Leon Turnbull Photography

This past weekend, my friend Rob and I headed on back to Canyon Creek Falls in Gold Run, a spectacular set of waterfalls that I had just visited last month. I was a bit disappointed then of the low flow in the creek, which is normally much more exciting. But after two solid weeks of rain, I knew the waterfalls would be ripping and roaring now, and I was anxious to get back to see them. So was Rob.

There were a couple things I wanted to try this time around. Firstly, I wanted to try to get to the bottom of the first waterfall, a gorgeous 42 footer that is best seen above from the trail, but entices you to want to get down to see it up close. It has been beckoning me for many years now. The second thing I wanted to do was go all the way down to the river (1700 ft. below our starting point). More waterfalls abound on the creek lower down, and I hadn’t been down to see them for quite a few years. It is probably my favourite trail in this area, but it is certainly no cake walk.

When we arrived in Gold Run at first light, we found quite a bit of snow on the ground. This was unusual. Gold Run doesn’t normally get snow. It also would make the hike a bit interesting. It is hard enough finding the route through the forest to begin with, but with snow on the ground, it would be almost impossible. But thank the Lord for the GPS. With this, I was able to get us through the forest with only one or two wrong turns. It would be easy getting back, we would just need to follow our tracks through the snow back to the car. But the snow was slushy. Our feet were totally soaked before we even made it down to the first waterfall.

As we arrived at the first waterfall, we could see that the creek was still not flowing as high as we had anticipated or hoped. But on the other hand, it was flowing much much better than when I was here a month ago. When the creek is high, an offshoot from the creek splits off and shoots off a wall in a second gorge beside the main drop, forming a second waterfall. The offshoot was running today. It is a really cool sight to see. But I wasn’t too sure about being able to get to the bottom. After talking to Rob on the phone the previous day, he had told me that he had tried to get down to the bottom on a previous occasion and he found it too steep to go down. I was bummed. I knew that if it was too steep for mountain goat Rob, it would be much too steep for me. But nonetheless, we tried to go down. And we made it. It was steep and tricky, but not too bad going down. Going back up though, we found was much more difficult. But it was indeed glorious down at the base of the falls.

After reveling in the glory of the first waterfall, we continued on down to the Big Waterfall. Then on down to the river and more waterfalls. We saw 6 waterfalls all together on Canyon Creek. I will be posting many more photos of our adventure in the coming days, so stay tuned.

On the way back up, we met a man and woman couple coming down the trail. This is unusual because I rarely see anyone else on this trail ever. But it was even more strange when the first thing she said as we approached her was “You’re Leon Turnbull”. Wow, I didn’t know I was so famous. It turned out to be one of my Flickr contacts. She must have recognized me from my hat (in truth, my hat is probably more famous than I am – thanks, Rob). It was even more strange because it turned out that Rob used to go the same church as them. It is such a small world sometimes.

On Wednesday, I had the opportunity to take the afternoon off work to go hiking. That might sound like a very good thing, but it is not really. The only reason I could do this is because I was scheduled to work this weekend, Friday night, and likely Saturday too. That is just the life of an I.T. person. Every once in awhile, you have to work off hours. It was nice though, that my boss let me off Wednesday afternoon since I’d be working on the weekend. But as it turned out, our project implementation got delayed by a couple weeks. I found this out on Thursday. So I was able to go hiking on Saturday also.

And now is the time to get out and see the waterfalls. We had about 2 straight weeks of rain at the beginning of February, very much needed here in California. It was enough to get us back to average snow levels for the year after a very dry January. All this rain means the waterfalls are flowing wonderfully right now.

I only had the afternoon, so I couldn’t go anywhere too far away. I wanted to go back to American Canyon Creek in Auburn, and see how that waterfall looked when the creek is flowing high. So that is what I did. The trail down to the falls is very pleasant, and not too difficult considering you lose about 1000 ft. in elevation. There are two creeks to cross before you get to the falls. Normally simple rock hops, they were a bit tricky with so much water flow. I got across both of them and only got my boots slightly wet. Once down at the falls, I saw that the light was not very good, as it was still early in the afternoon. I had some time, so I decided to continue on down to the river, and come back to photograph the falls on my way back up. That involved another creek crossing. This time there would be no rock hopping, I’d have to wade. But wait, there was a log going across the creek. Maybe I could walk across the creek on the log. It really freaks me out trying to cross raging creeks on (slippery) logs, with the creek flowing swiftly beneath my feet. But I really didn’t want to take my boots off, so I tried it, and made it without falling in the drink. As I continued on down the trail, I found some pretty little cascades to stop and photograph along the creek. The creek drops pretty steeply here, and there are actually more waterfalls along here, including a couple of significant drops. I managed to find a way down to one of them. Pictures of it will be forthcoming. After photographing these cascades, it was getting late, so I didn’t end up going all the way to the river, but instead went back up the trail, across the log and up to American Canyon Creek Falls.

