Leon Turnbull Photography

Digging into the archives. This shot is from a couple months ago. I did have a very nice day in the Eastern Sierra yesterday, and I will be posting shots from there soon.

I went searching for a new waterfall up by Emigrant Gap on the East Fork of the North Fork of the North Fork of the American River. The what? That is actually the official name of this river. But perhaps we shall just call it the East Fork. It was flowing pretty good when I was here. There is no official trail leading down the river, but I did find a very old, very overgrown, very faint resemblance of a trail. I followed it with great difficulty downstream. The problem was, it was taking much too long. It is only a mile to where I think there is a waterfall on this river, but after an hour of hiking, I still hadn’t gone half way. There is no way I could continue down and be back before dark. Thus I decided to turn around early, and try again another day. I think that I could have continued further and hopefully reached the falls, though I’m not sure I would have even been able to even get a view of the waterfall from what I have read about it. Nonetheless, I will have to try another day.

I returned back to the car, then went back down to the easier to reach North Fork Falls. This one is on the North Fork of the North Fork of the American River. That name is a bit (albeit just slightly) easier name to digest. The waterfall is 27 ft. high, but it is more difficult to view than what I remembered as well. You need to cross the river near the bottom of the falls. That was easy enough, though I did need to get my feet wet to do it. The river’s flow was significantly reduced, I had hoped to see the falls with much greater flow. On the other side, there are some steep cliffs that you need to scramble up, then across, and back down to the waterfall. That was more difficult than what I remembered, and I was not wearing my hiking boots, making it slightly more treacherous. I took this higher perspective photo this time of the waterfall, instead of going right down to the bottom. I do like this higher perspective, though I wish I had gone down to the bottom as well.

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Here is one more from the bottom of Kings Creek Cascades, as the sun is starting to light up the canyon walls at top.

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This is called the Pool of Cold Fire. It is located on the North Fork of the North Fork American River. It is for sure a stunningly beautiful location, and this was my second time down there.

This hike was a sort of a good news, bad news. So let’s start with the good news.

Good news … This trail down to the North Fork of the North Fork American River in Blue Canyon is now open again to the public! I was ecstatic to learn this because a certain owner in Blue Canyon put up a gate on this public road, illegally blocking public access to this trail. The North Fork American River Alliance took him to court and won, forcing him to re-open the road to allow access to this historic trail. This actually happened awhile ago, but I just recently learned of the news (I’m always the last to know). So anyway, I was anxious to get down there again after a few years since I was first down in this beautiful canyon. This was very excellent news.

Bad news … I did not intend to shoot the Pool of Cold Fire again. I was actually hoping to get a bit further. (there are waterfalls further up the canyon). But the going was much tougher than I anticipated and I did not make it any further. I was a bit bummed, but I am not giving up. I think what I need next time is to take a small blowup raft so I can get past this pool without getting my camera gear drenched.

Good news … There were no mosquitoes.

Bad news … The gnats were absolutely awful, particularly on the hike back up. What was I thinking, going hiking in the American River canyon in August. I put mosquito juice on, but that did not help. I think it made things much worse.

Good news … I did not encounter any rattlesnakes. (I had heard reports that they are quite plentiful down here).

Bad news … I did encounter tons of poison oak. I sure did not remember there being so much oak down there before (or any, for that matter). I scrubbed myself thoroughly when I got home, and I am hoping I don’t get the itch this time.

Good news … I did get another nice shot of this incredibly magnificent pool. I waited for the morning sun to come down the canyon, reflecting in between the steep cliffs on each side of the pool. I sure love this spot. It is just so beautiful there.

Bad news … My tripod head broke. The screw knob which holds the ballhead in place fell off somewhere and was lost. So the ballhead was all wiggly and there was no way to tighten it. I was determined to get a shot though, so I used a screwdriver which I jammed against the tripod and was able to secure the ballhead enough so it would not wiggle around. It worked.

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I’ve been wondering for a few years now about the Silver Fork American River. Specifically, wondering if there are any waterfalls on it. I had not heard of any. But surely, I thought, there *must* be a waterfall on this river. Not a big one, I knew, but there must be a small one, a decent one, somewhere on this river.

I studied the topo maps. Studied them some more. I came up with a possible location. It even looked like there was a trail leading right to it. Sweet.

