Leon Turnbull Photography

Winter Waterfalls … one of my goals this winter was to find and photograph some winter snowy icy waterfalls. I love waterfalls in snow/ice, but we don’t have very many in California where I live. They are either all buried completely in snow, or there won’t be flowing, or they are at lower elevations where there is no snow. There are a few perhaps, but not many. Well, up in British Columbia there are some, and I visited a few of them while I was up there for Christmas.

The first one and best one I saw was Deer Creek Falls. It was really incredibly beautiful in the winter and was flowing quite well, but it is darn difficult to photograph.

I was fortunate in being able to get to Deer Creek Falls, actually. There was a lot less snow in the area compared to the last time we were here in the winter. I was surprised because the ski hill opened early, so I was expecting there to be a lot more snow than usual. Instead, there was less. And it was cold. Darn cold. Less than 10 degrees Fahrenheit cold.

What this all meant though was that I could drive right to the Deer Creek Falls trailhead. If there had been a lot more snow, I would have had to walk the last 2 miles to the trailhead, or perhaps not even be able to get to it at all. It just made things a lot easier to be able to drive to it. There was some snow on the ground at the trailhead, and I was walking the entire way to the waterfall through it, but it was only a few inches deep, so it was pretty easy and I did not need snowshoes.

When I arrived at the trailhead at around sunrise, I was pleasantly greeted by some elk up on the hillside. I saw about 10 of them there, and I took the time to switch lenses and try to photograph them. They were watching me, no doubt wondering what crazy man would be up there so early in the day and on such a cold day as this. After a short time, I let them be, and started the hike to Deer Creek Falls.

The first half of the trail, I was following elk prints. I guessed the elk liked the waterfall too, but I think actually they were mostly interested in the creek water, as the prints turned off the path once I got a bit closer to the creek.

Deer Creek Falls is in total about 70 feet tall in two tiers. It is a real beauty in the winter but it is just too difficult to photograph. There is just tons of debris and fallen logs, and thick brush all around the creek area near the base of the falls. I just could not figure out how to photograph the entire waterfall, both tiers. And I thought about it a long long time too. In the summer, it is worse because it is impossible to work your way through the brush to get up to the falls. It was easier with snow on the ground, and I was determined to make my way up to the base of the falls. I did it, but it was a lot of work. Finally I got to the base of the falls, and got into a tricky position to take this photograph of the bottom tier of the waterfall, positioning the tripod on a fallen log and wedging myself in a tight corner, hoping not to fall into the creek. It worked.

Well, I am back. We just returned from our Christmas vacation up to British Columbia, and I have many photos to process. I only had time to do one photo tonight and this is it.

Our first stop on the way up to Canada was at 186 ft. high Palouse Falls for sunset, and it is a doozy. Palouse Falls has been on my list to visit for quite some time, but for some reason I always figured it was just too far out of the way and I never got around to making a trip out to it. This time around, however, I actually looked at a map, and I realized it is not so far out of the way after all. In fact, it was only about a 1 hour drive out of the way on our trip up through Spokane to BC. I was excited to learn this. Indeed, if I had realized this, we would have gone to Palouse Falls a long time ago. We could have probably done it all in one day and after hitting Palouse, get to my parents house in BC well before midnight. My wife did not really like that idea, however. The poor kids would be suffering from a late drive. So we decided to stay an extra night in Spokane after hitting sunset at Palouse.

We arrived at Palouse Falls fairly early in the afternoon, a few hours before sunset. We had lunch out in the cold, then walked around a bit. I was happy to learn that Palouse Falls was flowing great. I had definitely expected much less flow for the winter. I also thought there would be more snow and ice around the falls. Too bad about the lack of snow, but I was definitely happy about the flow of the waterfall.

I had heard many reports that there is essentially only one spot to shoot Palouse Falls from, photographically speaking. And I had heard that it was on a very scary, narrow, and unobstructed ledge, with a humungous drop to the bottom if you missed a step. I was very worried about this. I was anticipating there to be snow and ice around, and I really didn’t want to be climbing out on an icy ledge to photograph the falls. I was happy to learn that it wasn’t quite as scary as I was anticipating. Yes, the ledge is a bit freaky for sure, but it is not dangerous to stand there, and I didn’t have to worry about snow and ice.

The sunset was fabulous, and I had it all to myself on this evening. It didn’t look like it would actually amount to much, and I was about ready to pack it all in and head back to the warm car, but then the color started appearing.What a sight. It was definitely worth the wait and the many years I had been waiting to finally get to Palouse Falls.

This is a view of the North Fork American River from Yankee Jim Rd., a couple hours after sunrise. I was hoping to shoot sunrise from here, but the fog layer was just too high. A couple hours later, the fog was still hanging around, but the light was a bit better as the sun was trying to shine through the fog, so I tried a shot and this was the result.

This will be my last post until the New Year. I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. See ya next year and here’s to a great upcoming waterfall season!

Well my sunrise shooting plan did not come together this weekend as I had hoped.

I initially thought I would go up to Lake Tahoe for sunrise and I was all set on doing that. However, on my way back home Friday night from Cameron Park, I noticed it was very foggy, especially in Cameron Park. I came up with a second idea, that being to shoot fog in the North Fork American canyon in the morning. That sounded like a better plan to me than go up to Lake Tahoe. It was closer to home too, and that meant I could sleep in a little bit more. That’s always a good plan.

I was hoping there would be fog in the North Fork American canyon down by Yankee Jim’s bridge in Colfax. As I drove up in the morning though, it wasn’t very foggy at all. There was a little bit as I drove through Auburn, and that was all. As I drove down Yankee Jim Rd., I noticed a little bit of fog, but it was high above the river. It was certainly not what I was hoping for. I realized my sunrise shot was a bust. Too late to go anywhere else. Oh well. I did take a shot of the river with the high fog, and I kinda like it, so I will post that one later.

All was not lost, however. I wanted to get back to Shirttail Creek Falls to get a better photo, and here I am in the area, so off I went. I drove by Devils Falls with nary a glance. I did look at it, but I did not get out of my car. It was not flowing too well, and I already have some good shots of this waterfall. Shirttail Creek Falls is just up the road, then down a steep bank to the creek. It is very tricky to get a decent view of this waterfall. You have to scramble out on a narrow, slippery ledge, with a steep drop-off down to the creek. I did this extremely carefully, as I was afraid of losing my footing on the slippery dirt and rocks. That would not have been pretty. Then I had to carefully set up my tripod and camera to take the shot. Not an easy task on that ledge, but I managed.

After my long snowshoe hike into Bassi Falls, I trudged down the road from my car to the bridge, and slipped on down to the creek to get a shot of half frozen Bassi Creek surrounded by winter snowy goodness.

I was dead dog tired after my snowshoe. I think snowshoeing 4 miles is about equivalent to hiking 12 miles … or something like that. With the snow being kinda soft and squishy (as opposed to being hard and easy going), it makes snowshoeing much more difficult. Even though it was all downhill coming back from the falls, I was trudging along very slowly and quite spent by the time I got back.

I was also quite worried about the snow. It was falling very heavily on the hike back to the car, and I was worried that the road conditions had deteriorated considerably, and it would be rather difficult driving back down Ice House Rd. Well, I had no worries in that regard, as it turned out. There wasn’t that much snow on my car or the road when I got back. Not only that, a snow plow had just gone by clearing the way for me, less than a minute before I got to the car.

But finding the energy to get down to Bassi Creek for this photograph was a different matter. I went slowly. But I did it. And it was beautiful.