Leon Turnbull Photography

I did not sleep well in the motel. Too hot and too uncomfortable. I crawled out of bed at 4AM and drove up to the Glen Alpine trailhead. It was dark when I started out. And warm. By golly it was already too warm for hiking.

Before I got too far up the trail and before it got light, the mosquitoes came out to play. I got out my bug spray quickly. That seemed to help … for the moment. However, by the time I got to Far Glen Alpine Falls, the mosquitoes were everywhere. Millions of them, swarming around me. Completely ignoring my bug spray. I could not breathe. If I fell down, they would be on me immediately, and I would be a goner. Have to keep moving. So this presents a dilemma. How am I going to stop and photograph this waterfall? I did the best I could, getting into the creek in front of the falls, but I could not handle it for long. I was suffocating from the swarm. I could only take a quick shot, then I had to get the heck out of there. The mosquitoes were not bad at all at Eagle Falls, the previous night. Why so awful here at Glen Alpine? I am not happy with my shot of Far Glen Alpine Falls, but I could not stick around to find a better composition. I had to move. Or die. I am going to have to come back next year. In MAY. Not JUNE.

And why did the buggers ignore my mosquito repellent? Epic fail. I am trying out some new deet free repellent. It has worked well up until now. But this was I suppose the first major test for it, and it bombed big time. But I wonder if any repellent could have worked today. The mosquitoes were very determined. To kill.

On the way back down the hill I was hoping to stop at Upper Glen Alpine Falls. I was not sure if I would be able to get there before the sun hit the falls. I calculated it would be in the sun at 6:15am and it would be 6:30am when I would arrive. Would I make it? I was also feeling very stressed and exasperated. My pleasant morning hike so far was completely awful because of the mosquitoes. This is not why I signed up for hiking. Hiking is supposed to be enjoyable. So I prayed: Please Lord, let there be no mosquitoes at the waterfall, and please let it still be in shade. I arrived at the waterfall. There was a bit of sun at top, but it was still mostly in the shade, and I still had time to photograph. I turned off the road and through the trees towards the waterfall. The mosquitoes were still hounding me at this point. Then I broke through the trees onto the big rock face that goes down to the creek. The mosquitoes were gone. Huh? I checked around again. No mosquitoes. Where did they go? There is no logical explanation for this. There was no breeze and no spray from the falls here. There is no reason how they could be all around me everywhere, but not here at this one spot in front of the waterfall. It was a miracle. The Lord answered my prayer. I took my photographs of the waterfall, then I just sat down on the rock face for about 20 minutes, loving the respite from the mosquitoes, relaxing, and enjoying the waterfall, and thanking the Lord. When I got back up and headed back down the trail to the car, the mosquitoes found me again, but I did not care.

Saturday … forecast 107 degrees for Sacramento Valley. No thank you. Time to go escape the heat and head up into the mountains to Lake Tahoe. Forecast for Tahoe was not much better at 90 degrees but I’ll take it. We arrived at the motel, I dropped the wife and kids off. Apparently, they would rather swim in the pool at the motel then go to see a waterfall. The horror. I think I am failing as a father. Well, where should I go? There were no clouds in the sky, but I decided to go to Eagle Falls anyway.

I wanted to go down to the bottom of the falls, on the south side, ie. not on the regular trail to the bottom, but straight down the steep hillside from the highway, looking for some new comps of the waterfall from down there. It was easy enough getting down, there is a well trodden path. I could not find any place to photograph the waterfall, however. The waterfall is still flowing very well. All the waterfalls around Tahoe are still going pretty good, and there is still snow melting in the mountains. There was too much mist and spray from the falls to get up close to it from below. I was bummed. I really wanted to get something from down there, and I spent a lot of time trying, but it just was not happening. Finally I went back up to the top of the falls and I found this nice composition overlooking Emerald Bay. It is obviously not a new composition, others have shot it before, but I had not. It was quite nice, a very pleasant evening, and the mosquitoes were not bad at all. This is surprising as usually they are quite bad here and it was so warm out you would think they would be biting. I was happy about that (but stick around for my next post to find out where they were really hiding).

