing up two faux ridges that had no view of the waterfall. I could see the ridge that I wanted to get up on but it looked too steep to scale, nonetheless I made my way over to it and actually found a perfect little path leading up the cliff. I now had a very good feeling and thought I was going to make it, but then I came to a dead end with only about 100 ft to go to the end of the ridge. There was a 10 foot dropoff followed by a deadly and narrow knife edged path to the end that was blocked by a tree and bushes. Oh crap! I came so close but it was just not close enough. I know that at least one person has made it through here before, but how? It looked impossible. And of course, as you no doubt know, I abhor those deadly dropoffs, so I decided to play safe and just shoot the partially visible falls from this location. It was a “smart” decision but I was totally bummed and depressed about this for the rest of the day. But how could I have continued?

After this I went on a second hike on the far side of Donnell Lake looking for another waterfall. I struck out on that as well but I could see Niagara Creek Falls from the other side of the lake. It was a bit too far away from where I was but it did seem possible to perhaps get much closer to it. It would be a tough hike though and it will have to wait for another year. I certainly did not have the energy on this day. I was getting ready to hike back, but as I was stepping down off a rock I stepped into a hidden hole. It could have been much worse and I suppose I could have a broken leg from it but all I got was a scraped up leg and a severe cramp. I had to lay down on the ground for about five minutes until the cramp went away though it continued to hurt somewhat for the rest of the day. It is a good reminder to be careful out there folks.