Leon Turnbull Photography

If you know this location and if you are looking closely you may be wondering how this image was taken. You should be wondering. It is an impossibility. Well, not really. I guess that is obvious. But in reality, for most of the year it *is* an impossibility.

My goal was singular. Cross Pyramid Creek at the bottom of Horsetail Falls and photograph the waterfall from the other side. I have been thinking about doing this for a long time now. For such a long time, that my brain began to hurt. As far as I know, no one has done this before. At least, I have never seen any images from the other side before. For most of the year, Pyramid Creek is rushing too swiftly. It is simply impossible to cross the creek here. If you want to live, that is. When I was here three weeks ago, the creek was still just a tad too swift to cross. I think I could have done it, however I decided to wait just a tad longer. I should have done it earlier.

Fast forward three weeks, and I decided to try it again. The difference was astounding. During those three weeks, Pyramid Creek lost more than 50 percent of its flow. No exaggeration. What happened? How could it have dropped so much flow in such a short time? I was shocked. Indeed, as I hiked up to the waterfall, I anticipated that I might not even need to get my feet wet crossing the creek. And as it turned out, I did not need to. I arrived at the base of the falls and saw that I could rock hop across to the other side. There is no way I could even come close to doing this three weeks ago, but today it was easy. The waterfall flow clearly was not very exciting, so I decided to do more experimenting with another really long exposure – this one is 120 seconds. If I had been able to cross three weeks ago, the waterfall image would have been much more impressive. I just waited a bit too long to try this but now, I will have to wait until next year to try it again. I will not be back to Horsetail Falls this year.

Speaking of next year, the early reports are not looking too promising. It seems we might be looking at another weak El Nino, the same as last year. That could mean another dry winter for us. It is too early to know of course, so let us hope this is not the case. Start praying now.

This is the Lower Middle Fork Tuolumne River Falls. An incredibly stunning 182 ft. high waterfall (and before last year, was almost completely unknown). This image was taken back in the spring though I had not posted it before now.  It is located in a spectacularly beautiful area with three amazing waterfalls practically side by side. At least it was a spectacularly beautiful area. Is it still? Of course it is! Nevertheless, this area has been hit hard by the Rim Fire, one of the largest fires in the history of California. It will certainly be interesting to go back here after the fire is done, and see how the area has changed. It will undoubtedly be significant.

It seems that a lot of people are upset by this fire. So much more so than any other fire I remember. Yes this area will be different now. For better or worse I don’t know. Fire is a natural and necessary part of the ecosystem. Fire is not a bad thing, but yes there will be a lot of damage. The fire is much bigger than it should be, and there are many factors why. Nonetheless, the waterfalls will still be there. The lakes and rivers will still be there. It will still be beautiful. As for myself, I’m looking forward to going back to this area.

No, your eyes are not deceiving you. This is *not* a waterfall. I can’t shoot waterfalls all the time, you know. Well, I could. In fact, I am not sure the last time I even posted a non-waterfall shot. Hmmm. Well there are, as you may know, three nice waterfalls within a mile of this location, and even more within a couple more miles. And yes I did see one of these waterfalls as I walked up the trail to this lake, but photograph it I did not. My primary mission, should I choose to accept it, was to photograph Eagle Lake at sunset, and photograph it I did.

I was not planning on going to any waterfalls this weekend or even to go hiking at all. I was just going to spend the weekend at home. Relax. Take it easy. Drink lots of beer. Then I heard from certain friends (thanks Karen) that Lake Tahoe was experiencing unusual amounts of smoke and clouds from the Rim Fire. It seemed to me there would be a strong possibility of a very nice, if not spectacular, sunset at Tahoe this weekend. So last minute plan change: drive up to Tahoe after work on Friday evening and find a spot to photograph the sunset. No waterfalls in this plan. Just beautiful Tahoe.

The Rim Fire … currently burning out of control just to the west of Yosemite National Park (far to the south of Lake Tahoe). It has actually now entered Yosemite and is heading rapidly towards Hetch Hetchy. By the time you read this, Hetch Hetchy may or may not in fact be burning. It is turning out to be one of the largest fires in California’s history. After two years of drought, everything is bone dry, and the fires are going nuts. It is certainly sad when people lose their home due to a forest fire, and also sad if beautiful scenic locations are burned (such as Hetch Hetchy if the fire reaches that far). On the other hand, there is much good to fires as well. One of these things is waterfalls. The Rim Fire has already burned quite a few waterfalls. How is that good? Am I nuts? Well it will be bad and ugly in some of the very scenic places (such as the Rainbow Pool area), but there are some other waterfalls that are now going to be suddenly accessible, which up until now have not been accessible due to the inordinate amount of brush surrounding them. If that brush has burned, it will possibly be much easier to reach these waterfalls. I can think of a few in this area that fall into this category, and I am already looking forward to trying to get to them (in the next two or three years).

