Leon Turnbull Photography

As I biked down Fallen Leaf Lake Road I came upon this scene as the almost full moon was setting behind Mt. Tallac with a stellar reflection in the lake. Well, it was not a waterfall so I did not stop. Yeah, right. I could not not stop and take a shot of this glorious scene. The little bit of clouds coloring just prior to sunrise also added to the beautiful scene.

This was a semi half planned shot, actually. I knew the moon would be setting behind the mountains at sunrise, and I was thinking of shooting it as I hiked up to Glen Alpine Falls, but I was thinking of shooting from a different location, not behind Tallac. The scene at Tallac did not occur to me beforehand, though it should have because it is a much more magnificent scene then the one I had in mind. Well, it was a gorgeous morning indeed.

This week is looking pretty good. By the end of it, we could have 4 or 5 feet of snow in Tahoe, and double that in northern California maybe. About time, I say.

But four feet of snow is nowhere near enough. As I drove up to Tahoe on Saturday, looking for some snow to play in, I did not find very much. At Kyburz, where that huge snow measuring stick is that goes up to 12 feet high (you know what I mean, if you have driven by it), it was measuring a big whopping zero. I essentially did not see any snow until 6500 ft. elevation. I was initially hoping to find a nice snowy waterfall, and I was beginning to wonder if I would find any snow at the falls at all.

Upper Glen Alpine Falls was my destination. I was here in the winter a couple seasons ago, and it was completely buried in the snow and could not be seen at all. I was pretty sure that would not be the case this time around. The road on Fallen Leaf Road is gated two miles in during the winter, so that means you have to hike the remaining three miles along the road, and then it is an additional mile to the falls. I did not want to hike that three miles, so I brought my bike along, which would make that section go by very quickly. My calculations showed that the sun would be hitting the falls very early, around 7AM (30 minutes after sunrise), so I tried to arrive very early. It was still dark, but it was 15 minutes later than I wanted to be. I packed everything onto my bike as quickly as possible and set off down the road. I purposely left my snowshoes in the car, as I did not think they would be necessary with so little snow. It was 20 degrees outside, but I was warm and toasty in the brand new winter jacket (and much needed) I just bought on sale at REI.

Along the road, I noticed that the almost full moon was setting beside Mt. Tallac with a beautiful reflection in Fallen Leaf Lake. Well, I just had to stop to take a picture of that! (and I will share that photo soon). That took another 15 minutes, and it was now almost sunrise. I would have very little time to play with but I figured I could still get to the waterfall in time. At the end of the road, I locked up my bike to a tree, changed into my winter boots, and set off up the path. There was a beaten track through the snow from other people all the way to the Desolation Wilderness trailhead (the spot where you would drive to in the summer), so the going was very easy. But at the trailhead, the tracks stopped there. No one had gone any further up the trail, so I had to beat my own path. It was only a half mile to the falls from here, and should be easy because there was not much snow, right? Well, it started off easily enough, but as I got further in, the snow got deeper. It was now 3 to 4 feet deep in places, and softer as well, not hard packed. Maybe I should have brought my snow shoes after all! Indeed I should have, but I just trudged through the snow, more slowly now, but I kept going steadily enough. It was not very far to the falls.

As I approached the waterfall, I could see the sun was already on it. It was only 7AM, but I was already too late. But God does provide! I made my way down to the bottom of the falls, and as I did so, clouds rolled over in front of the sun. I now had plenty of time to photograph the waterfall. Thank you Lord! It was an awesome morning at Upper Glen Alpine Falls. The snow around the waterfall was really nice, and it was flowing a lot more than it was when I was here in the Fall. That is because all that snow we received last week is already melting. I took my time, enjoyed the view of the waterfall, then hiked back down to photograph the lower falls. The bike ride back to the car was much more tiring, as it is more uphill; I am sure out of biking shape. I was quite tired by the time I got back to the car. Time to go get some breakfast in Tahoe. Phew.

Codfish Creek Falls is not one I would normally go to on my own for a number of reasons. I have been to it many times before and usually I like going to new stuff. But on Sunday afternoon I wanted an easy hike that our whole family could go to and Codfish definitely qualifies.

I tried to go out to a waterfall on Saturday. With four inches or so of new rain in the foothills I figured Canyon Creek at Gold Run would be perfect. And it almost was. I like to call Canyon Creek, Tick City because it is infested with the little buggers in the spring. I once had to brush off about fifty ticks clinging to me after hiking about a mile down the canyon. I figured this trip would be no different. It is early in the season but the ticks are out already due to the warm weather and lack of precip this year. Out in force. I have heard it is the worst season for ticks perhaps ever (and I know that the last two seasons have been very awful). However, I did have some good news. This last storm brought low snow, about a foot to Gold Run. All the ticks were buried under it, making my hike more difficult but much more pleasant with no ticks. Unfortunately it also brought one more difficulty: that darn narrow freaky bridge crossing over Canyon Creek just above the first waterfall. As it was very early in the morning and very cold, the bridge was a skating rink, very icy, and very dangerous to cross. One slip and I would have plunged into the cold fast rushing creek below. Not good. I decided to turn back. A wise decision but it made me very disappointed.

So that is why I wanted to go out on Sunday. I needed to at least get to one waterfall this weekend even if it is one I’ve been to before. My family has been sick and didn’t really want to go, especially my daughter, but I managed to talk them into it and everyone had a really nice time.

