Leon Turnbull Photography

I can’t wait to go out shooting next weekend. Firstly, we’re finally getting some rain and snow here. Well, maybe I shouldn’t speak too soon. We had a little bit yesterday, and we’re expecting a lot more for the rest of the week and into next week. If the forecast is correct. And of course, it has been more wrong than right for most of the year. But hopefully, God will provide the needed rain/snow. And then I’ll be able to go out waterfallin’ on Saturday. The second reason is that I just got my new tripod today. It is a Gitzo 1531 carbon fiber tripod and it is light as a feather. And supposedly, quite sturdy, more so than my previous tripod. I am very anxious to try it out, I think it should be really good for hiking.
Here’s another shot of the big 134 ft. high waterfall on Canyon Creek. This was taken right near the base of the falls. It would be impossible to stand here without getting totally drenched when the creek is flowing high.

I didn’t get out shooting this weekend. It didn’t rain enough here to get the waterfalls going again. We were supposed to get a big dump here (up to 2 inches of rain, and plenty of snow in the mountains), but it was a complete bust. Perhaps other areas of California got some of the much needed rain, but we didn’t get much of anything here.

I decided to stay inside and work on my waterfallswest website instead. I’m in the process of adding some cool new features to the site, using Google Maps. The maps are already up on the site, so you can check them out now and give me feedback to if you like. I’m still adding more features to the maps, including hiking routes for all the waterfalls, and overlayed county lines on the regional maps. Some of these are done now, but there is plenty of work to do to get all of them added. And in the long range future (3 months or so down the road), I am planning to include my entire California waterfall database on-line (this includes all falls in CA, even those I have not been to). This will be quite impressive, I think you will agree once you see it.
This is a Western Meadowlark, a pretty little thing I saw along the auto tour route at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge.

This is the first of seven significant waterfalls along the beautiful Canyon Creek Trail. This one drops 42 ft., and it is a beauty. When it is really flowing well, it has a second chute that is really cool looking. But when I was here last weekend, the creek was definitely on the low side, unfortunately. Every time I come here, I think to myself, I gotta get down to the bottom of this waterfall. But every time, I don’t try it because of time; I don’t want to miss out on the many other waterfalls just downstream from here. Well, maybe next time.

One of my favorite trails in the greater Sacramento area is the Canyon Creek Trail at Gold Run. Waterfalls abound along this trail; in fact there are seven significant waterfalls on this trail which drops very steeply down to the North Fork American River. The biggest and best one is this beauty, towering 134 ft. high.

It is extremely difficult to find and follow this trail down Canyon Creek. It is so difficult that I’m amazed I ever found it to begin with, a few years ago. I have gotten temporarily lost on this trail as well in the past. This past weekend, I was anxious to get back here to these waterfalls because I have not been there in a couple years. I was pleased to see BLM signs at the trailhead and along the trail. There has been private land concerns here in the past, which is why I don’t post directions on my website. I am pretty sure though, that the trail still does cross private land. It would be nice if all of this trail became public land. It would be a mighty shame if this trail gets closed in the future because of private land issues. It is certainly one of the jewels of the Gold Country.

When I got down to the waterfalls, I was rather disappointed with the amount of water flowing in Canyon Creek. This creek normally has a lot of flow in it, and these waterfalls can be just amazing. I knew that they would not be roaring this day. But with last week’s rain, I thought they would be a lot better than they were. They were still nice of course, and I really enjoyed myself down at the bottom of the big waterfall. The big waterfall is no picnic to find either, as it is tucked back in the canyon well out of view, and well off trail. I owe a lot of thanks to the late Russell Towle, who was the person who helped me find these fabulous waterfalls years ago.

The steep trail follows Canyon Creek all the way down to the river, and I would’ve loved to go all the way down. But, unfortunately, I had prior commitments and had no time to do that. So after enjoying the 134 foot beauty, I headed back on up the trail. I hope to return here again soon. That is, of course, if we get any more rain this winter.

After visiting Little Roaring Creek Falls, my wife and I went down the road to Roaring Creek Falls. Little Roaring Creek Falls is bigger than Roaring Creek Falls, but Roaring Creek Falls is (or can be) a lot more roaring. But not today. The unfortunate problem with this waterfall is that it is situated below a hydro facility which diverts a lot of water from the creek. But when it has been raining very hard, there can still be huge amounts of water flowing in the creek.There hasn’t really been enough rain yet this year, though the waterfall is still a nice one, dropping 57 ft. along the creek.

Getting to the waterfall is a bit tricky as there are steep cliffs all around the falls. You wouldn’t want to slip and fall, that’s for sure. When I was here a couple years ago, I noticed animal bones scattered around the ledge area where I was photographing. It seemed to me this might be a dining area for the local cougar. This time around, I did not notice any new bones here, but I did see the same animal jawbone that I saw a couple years ago, from possibly a deer. Perhaps the cougar has moved on to other waterfalls. If you come here though, don’t go looking for the jawbone. It is not there any longer. My wife scoffed it.

Oh yeah, one more thing. My dog and wife each managed to collect quite a few ticks here (fortunately, she didn’t get any bites). Presumably, they were sitting in a nest of them while I was photographing the falls (or something). I didn’t get any ticks on myself. I was actually more worried about touching the poison oak. But I guess I managed to avoid that as well. Lucky me. My wife, however, was not so lucky. Not only did she get ticks, she got a bad case of poison oak, and not to mention a really bad cold on top of that. Whoops. I guess I’ll be sleeping on the couch for awhile. 😉