Leon Turnbull Photography

The first day after Christmas we went up on the ski hill. Red Mountain is the best ski hill anywhere. Am I biased? Maybe. My children do not ski much, because it is so expensive down in California. Shame on me, I do not like to ski is much as I used to. I have skied at all the Lake Tahoe resorts, and they are good hills there, but it is so expensive and such a long drive to Tahoe. Frankly, nowadays I prefer to hike and not ski. It is much cheaper, and more fulfilling also. However, when I am back in my hometown I do ski (since my mom pays for it). So although my kids are not expert skiers, they do really well when they do go. My daughter and son both got up on the top of Red Mountain for the first time, and there are no easy runs from the top of that lift. They did great. We did have one funny incident when we went to the very top (Granite Mtn), with my daughter Nekoda and niece Hannah. As we were about to get off the lift, Hannah’s board got caught and she did a faceplant. Right in front of me. I could see this whole thing unfolding in slow motion. I could not get off or I would have sliced her head open stepping on her, so I waited for her to get out of my way, then I realized there was no more ramp for me to get off on, and the lift was turning to go back downhill, so I just jumped. It was about 10 ft, and I slammed into a pole, but fortunately the snow was soft. The ski patrol guy came over. He first asked me if I was ok (so nice of him to be so concerned for me), then he harangued me about how I should be getting off the lift properly, as if I was a stupid beginner who does not know how to get off a chair lift. Yeah ok, Mr. Expert, in case you did not notice, I would have killed my niece if I had tried to get off. Thank you very much. At least my sister was thankful I did not severely injure her daughter. I’m sure Hannah was grateful also.

On the second day, the day that Carrie Fisher died, he went to see Rogue One in the theater. I still remember clearly the day in 1977 my family took us to see Star Wars. I was nine. Now 39 years later, I take my family back to the very same theater to see this movie. It seemed rather appropriate.

On the third day, we were supposed to go skiing again however some members of our family, not to name any names, did not want to go up. So I grabbed my things and headed down the hill to Beaver Falls.

It is an interesting hike in the winter along the railroad tracks. And fun. There was about 2 feet of snow on the ground, and they do not clear the tracks in the winter, so the snow shoes were a definite necessity.

In the beginning, you go past some houses. One raging dog maniac was barking his head off at me, and wagging his tail at the same time. Trying to get at me if he could (to lick me to death?). His two dog companions, however, were howling ridiculously. It sounded as if they were both being slowly eaten alive by some sort of large animal. I’m not kidding. It was pathetic.

Along the way, I saw some tracks that must’ve been coyote. It looked like the coyote was jumping down the trail because the tracks were huge, almost like a bear. Then I came across fresh deer tracks and I followed the deer trail all the way to the falls and right down to the bottom. It was not hard getting to the bottom, but once down things got downright dangerous. The water level was very high for this time of year, and I could not follow along the creek bed as I normally would.

I had to ditch the snowshoes, then climb up a cliff and along the cliff before I could get back down to creek level. Once down, I had to work my way out on the ice towards the creek edge in order to see the waterfall around the corner. The raging creek was flowing right under my feet as I stood on the shaky ice. It was a bit freaky and I did not, I could not go any further up towards the falls, and I certainly did not want to get out any closer to the edge of the creek for fear of dropping through the ice. If my wife is reading this, then I will say I was perfectly safe where I was standing to take this shot, and I made sure the ice was very secure under my feet. Ok, honey? Anyway, it was incredibly beautiful down there. My first snowshoe hike of the season.

On the day of our planned trip to Canada for Christmas, there was a big winter storm coming in the forecast. There was supposed to be a foot of snow at Shasta and I was concerned about the road conditions by the time we would have gotten there, it really could’ve been quite bad. So I decided to go on I-80 through Reno instead. This worked very well for us a couple years ago in a similar situation.  It is a bit longer but if we get over the Donner Summit before the storm starts, it is smooth sailing from there. Or so I thought.

Since the storm was to hit Donner Summit later in the morning, we easily made it over the pass. All right I thought, smooth sailing. But when we hit Oregon, there was snow on the road and it was icy. This did not happen to us the last time we did this route. Apparently the storm caught up to us, the going from here was much slower. However, I still thought that once I hit I-84, it would be much easier from there the rest of the way. Again, not so much.

