Leon Turnbull Photography

Here is yet one more photo from Abiqua Falls, Oregon. I was basically flat on my back in front of the TV all of Thanksgiving weekend. Normally Black Friday is my favorite hiking day of the year, and I had plans to do three big hikes this weekend. However, I put my back out the previous week and it was still not recovered. I could not even drive up north to see my family, so I was home all alone. It was not very fun. It sucked to put it mildly. I don’t like being so negative on Thanksgiving, I have much to be thankful to God for in my life, most especially my wife and children. But the weekend sucked for me. Oh well, at least I did not have to eat yucky turkey. haha. I am hoping this next weekend to get in at least one small, easy hike.

Unfortunately, it has been a very frustrating start to the winter, and the weather seems to be continuing from where it left off last season, meaning it is not continuing at all. We had a little bit of rain today, and another little bit is coming this weekend and maybe next week, but I do not see any big storms in the forecast, and we need some big ones. At least six inches of rain is needed to get the waterfalls going again, these little bits are not really helping too much at all. Sigh.

In other news, I hope you are checking out my new Waterfall Madman adventure videos. Here is Part II of the Feather Falls video. It is really better to watch it in HD, I am not happy with how youtube compresses the videos. I’ll be working on getting them better in the future. Please subscribe to my channel and share with all your friends!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDmSfhl93P0

Here is Part I if you missed it:

http://youtu.be/Vz7jeJa95ec

We received a much needed two inches of rain this week. This made me excited. Perhaps waterfall season is going to start here, finally. On Saturday, I made my way down to my favorite little waterfall, American Canyon Creek Falls. It is only 15 ft. high, but it is a charmer, and such a unique little thing, piping through an extremely narrow channel in the rocks. I love going here every year, and it is usually one of the falls I go to first thing in the season. It might be the last one I get to this season, as well.

It is an easy hike down to the waterfall, but you do lose 1000 ft. in elevation. When I got to the first creek crossing, I was a bit disappointed. American Canyon Creek was barely flowing. That two inches of rain did almost nothing to the creek level, and it was certainly the lowest I have ever seen it. The good news is that this waterfall does not need very much flow to look really nice. This is one reason I like coming here early in the season. In fact, if there is too much flow in the creek you may not be able to see it at all.

In order to see the waterfall, you need to cross the creek again at the base of the falls. This is very tricky or impossible at high flows, but definitely very easy at low flows. The water color in the pool today was a murky green, sometimes it can be a stunning vibrant green color, but I think it needs a bit more water flow for that. So … in order to create something a bit different than usual, I tried to create some long exposures, this one was two minutes long, I did some longer ones but was not happy with them. It really tries your patience taking such long exposures, but I had no where else to go.

After shooting the falls, I continued on down to the river, just for something to do. I did not find much, except for ticks. I have never ever seen so many ticks so early in the season. This is really bad news, and I think it means it is going to be a horrendous year for ticks.

Somehow, while down by the river, I tweaked my back. Oh my goodness. I don’t know how I did it either, I was not doing anything too strenuous. But now I had to climb 1000 ft. back out of the canyon with a tweaked back, and carrying a heavy pack. It was a SLOOOOWWW hike up to my car. In fact, I think it was a miracle I made it, by the time I got back home I was in agony and could not lift a thing, let alone stand up and walk. Next day it is still really bad. Just when waterfall season is beginning too. What bad timing. With Thanksgiving week coming up, I had three hikes already planned for next weekend. I might not get to do any of them now!

In other bad news, I lost my belt down on the trail. I took off my long pants for the hike back up with the belt attached to them, and tied the pants to my pack but did not secure the belt. I knew it but with my bad back, I did not want to stop and secure the belt, but I thought it would be ok. Guess what? It was not ok. Ugh.

God is awesome. He has answered our prayers in a big way this week. We had a lot of concern recently that my wife Tara might have cancer, and I won’t go into details but the test results came back negative on Friday. Praise the Lord. But it is not just that He answered that prayer, He did it in a very special way, answering another prayer at the same time, and that was re-invigorating our marriage practically overnight. After 15 years, we both feel like we are newlyweds again, and it is a real miracle. As I said, God is awesome.

This waterfall, however, is not awesome. It is not really very big either, only 14 ft. high. Nonetheless, it is a pretty one, and I think it was much prettier in person than seeing it in this photo. In the spring when the creek is flowing better, it would be even better I suppose. I think I would like to come back here, now that I know the proper way.