As I was standing here photographing the waterfall, a lot of teens arrived and were walking around on the other side of the creek at the top of the falls. It seems they were from a church group, or at least some were. Then I cringed. A couple of them starting walking out in the creek, climbing over the rocks, right at the very edge of the waterfall. I am not exaggerating when I say they were in an EXTREMELY DANGEROUS position. I watched them for a bit, expecting one of them to fall off the cliff at any moment. I was within a few seconds of going to say something, but then they moved to a safer location, so I decided to let it be. But perhaps I should have said something anyway? I am not entirely sure if they were with the church group because they seemed a bit older than some of the other kids, but it seems very ironic that the church kids seem to be winning all the Darwin Awards lately. The teen who went over Nevada Falls last week was with a church group, as were the two that went over Vernal Falls last year. I wonder … Well, I suppose it is really all teenagers that are like this (well, not all, but certainly many). They think they are invincible, macho, they can do anything etc. If I had said anything to these two, I am sure they would have said they were not being unsafe, they were in control of the situation. They would have said that what an old and feeble geezer like myself thinks is unsafe, is not unsafe to them, young and strong and virile. Many people have died at Eagle Falls as well. Those rocks in the water are very slippery, I am not kidding. And I am positive that the kid who went over Nevada Falls was thinking the very same thing. He was strong, he was not being unsafe, the current in the river was calm enough to swim in, and he could easily handle it. Yeah, right. Next! I am not being unsympathetic to these people who have died, but come on people, you need to be smart. Waterfalls are very dangerous. Ok I think I have said enough about that. Stay tuned for my next post, where I tell you how I almost died, and it was not from a waterfall.

This one should have been flowing better. Much better. I really wanted to get to a good waterfall this weekend. The last three weeks have been below satisfactory for me. Now make that four. Strike four.

My goal was to get to the Shealor Lakes waterfalls. I was certain they would still have decent flow. There was still snow on the mountains so that gave me some hope. However, as I climbed up the trail to the top of the ridge and looked down on the upper Shealor Lake, I could see that the inlet waterfall was not flowing. At all. Dang! It is June 1 and the waterfall should be flowing very well. There should be lots of snow still to melt. It should be amazing. Huh. I feel gipped this year. Last year, I did not feel this way. It was just as bad of a winter, but the year before that was beyond amazing so I didn’t mind so much. This is now the second straight bad year we have had. Waterfall season is done, and we barely had anything at all. I feel gipped. Sigh. Well, it is time to go to Oregon I guess.

Anyway, back to Shealor Lakes. What should I do? I pondered the dilemma for about 5 minutes (meanwhile, the sun continued to rise). If I turned back now before going down to the lake, I could get over to Granite Lake Falls in good light. I didn’t really want to go to that one, but it would be something at least. I could hear, however, that the outlet stream from the upper Shealor Lake was flowing. From the top of the ridge the creek sounded decent. I could perhaps get to the lower Shealor Lakes Falls. It might be flowing. I got down to the lake and to the outlet stream. Well, not really very decent after all. Kinda lame actually. I did see, however, that there was another waterfall at the outlet to the lake (pictured here). I did not know about this waterfall. It is 28 ft. high, and would certainly be a very pretty falls if the creek had good flow.

I continued on down to the lower Shealor Lake. The trail on this lower section is not very easy to follow, it is quite indistinct in many places, and there is a bit of brush to whack through as well. The waterfall down there is not on the same stream. I thought, however, that the drainage size would be the same and there would be a similar amount of water in the other creek. Not so. The waterfall was dry. Ugh! How disappointing.

I made my way back up to the upper lake and decided to stop to take a picture. Better this than nothing. As soon as I stopped, the mosquitoes came out to greet me at the waterfall. It is supposed to be 100 degrees back in Sacramento today. Crikey. I was glad to be in the mountains, but the mosquitoes like it too. I juiced myself up and they left me alone after that. After taking a photo of the falls, I continued on up the trail and back to my car. I definitely want to return here and see these three waterfalls when they are flowing well. Next year, perhaps.

After the fiasco upon my arrival which I mentioned in my last post, namely a big strikeout at the three waterfalls I initially planned to visit, I had precious little time before dark, but just enough time before dark. I had to get to “something” Friday evening or I would just die. I quickly drove back down the hill to the Rainbow Pool area. At the confluence of the South Fork and Middle Fork Tuolumne Rivers are not one, not two, but three incredible waterfalls. I visited this previously completely unknown spot for the first time last year and I was in awe. How could such a location be so unknown to everyone, yet only a short walk away from a very popular picnic spot? Well I remedied this error; after I made this area known last year, I think quite a few of my faithful followers went to check it out. However there was a big problem with the location last year: a tremendously huge rock slide wiped out a section of the road, rendering access to the third waterfall quite dangerous (though some of my followers did navigate past this dangerous section, but to me it was scariness at best – climbing on loose rocks past gigantic boulders and big dropoffs – yikes that is intimidating).

When I arrived at Rainbow Pool, I had 30 minutes to sunset, and it is quite a steep walk down to the falls. I noticed the road was still gated. I also noticed the sign was still there, indicating the danger from the rock slide. Hmmm, well I was hoping beyond hope that I would be able to get past it this time, and get a better look at that third waterfall. There must be a safe way past that rock slide. I walked quickly down the road and arrived at the confluence. The flow was much lower than the prior year when I was here, and this is one reason I had not intended on coming down this year. The South Fork was at about 70 cfs and the Middle Fork at 100 cfs. It did seem a bit higher than that, however, and the flow looked quite good. It was certainly worth going down there. I continued on down the river, around the corner to where the rock slide was, and … la da da, there was no rock slide. It was all cleaned out! Yay. I am bewildered, though, because I figured it would take years to clean this out. That rock slide was huge. Monstrous, I tell you.