When we got to I-84 things got far worse. The freeway was closed due to the storm! I already had a very long drive and without my wife coming with us this time, I was the only driver. Now I had an even longer drive to get around this mess in Oregon. We had to go back through Idaho up towards Spokane. This section of the road was the worst yet. It was 250 miles and pretty much averaging 45 mph or less the whole way. People were driving far too slow due to the snowy conditions and it was pretty much impossible to pass anyone. After about an hour of driving and only having gone 40 miles, I figured it would have been much better to have just stayed back and hoped the freeway would open before too long. Too late now. Well it was a long drive but we finally made it to Lewiston/Clarkston where we would stay for the night.

Ew the smell! I could not believe it. It was unbearable. I honestly do not know how the people of this town can stand it to live here. The paper mill in Lewiston is a monstrosity as you drive into town. Ugly, dominating the entire river, and spewing out pollution into the air. Of course they tell you that it is not hazardous or dangerous, and I suppose it is not, but it is still pollution. I read on-line that it is only bad when the mill is going, and the people here are used to it. I seriously don’t think I would ever get used to this smell. We thought about walking from our motel one block to the restaurant we were going to, but we decided to drive instead for fear that we would drop dead before we got to the restaurant. No joke.

I grew up in a town in which just down the hill was a lead zinc smelter. Back in the 1960s before I was born, the pollution from the smelter was so great that absolutely nothing could grow in the town or in the surrounding area. They have since cleaned it up now, and the town is very nice, no more pollution. You do not even smell anything from the smelter. That is certainly not the case in Lewiston.

Well what does this have to do with waterfalls? Certainly there are no waterfalls that can grow in Lewiston. That is actually not a lie. No waterfalls do grow in Lewiston.

Spokane does have waterfalls that grow, however.  Or are made. The next day it was another long slow drive from Lewiston on snowy, foggy roads. It was so foggy I could not see more than 50 feet in front of me. By the time we got to Spokane, I desperately needed a break, so even though I have been to these waterfalls before, we decided to stop for an hour and go down and see them again. It was fun walking around the park in the cold and snow, and a good break before the final slog up to Canada. And it didn’t smell.

Here is lovely little Love’s Falls. Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and has a great upcoming New Year. Let’s spread some more “love” around in 2017, shall we ?

We had a large Pineapple Express roll through last week. This storm was very warm – practically hot, so hot it was on fire. Ha ha. It brought up the river levels high, but it was all rain on the mountains and no snow. We do need that snow pack. The waterfalls at least would be fabulous. I wish I could have gone out hiking on Friday, though. The NFAR was up to 20,000 cfs for the second time in less than a week. By the time Saturday came along, the river levels were much reduced, but the creeks still should have been flowing great. You would think so, anyway.

It was very cold on Saturday. It was around 25 degrees. Freezing. Brr. It was all ice. Amazing how the weather can change so much in a day or two. The storm was all gone.

I drove up to Downieville and Sierra City in the morning, not as early as I had wanted to, but I had trouble sleeping the prior night, so I decided to sleep in a bit later than I should have. Here is what I found: The rivers (Yuba) were certainly still very high as you would think. The major creeks (Pauley) were certainly still very high as you would think. But the smaller creeks were not so high, and I was disappointed because I was hoping to see some of the waterfalls on these smaller creeks and flowing strong. Not so much. The first of these was 79 ft. high 1001 Ridge Falls.

There was a dusting of snow in Sierra City, I thought it might be treacherous getting down to this waterfall, but it was quite easy. It was a lovely scene with the dusting of snow, a winter wonderland, icy and fresh. I just wish the falls was flowing stronger. It would have been fabulous a day earlier, I am sure. This was the only “new” waterfall I saw this day. I wanted to see more new ones, and could have if I had gotten up earlier. Nontheless, I did see three other waterfalls. Coming up.

On the way up Table Mountain at sunrise, I could see some interesting color on the right. But without a good view or scene to capture, I kept on going. Then I passed by Schirmer Cascade, and I could see the amazing sky above the falls. Ok, now I have to photograph this! So I stopped the car in the middle of the road (since there was no turnout), got out, grabbed my camera and tripod, set up in the middle of the road and took a couple photos. I got the photo just in time. The fog rolled in, covering up the waterfall. No other cars came by during this time. Who would be out so early anyway?

You can see a second unnamed cascade on the far right. I thought that Schirmer Cascade flow seemed a bit on the low side, but I guess it was pretty good overall, though I have seen it bigger. All other falls on Table Mountain were flowing quite strong. It was a good waterfall day.