There was a lot of people out on the trail to Codfish even though it was late on Sunday afternoon. This is another reason I don’t like to come here anymore and if I do it would be at sunrise before anyone else is out and about. Once we got to the falls I had to wait quite awhile for everyone and their dog to clear out of the way so I could have a view of the falls with no one in the way. In the meantime the kids had fun throwing plenty of rocks into the creek. I was able to easily get right into the creek to take this photo. After an inch or more of recent rain here I thought the creek would have quite a bit more flow on it. Not so.

The last reason I may not come here much in the future, though, is a new one: there is now a $10 fee to park here! What the heck? You have to now pay ten dollars to go on a one hour hike?? Let’s be honest folks, this is totally ridiculous. And let’s just consider how awful the access road down to the river is, which requires a high clearance vehicle to drive on, and the facilities consist of one small dirty outhouse. So what is my fee going towards anyway? I would not likely mind to pay perhaps a $5 fee (at most) but $10 for a one hour hike is way way over the top. Nuff said.

After taking a couple weeks off, my ankle finally feels better. Not 100 percent yet for sure, but more than enough that I feel I can do some serious hiking again. Off trail hiking. To remote, tough to get to waterfalls. Down in the LA area, I went to a couple easy ones. Not a problem for my healing ankle. Walking around Disneyland for four days I survived. The worst part of that was just the fact that you are walking around on pavement all day. Walking on pavement is many times worse than walking on dirt trails. My feet were in agony by the end of that. But my ankle was fine. Last weekend, I wanted to get out hiking, but instead took the weekend off. This weekend, though, I definitely wanted to get back on the hiking grid. And I did.

The destination was to be a new waterfall for me: Upper Marble Creek Falls. I was not sure about access to this waterfall, and I had heard it was difficult, cliffy, and with abundant poison oak. I also expected to find many ticks, as this year is supposedly the worst in ages (and the last two years have been incredibly awful for ticks). I decided to take my dog along on this hike. Normally on a hike like this I would not take her, because I do not know the terrain, and I could easily get to a place where she would not be able to go any further. But she is getting older, and probably does not have too many hiking years left in her, and I was feeling like she needs to have as much fun now as she possibly can. So I took her along. And of course, that made her very happy.

If there were a lot of ticks though, the hike would not last long for either of us. I was watching very closely but I saw none of the little buggers all day long. I’m not sure why, but I suspect it may have been much too cold for them. Poison oak though was a different matter. There was plenty of that and more. Doh.

My initial thought on this waterfall was to approach it from above. Looking at a map that seems to be the quickest route. Unfortunately it is all private property above the falls, and I did not see any way to get to it without crossing through anyone’s backyard. Not wanting to give up, I looked at my map again, and saw a possible route from below. A longer route but maybe that would not be private, and as I found out it was not. Yeah. We parked the car and walked across a wide open field over to the creek drainage. From there, we started up towards the falls, and that is where we encountered all the oak, but the going was not too bad otherwise. As we got closer to the falls, the terrain got a bit rougher and steeper, but again, not too bad. I just had to be careful with my ankle is all. I could hear the waterfall as we approached, but I could not see any water in the creek downstream. Weird, I thought. When we arrived at the falls I found out why. At the base of the falls, the water disappeared underground. It must  re-emerge somewhere, but I’m not sure where. If there was more water flowing, it obviously would not all go underground, but there was not a lot of water flowing right now. It should be spectacular right now, of course, but our very dry winter has taken that away. It was still a very lovely waterfall though, even at low water flows, dropping an amazing 77 ft. into a tight narrow gorge. At high flows it would be an amazing spot to be, but also likely very difficult to photograph if there was a lot of spray. I’m quite certain I will return here when the waterfall is flowing greater. It was not difficult to get to, the only tough part was all the poison oak.

On the way back across the fields, I noticed from a long way off a couple dogs on the other side of the field. No owners. No houses nearby. They saw us coming, and just waited beside my car for us to come. They knew we were coming back that way. They were just puppies, and incredibly friendly little guys, jumping all over us when we got there. We eventually managed to escape them, and got back in the car, at which time they continued to play with each other, rolling around in the grass. Fun stuff.

After this hike, we went on a second hike in the area, looking for a second waterfall. I found it, a very big one, but it was surrounded by huge cliffs on each side of it, and the waterfall offered up no views of itself. I searched for one in vain. There must be a way to see this one. I will definitely be looking for a way to get back to this one.

Instead of spending a second whole day at Joshua Tree NP, we took a drive down to Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge, about a hundred miles from where we were staying. It seemed that another whole day at Joshua Tree would have been too much, and I went back and forth about it in my head. I think we probably should have spent another day there, I could have gotten up for another nice sunrise shot or two at Joshua Tree, and I regret only having the one really nice sunset shot from there. But it is not that Salton Sea is not an interesting place, it really is. We saw tons of birds there, and some of them from really closeup, right beside the road, such as these cattle egrets. So I got quite a few good bird shots, and I will likely share some more.

On the way back to Twentynine Palms, we went back through Joshua Tree park, with plans of shooting sunset there. But the clouds rolled in at the last moment, and I got nuthin. We did have a very interesting drive, however, as we took some back roads to get back to JT, including a stop at a border patrol station hundreds of miles north of the border. They asked us all our citizenship and had a dog sniffing our car. What is up with that?