Well fast forward to a Friday evening in late July. I was in a certain mood. An exploring mood. But not for any difficult exploring. I wanted to get out of the house, get up in the mountains, away from the heat of the city. But I didn’t want a difficult hike, just an easy one, but not too easy. Well, where could I possibly go for that? Then a light bulb clicked. How about the Silver Fork? Seemed like a great idea. That river would be still flowing decent. It is not too far from my house, and the hike should not be too difficult. Perfect. And off I went.

I drove up the Silver Fork Road at Kyburz. I found that it was paved the whole way. That was sure nice. I didn’t want to have to wash my vehicle again so soon. I arrived at the trailhead, and I was surprised to find there was a campsite here. I didn’t know there was one here, and I didn’t know where the trailhead was, so I wandered through the campsite in search of the trail. Eventually I found it, and it would have been easier to find if I went the correct way, but oh well.

Once on the trail, things were easy. The trail leads up to where Caples Creek flows into the Silver Fork, then crosses Caples Creek on a bridge, and leads back to the Silver Fork. Both Caples Creek and the Silver Fork had pretty good flow. I arrived at the spot where I thought there would be a waterfall, and yay, lo and behold, there was one.

But I was quite early, the sun was still shining down into the canyon, and I felt like doing more hiking. So I continued on up the trail for another couple miles. The trail was mostly flat the entire distance, so it was a good hike and not too difficult. Just what the doctor ordered. I realized that I could have hiked all the way to Silver Lake. It would not have been all that far to the lake, but it was a bit far for me on this day, so I turned around well before getting to the lake. On the way back, I heard a totally obscene and outrageous noise coming up the trail interrupting my beautiful, pleasant hike. It was someone on a motorcycle coming towards me. I got out of the way, but this really irritated me because motor vehicles are not allowed on this trail. There are plenty of places where people can ride their motorcycles and not chew up nice hiking trails. Argh.

Anyway, I arrived back at the waterfall. As you can see from this photo, it does not look like much of a waterfall. I measured it to be 23 feet high. The problem with this waterfall is that it needs a lot of water flowing in the river to make it look good.  There are so many boulders in the river, when the flow is lower in the summer, it just doesn’t look so good. But in the spring, when the flow is high, I think this waterfall would be rockin. I definitely plan to be back here next spring. Though I won’t be able to stand in the middle of the river to take photos in the spring, so that might make things more interesting.

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Surprises are nice.

After shooting Kings Creek Falls, I hiked back up to my vehicle. Of course, by the time I got back to it, the sun was fully out. I wanted to do one more hike before I met up for lunch with my family down at Lake Helen. My choice was the West Fork Hat Creek to Paradise Meadows, a hike that I had not ever done before, but I knew that there were a couple small waterfalls along this creek. I had no bones about what to expect, namely that the falls would be in complete sun and high contrast by the time I arrived, but that was fine with me.

There was construction going on the road beside the trailhead, so I had to park up the road a bit. After getting away from the noise, the hike became a very pleasant one, following the creek up to Paradise Meadows. The mosquitoes I met at Kings Creek did not follow me up to this location, but the sun was out now, so that was not a surprise. I came upon the first cascade and was treated to a very pleasant surprise: it was still in shade! This was about 3 hours after sunrise, so it was definitely a shocker, but I was extremely happy about this. Nonetheless, the sun was trying to poke its way through the tree cover, so I didn’t have very much time. I scrambled down to the creek, crossed it on unsturdy rocks, set up my camera quickly and took my photos. It was a very pretty 27 ft. high cascade in such a gorgeous little location.

I then crossed back and continued up the trail. That is when I realized Surprise # 2 and Surprise # 3. I came upon the next waterfall along this beautiful little creek. It should not have been there. What I mean is that I was only expecting to find two waterfalls on this creek, but there are actually four beautiful cascades all in the neighborhood of 20 to 30 feet high. All the guidebooks I have read indicated that there are only two cascades, not four. That is because the trail only goes beside cascades #2 and #4. To get to cascades #1 and #3, you need to go a bit off the main trail, and I suppose these authors did not even bother with that (though really, I don’t know why – they are not hard to get to). I personally thought cascades #1 and #3 were the two prettiest ones on the creek (the one pictured here is #1). As a bonus, the first 3 cascades were still in shade (mostly) when I got to them. I was pleased as punch on this hike.

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