In order to see this waterfall, you have to get across the creek. With the creek flowing high, there was no way to rock hop across it. Fortunately, I anticipated this beforehand, and I brought my water shoes with me. I put them on, and was able to carefully wade across the raging creek.

American Canyon Creek Falls is only 15 ft. high, but is perhaps the coolest little waterfall in the greater Sacramento area. It is nestled back in a very narrow rock gorge, dropping into a pretty little pool. You have to kinda tilt your head at a weird angle to see it back in the gorge, but it is so very gorgeous. However, I kinda thought that with the high creek flow, it would be much more spectacular than it was. In fact, I think this waterfall is actually better when the creek is low. The reason I think is that the pool is much prettier in lower flows, instead of when it is just a torrent of rushing water. But nonetheless, it was still pretty darn cool. I definitely had a fabulous afternoon hiking.

This is the lower falls on Dutch Creek, 24 ft. high. This is the first waterfall you come to hiking along the creek, before you come into view of the two beauties above it. It is not a bad little waterfall either, and it is possible to get right down to the creek here. But there was quite a lot of spray, making it difficult to photograph the waterfall, and not many vantage points except directly in front of the falls. As you can see, there was also a lot of foam in the water at the bottom of the falls, which I tried to make use of in the foreground of the photo.

Johntown Creek Falls is the second of the two beautiful waterfalls you will find on the Dutch Creek Falls trail in Coloma. After a short, easy hike, you reach the confluence of Johntown Creek and Dutch Creek, where these two fabulous waterfalls fall side by side.

Unfortunately, it is very difficult to photograph them, especially this one on Johntown Creek. It is impossible to get right up next to it because of the steep terrain. Maybe if you could cross the creek you might find a better vantage point, but that is not possible when the creek flow is high. The only option really, is to photograph the falls from a distance, as I have done here. It is not the greatest viewpoint, but the best I could find on this day.

It has been crazy and stressful at work recently. But this weekend, I was able to get out and go waterfall hunting. It’s been rain rain rain lately, thank the Lord, and the waterfalls are jumping. I just had to get out and see some.

It was Valentine’s Day too. Perhaps not a great day to go out hiking. But my wife and kids were up visiting the in-laws, and not coming home until later in the day. I had all morning to myself. My dog really really really wanted to come with me on this one too. She’s really good with those sad puppy dog eyes. But I couldn’t take here this time. State parks, unfortunately, don’t allow dogs, plus I figured I would be doing some tough scrambling. And I did.
And the day started out with a bang.

I was trying to find a couple new waterfalls in Coloma on Dutch Creek. I had heard about them from a couple different people, but I couldn’t find too much information about them. I knew that the trail was now on public land (in Marshall Gold Discovery State Park), and this is a recent development, as all the land around Mt. Murphy used to be private. A most excellent development indeed.

As I drove closer to Placerville, I found an interesting thing. Snow! Placerville does not often get snow, but there it was. And quite a lot of it (2-3 inches). As I turned up Hwy 49 to Coloma, I found more and more of it. And the road was not plowed, so it was quite slushy driving. Then I came to a tree that had fallen down, blocking half the road. Then another. Then another. Then I came to a really big tree down in the road with a policeman there, directing traffic. After that, I passed a couple more fallen trees. I was starting to think this was going to be a really fun morning. Then as I drove down into Coloma, all the snow disappeared. I was bummed. I wanted to do some hiking through the snow.

I found the trailhead easily enough. But parking at the trailhead was zilch. All private property along Bayne Rd., and “no parking” signs everywhere. Although I truly applaud the state in purchasing this land along Dutch Creek, I’m slightly miffed that they wouldn’t arrange a small bit of parking at the trailhead. I had to park way back at the bridge, and walk along the road to the trailhead. It was only a half-mile, no big deal. You cannot park anywhere in Coloma without paying the fee for the state park. But the museum was closed, and there were no parking slips anywhere. So I left a big note on my dashboard, saying “museum closed, cannot pay fee”. Hopefully, that would keep me from getting a ticket. It did.

Now I had heard that there were two 30 ft. waterfalls on Dutch Creek. But I found so much more. After about 3/4 mile hiking, I came to the first waterfall. I measured it to be 24 ft. high. It was possible to get down to the bottom of this one, so I did so, and took some photos of it. The creek was flowing well, and the spray from the falls made it difficult to take a photograph. After seeing this pretty little falls, I climbed up above it, thinking I would find one more 30 footer. Instead, I found two beauties, 87 ft. and 112 ft. high, located right where Johntown Creek and Dutch Creek come together. What an incredibly gorgeous location! But it was difficult to photograph these two waterfalls because of the steep terrain. I climbed up to the top of the falls on Johntown Creek, and had this great view looking over to Dutch Creek Falls.

It was a glorious day hiking. Happy Valentine’s Day to me.