It started out being an easy hike down a logging road. Then the road disappeared shortly before reaching the creek. The main road continued off in the wrong direction. After a bit of searching I found an old road leading down to the creek. It was very overgrown. Why is nothing easy? I thought this would be a simple and easy jaunt to the creek and down to the waterfall. After scrambling through the thick brush, I came upon an easier path and made my way down to the creek, but I chose the wrong side of the creek to hack my way downstream. It was far too brushy. I followed what I think was a bear trail but the bears did not make it very easy for me. Eventually I came to a small cascade and no way to get down to creek level because of the massive honking boulders along the creek. The waterfall location was still downstream and I had no way to continue. So back I went. The old “road” continued on the other side of the creek, so I rock hopped across making my way upwards and onwards. There was poop everywhere. Not bear poop. Not mountain lion poop. Cow poop. What on earth would cows be doing out here in the middle of nowhere? I did not see any of the wild, killer cows. I made my way to an open area and descended down to the creek where I found this waterfall. The last section down to creek level was a bit too iffy, and I had not much time because I had to get back to the church for band practice (I made it on time but with only one minute to spare). There might possibly be an upper section here that I could not see, and thus I wouldn’t mind coming back in the spring. It certainly is a pretty little thing.

I totally forgot about this one for some reason. This is 24 ft. high Salmon Falls in Oregon, on the Little North Santiam River. We arrived here a bit before sunset, and the place was packed. It is a very popular area for swimming and fishing and jumping off the waterfall. There were a couple kids jumping just prior to us arriving at the waterfall, and quite a few people lounged out on the rock at the top of the falls. I had to wait patiently as the sun slowly sank, and while the crowd dissipated, which it eventually did. I still needed to wade out into the middle of the river to take my shot, as there were a couple fisherman that arrived late, and they were in my way, so I found a different angle from the middle of the river so they would not be in my shot. Meanwhile Tara and the kids and the dog waited patiently for me on the shoreline, along with the mosquitoes.

Last time I tried to go to Curtain Falls on the Middle Fork Feather River was four years ago. The flow in the river was 230 cubic feet per second and I could not cross the river, the flow was too strong and too deep. But my memory told me it was just slightly too strong at that time and I almost made it. This year I decided to try it again. The flow was at 200 cfs so I thought that since it was this much lower, I could manage to cross it easily. Humph. I was skunked again.

It is a long hike down to the Middle Fork Feather River, losing 1600 feet in elevation in 2 miles. That means it is a pretty tough hike back out of the canyon, and when you have nothin to show for it, tis not such a good thing.

This time around, however, I was more concerned about different things. I thought crossing the river would be easy. But some people had reported to me that the trail was in serious disarray. Deadly serious. Impassable. The last section of the trail involves climbing down the side of a cliff on wooden stairs. Since the last time I was down here, the stairs and railings had apparently disintegrated, rotting wood, making the climb down impossible and deathly if you attempt it. One of the persons who told me this is someone I consider a hardcore hiker, so I figured if he could not make it down, then it must be really bad indeed. I have not heard of anyone else going to Curtain Falls in the last four years except one other person, and he reported much the same thing. Could the trail really disintegrate in such a short time? I wanted to go find out, but I was worried about those stairs. Not to mention that I really did not want to walk all the way down there and then not even be able to get to the river. But I figured if I could get past those stairs safely, then I could definitely get all the way to Curtain Falls.

Well I hiked down to those stairs and … they were actually ok. Yes they are rotting and falling apart, and they certainly need repairs, but it was not a dangerous thing to go down them by any means. Ok then, down to the river, go upstream, cross and get up to the waterfall. Easy. Right? Not! Firstly, it was much crazier scrambling upstream and I almost didn’t even make it up to this little pool where you need to cross. I think the reason is because the normal passageway is now plugged with logs so I could not get through it. I had to go a different route, which involved doing a mad scramble up through a crack in the rocks, using my rope to haul me up and praying that the log I was standing on with my full weight did not give way. Holy crackers that was nuts. But I made it up (and back down that crack afterwards, which also was an adventure). When I got to the pool I could see that there was not going to be any river crossing. It was once again flowing too swift and deep. It did not seem to be any better than four years ago either. So I had to take a picture of this baby waterfall and call it a day. If I ever try this again (and I will, count on it), I will not be coming here unless the flow in the river is down to 150 cfs. This is a controlled river, and I have not seen it under 180 in the past year or two, so I don’t even know if they ever let it get so low, but I will have to pay more attention to the flow over the next year and wait for the right opportunity.

The hike back up was outlandish. Not because of the elevation gain, I did quite well on the climb. But the bugs were horrendous, hounding me each step of the way, and driving me bananas. Isn’t it supposed to be winter yet? And there were ticks! Lots of them, oozing off the grasses overhanging the trail. I could not believe it. Ticks in November? I have not heard of such a thing before. There should not be any of these buggers around until the rains start well into December and January at the earliest. It was unbelievable, but at least I did not get any of them biting into my tender and precious skin. It was a gorgeous, but crazy and frustrating day in the Middle Fork Feather River canyon.