I took photos of the waterfall and re-measured it from a better spot: 46 ft. high. It looks a lot smaller in the photo, but it is bigger than it looks, believe me. I continued on down to the end of the road where I found another smaller waterfall, 26 ft. high. Waterfall number four. Then I scooted back up to the car, huffing my way up the hill, and arriving just before dark. I drove into Sweetwater campground, getting the very last camping spot. It was dark when I arrived. It was a great end to the day after a rather lousy start.

It was not one of my best days in Yosemite. Too much sun, non existent waterfalls, long hikes, blisters, no sleep. In fact, out of all the times I have been there I would have to rank it right near the bottom. But hey this is Yosemite, right? Even the bottom dwellers are good days at Yosemite. And so it was.

I left work early on Friday afternoon. Traffic was a nightmare. This can’t be good when it takes longer to drive to Yosemite than ever before. I wanted to try to hit three new waterfalls outside the park in the evening, so I couldn’t arrive too late or I would not have time. It is good that I left work earlier than I was initially planning to leave but I struck out big time on the waterfalls anyway. The first one was completely dry. Well, I was not expecting much from that one anyway. Move on. The second one, the one I really wanted to see, I could not get to. Access was all on private property. I tried to find a way around the private property, driving on rough dirt roads, getting my SUV all scratched up from the brush, but I could not find any way over to the waterfall. At least none that would not get me arrested. I tried the third waterfall. I found an old road leading up beside the creek, then I bushwhacked my way down to the creek when I got near the waterfall. There was an old old trail, overgrown, but at least it made things seem promising. When I got down to the creek, however, guess what? No waterfall. Nada. I was in the precise location that it was marked on the USGS topo maps, but nothing was there. Strike three. So what could I do? I drove back down the mountain to the great place I found last year, at the confluence of the south and middle forks of the Tuolumne River. I arrived there at sunset, barely enough time to take a few photos. It was enough to salvage the evening.

After very little sleep in my vehicle, I got up not so bright, way too early, and very coffee-less, to drive up Tioga Pass to Tuolumne Meadows. I did this big and very awesome hike down to Waterwheel Falls last year. This year, I was not going all the way down there again. I just wanted to take the very short hike down to the one waterfall I missed last year because I was too tired on that hike. It was just a short 6.5 mile hike. One way. Oh I forgot I have to hike back as well. That makes 13 miles. Maybe it’s not such a short hike, after all. But at least it’s not 19 miles or whatever the heck it was last year. Now according to my fine calculations, I had plenty of time to do this hike. I wanted to photograph Tuolumne Falls, White Cascade, and the new waterfall (Lower Glen Aulin Falls) in good light. White Cascade should be out of the sun until 9AM, and the new waterfall should be good until 10AM. Something did not seem right about that but my calculations must be right. I am never wrong. When I arrived down at Tuolumne Falls, it was still in shade, but just barely. I took my photo, then hurried down to White Cascade. It was already in the sun. How could this be? It was only 7:30AM. I trudged sulkily on down the trail for another mile thinking I should at least get to the new waterfall in good light with plenty of time to spare. Not so. It was already in full sun as well. It looked as though it would have been in sun shortly past sunrise as well, not even close to 10AM as I calculated. What went wrong? I am always usually spot on with my calculations. I do not know what I did, but the truth is I would not even have gone on this hike if I knew I had no chance of getting to this new waterfall in good light.

Well, it’s not like it is not a great hike though, and at least I got to one of the waterfalls in decent light. Last year I was here at the end of May, and so this year the river was flowing a bit stronger. Not a lot stronger. Just a little bit stronger. I was hoping the “rain” we had on Thursday would push the flow up quite a bit, as I would sure love to see these waterfalls flowing at full tilt, but it seems Yosemite got nothing from that system at all. Bummer. Well, there is always next year. I think it’ll have to be on a cloudy day next time though, so I can get some better photographs.

On the hike back up I saw quite a few people coming down the trail, including one group of backpackers that lost a couple in their party. They ran back up the trails looking for the couple, but to no avail. They were good and lost. I am really not sure how you could get so lost on this trail. There are signs at all the trail junctions, and it is pretty clear which way to go (ie. just follow the river downstream – and don’t go IN the river). They asked me to keep a lookout for the couple, but I saw no one on my way back. All I saw were deer. No bears, no coyotes. I do hope they found them eventually. I got my blistered feet and sunburned face (did I mention that I forgot my hat) back to the car around 1PM, ate my lunch, and 3 bananas (which my wife told me would prevent me from getting cramps – and it worked – thanks hun!), then made the long slow drive back home. Fell into bed at 7PM and slept right through to morning, which is a good thing because I had to get up for the early church service to play drums. It was a very good day in Yosemite. But I need to go back again.