Leon Turnbull Photography

Okay now here’s a real winter waterfall that is flowing.

This is easy Bridal Veil Falls, located right alongside Hwy 50 on the way up to Lake Tahoe. Normally, I do not stop at this waterfall. It is too easy to get to, plus the traffic whizzing by so closely at 80mph kinda freaks me out. However, on this day I noticed that the waterfall was flowing very nicely, and had some nice winter snow around it, so I made the stop (in the rain), and got out my camera gear to take the shot.

When I arrived there was a family of four stopped here, and they all had to get their photo taken in front of the waterfall with their cell phone cameras, including every combination of people in the photo amongst the four of them, with all four of their cameras. I waited patiently for them to finish. Finally they left and I got out to take a quick shot, carefully composing the photo to not include the ugly graffiti that is found here on the rocks beside the falls.

I was hoping to find a nice winter waterfall this weekend, though I wasn’t sure where to go. With a big storm coming in, I didn’t want to go over the passes to Tahoe, or I might get stuck over there for the weekend. I decided to try snow shoeing in to Bassi Falls, though I knew that waterfall probably wouldn’t be flowing too great.

I think God must have wanted me to get up and go out on Saturday morning because when I woke up it was not raining in Folsom. If it had been raining, I would have most certainly gone back to sleep. But since it wasn’t, I thought it might not be too bad up in the mountains, so I decided to head out. Of course, as soon as I got to Placerville, it started raining and raining hard. Well, it was too late to go back to bed, so I figured I would just continue on and see what I could see.

Once I got up on Ice House Rd., the rain turned into snow, but it wasn’t too bad yet. A snow plow had gone on ahead of me, clearing the road. The last time I went to Bassi Falls in the winter, there was no way to park along the road. I was a bit worried about that today, especially with the snow storm. I didn’t want to get stuck, or have a snow plow block me in somewhere. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find a large clearing directly opposite the turnoff to Bassi Falls. Perfect! I put my snowshoes on and started the long slow trudge up the road to Bassi Falls. In the summer, it is an easy 0.5 mile hike to the falls. But in the winter, it is a difficult 2.5 mile snowshoe, all uphill for the first 2 miles. The snow started falling more heavily on the way up, but it was definitely beautiful.

I knew that Bassi Falls would not be flowing all that great, and I knew it needs a lot of water for it to be even decent, but I did think there would be a lot more flow than there was. The waterfall was non-existent, and there was just a small amount of water flowing in Bassi Creek. I tried to find some kind of composition showing some water flow. There were not many options. In fact, I just found one small little cascade on the creek, and that was it. I crossed over to it carefully, wondering if I would sink through the snow into a deep pool of water. I didn’t. I setup my tripod, took the photo, then began the long slow trek back to Ice House Rd. At least it was mostly downhill on the way back, but it is still a long snowshoe and I was quite tired.

By the way, if you are thinking of heading out to Bassi Falls in the early spring, beware. There is a fallen tree across the road. In fact, it just fell while I was up at Bassi Falls. It was not me who did it! But I came across it on the way back and was quite sure I did not climb over it on the way up to the falls. Good thing it did not fall on me while I was crossing there. Anyway, you might want to bring a chain saw or something if you come up here in the spring before the forest service people get up there.

Well I do like this photo quite a bit, but it is definitely not the photo I was seeking.

The weather forecasters screwed me up again. We had a big cold winter storm come in yesterday, calling for snow even in Folsom of all places (we very rarely get snow in Folsom). I was thinking I really should get out and photograph the snow, but I thought Auburn would be a better choice (they would get more snow there). On Sunday the forecast was saying that it would not snow in Auburn until Monday during the day and afternoon. So I figured that Monday after work would be a great time to go up to Auburn.

But … it snowed Sunday night instead! Even on Monday, the forecast was still saying that more snow would be coming in Auburn during the day. But it never happened. By the time I got up to Auburn after work, most of it had already melted. I was totally bummed about that, as I was hoping to get a great shot of the North Fork American River with snow on the trees and all around. If I had gone up to Auburn on Monday morning, it would have been perfect. Ah well, c’est la vie. I still managed to get a nice shot with a little bit of snow and some nice fog and clouds hanging over the river.

And the kids had fun as well. I brought the family up with me so they could play in the snow while I was photographing. We did have a bit of snow overnight in Folsom, but it was just a tiny amount. There was just a bit on our cars in the morning, only enough for my wife to go out and make a couple snowballs and throw them at the kids (fortunately not me, but the kids managed to get me quite good later in Auburn).

Just a simple sunset along the American River.

On Black Friday, while Tara and her mom were shopping, I had fun with the kids. I told them they could do anything they wanted in the morning, but in the afternoon, we were going to go somewhere Daddy wanted. So in the morning, they chose to go play at the local park, and we had fun there.

After lunch, I took them to the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge, about an hour south of Red Bluff. This time of year is interesting there, because of all the birds that spend the winter here. Especially snow geese. We saw thousands upon thousands of them flying around. It is really amazing how many of them there are, which you realize when they fly around like crazy, which they did a couple times. It is pretty cool.