Anyway, back to Lake Tahoe. There are so many scenic spots in Lake Tahoe for a sunset or sunrise, and any of these can be spectacular or duds. It is a long drive up to Tahoe from Sacramento to see a dud sunset. When I go there for a sunrise or sunset, I never have a specific location in mind. I wait and see what the weather is doing when I arrive there. As I drive down into Tahoe from the summit, I can see where the clouds are lining up and where the best possibility for color is going to be. At first, it seemed to me that Emerald Bay was going to be the best spot. The haze was thick over the lake, but the edge of it seemed to be at the west end of the lake, meaning that it might really color up nicely at sunset over the Bay. When I got over there, however, I changed my mind. The haze was just too thick over the Bay, and it did not look like it was going to color much, if at all (and I was right – there was zero color over Emerald Bay at sunset). I changed my plan and decided instead to hike up to Eagle Lake for sunset. This was a much better idea anyway. I wanted to get a decent hike in, and I have wanted to photograph Eagle Lake at sunset for quite awhile now. This was my ticket. It is only a mile up to Eagle Lake, but it is a bit of a huffer with some elevation gain, and I arrived at the south side of Eagle Lake about 20 minutes before sunset, and there was no one else around. Perfect.

Well I was not the only one around. I could hear noise at the far north end of the lake, splashing in the water. Some big animal? I thought I heard faint voices. Campers, I suppose, though I saw nothing. I heard what appeared to be a duck whistle. I finally came to the conclusion that it must have been those weird Duck Dynasty people trying to scare up all the ducks and other wildlife in the area.

I would not say the sunset was epic by any means, and it was not precisely what I had envisioned, but actually it was pretty darn sweet. Thank you Lord. But it did not last very long. Only minutes after sunset, the color all disappeared. It left as quickly as it had come. Ok then, I packed up and headed back down the hill, thinking I might even get back to the car well before dark. Not so much. The sunset disappeared quickly and the darkness came just as quickly. No problem. I had my headlamp so I was not concerned, in fact, I was expecting to hike back down in the dark, just not quite so early as I did. It was a beautiful evening at Lake Tahoe and definitely worth the trip up there from the valley.

This is Upper Bridge Creek Falls in Oregon. It is not overly impressive, but would be better with higher water flow. I only photographed the upper tier of this falls since it was the most interesting. I got right out on the slippery rocks into the middle of the creek while my family watched non-nonchalantly hoping I did not fall down the lower section of the waterfall – or maybe it was just me hoping I would not slip.

Well this was certainly a fine and pleasant surprise. And not exactly what I had planned either. Or rather not at all what I had planned.

My objective for Friday evening was to go back to Fordyce Falls. PG&E still has Fordyce Creek cranking out at 450 cfs. I’m sure any day they will turn off the faucet, so I wanted to get out there before that happens. Unfortunately there just happens to be a little forest fire in the area. A big one, actually. The American Fire is raging in the North Fork American River Canyon near Foresthill. Fordyce Creek is up near the top of the pass at Yuba Gap, so it is not exactly in the same area but the smoke is hovering over the pass. It was really quite a sight to see driving up I-80. There is a huge mushroom cloud ominously stretching out across the sky. The light is strange, and the color is remarkable. The hike to Fordyce Creek begins at Fuller Lake which is on the edge of the cloud, so I would be hiking right into that looming disaster. I really felt it would be unwise to make an 8 mile hike through all that smoke. It did not seem too bad at Fuller Lake, but to hike 8 miles through the midst of it would be extremely unhealthy. It would probably be like smoking 10 packs of cigarettes all at once. I’m not a smoker, not even for a waterfall. I decided to go back.

But I wanted to do something. After all, I drove all the way up here. I thought maybe I could go for a hike back in the Colfax area. I remembered this waterfall I had heard about on Osita Creek, so I looked up the directions on my iPhone. It is an easy hike, the weather was very warm, and the bugs were obnoxious. I had absolutely zero thoughts of seeing a waterfall here. I was certain the creek would be bone dry, I was only wanting to scout it out for the winter. Essentially, wasting time because I needed to go on at least one short hike.

I had read that this waterfall was only 20 ft. high and that it was man-made. This is the main reason I had never been here before. I had no desires to see any small, man-made waterfall. Boring. Well, I had three fine surprises in one: the creek was flowing half decently of all things, it is much more than 20 ft. high, and it is *not* a man-made waterfall. I did not bring my measuring stick so I am not sure exactly how high it is. Normally I always carry my tape measure (I mean, laser rangefinder) but this time I was not planning to go to any new waterfall and I was trying to save as much weight as possible for a 8 mile hike to Fordyce Creek. Bummer. I estimate though that this waterfall is at least 35 ft. high, perhaps closer to 40 ft. That is about twice the height I had read. Usually when someone says a waterfall is 20 ft. high, it is much less than that. This time it was the opposite. Weirdness indeed. Also, I was happy to find it is not man-made at all. It does flow through a man-made tunnel under the canal at the top of the falls which is unfortunate and detracts from the beauty, but it is still a natural waterfall. As for the flow, I was just shocked to see it so decent in this dry year. Still though, it will be much better to see it in the winter, and I for one will surely be back here.